For the following items -

The Explanatory Letter - English translation.

The Motu Proprio SUMMUM PONTIFICUM - Latin original

Some clarifications may be useful - Father Zuhlsdorf comments on some practical implications that
may not be clear to us laymen.

How the Anglophone MSM is reporting it - AP and AFP stories, so far, plus a Reuters photocaption.
Both the AP story and the Reuters capti0n(!)are 'promoting' a facle issue here about Jewish objections -
which are completely groundless if the MP is read: During the Paschal Triduum, which includes Good Friday, only
the 1970 Mass rite can be used, in which the Good Friday prayer for the Jews was completely revised.

Full translation (both unofficial) of MP - from Vatican Information Service (VIS) and from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)

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The Vatican Press office also informs accredited newsmen today that-

On Tuesday, July 10, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will issue a document
"Answers to questions regarding some aspects of the doctrine of the Church".


This confirms Andrea Tornielli's story posted yesterday on the preceding page.

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

Thanks to Rorate caeli, here is a side-by-side presentation
of the Latin and English texts of Summorum Pontificum
in handy printable format:

newcatholic.googlepages.com/summorum-latin-english-reg.pdf

From Gerald Augustinus today:
closedcafeteria.blogspot.com

Saturday, July 07, 2007
Great German article

Fantastic column from Germany's leading newspaper, the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). I liked it so much, I've translated it in full.


History doesn't repeat itself. But, in history the same human forces are at work that make apparent a certain regularity, a structure of repetitions.

Had not the Reformation of the 16th century unleashed revolutionary forces whose dynamic did not lead back to the origins of Christianity but to an iconoclastic break with many things that had been holy to Christians for centuries? The Catholic bishops should therefore have been on guard when they paved the way for a fundamental reform of the Roman-Catholic liturgy at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council in the fall of 1962.

Certainly the bishops had the best of intentions: soulless subjection of priests to "rubrics" and passive presence of the faithful at the celebration of the Mysterium were supposed to be gone once and for all, the new rites were supposed to shine in their noble simplicity. The encounter with the Gospel in word and sacrament was supposed to be made easier by the wide use of the vernacular. But, they underestimated the effect of their doings and the symbolic force of that which they set out to change.

In reality it soon became obvious that there weren't "careful" changes taking place, because the "Roman" liturgy was but one bastion, but the most prestigious one, whose destruction was viewed as necessary adaptation of the Church to the "world of today". This is how Lefebvrist traditionalists read the prohibition (de facto) of the Old Rite until today as a break with tradition that was also furthered in other areas. To them, holding on to the Old Rite symbolizes the "truth" of their path for which they've taken upon themselves the punishment of excommunication.

But, many who in principle welcomed the reform intentions of the Council, lamented the break in the history of liturgy. Their main witness, since the '70s, has been Joseph Ratzinger, then professor of theology in Regensburg and now, as Pope Benedict XVI, the spiritual head of Catholic Christianity with its more than a billion members. Ratzinger realized early on that intention and impact of the conciliar and post-conciliar reforms diverged. The intended radical simplification ended up in the all-but-dissolution of the Rite.

Two elements seemed to have furthered this development according to Ratzinger: The changing of the direction of the celebrant to the people, in which he viewed a boost of clericalism, and a mentality, conforming to the zeitgeist of 1968, of "democratization" of the Church which did not shy away from a destruction of the liturgy in a spirit of "creativity" of the "mature" congregation.

Looking at the situation, Joseph Ratzinger is right. By now it's two generations of Catholics who sing new songs off copied sheets whose linguistic banality and musical vulgarity have reached the level of simplistic elevator music. So-called family Masses have replaced the Gospel reading with fairy tales from Ireland.

Whoever resists these forms of self-secularization of the Church, is viewed as reactionary and 'pre-conciliar', even if he just insists that neither the liturgy of the Church should not be a training ground for clerical do-it-yourself men nor the sanctuary a stage on which unsettled priests, self-aggrandizing laypeople and 'equal-rights'-clamoring women fight their battles.

Does this basic problem of the new liturgy consist only in an execution problem which could be solved through "liturgical education" or long documents such as "Sacramentum Caritatis" ? Can the break with tradition be healed by today's rescinding of the "prohibition" of the old Roman Rite by the Pope ?

The sociologist Alfred Lorenzer wrote, more than a quarter century ago, about how the "classical" liturgy, behind the iconostasis of the Latin cultic language developed in a ritual independence and strangeness, developed which gave the laypeople room to occupy themselves and room for fantasy and personality-, group- and culture-specific interpretations of the holy procedures.

The Council, on the other hand, saw it as its task to end the unity of mythos and ritual, to replace the sensual, representative of the old rite with the intellectuality of the word and the holy game of forms and gestures with catechetical-pedagogical indoctrination and thereby profane the rite. Emblematic of this liturgical iconoclasm, according to Lorenzer, was the priest who, turned towards the people, acts like a tv cook at the altar and who has turned over the sensuous and immediately effective religious system of symbols to the modern, hedonistic consumerist society.

Certainly, Lorenzer's Marxist- and psychoanalytically-influenced critique went a bit far. But, it is not known that inquiries such as his or that of the novelist Martin Mosebach and his decrying of the "heresy of formlessness" have led many bishops and priests to a new, deeper pondering of the handling of the Catholic Church and the treasure of rites and symbols entrusted to her.

For that, Joseph Ratzinger had to become Pope.


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NB: The article is by Daniel Decker.

Will the French bishops continue to be difficult then? Will they be able to carry on guerrilla warfare against the Pope on this issue? Apcom reports - here is a translation:


ROME, July 7 (Apcom) - After the publication of the Papal Motu Proprio on the Mass, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, president of the French bishops' conference, told the news agency I-media and the weekly magazine Famille Chretienne that he "feared the Pope's true reasons will not be very well understood" and expressed his misgivings about the 'practical' application of the Motu Proprio.

He also said the Papal document does not result in any 'winners or losers.'

He claimed that on practical grounds, there would be difficulties in applying the Motu Proprio. "Today many priests are often overloaded with work. Many of them have not received any training to celebrate Mass according to the old rite. They do not have the old Missals. Not to mention that because the Mass readings are different for the two forms, they will now have to prepare two homilies." [WHOA! Descartes would be turning cartwheels at this 'reasoning' - how unworthy of a Cardinal!]

"We should also think about public opinion in general, and the reaction of our priests in particular. I am afraid they will not understand the Pope's real reasons." [What's not to understand? Unless Ricard is implying the Pope has other reasons besides what he clearly states?]

Cardinal Ricard, who has not failed in the past to express the objections of the French bishops to Benedict XVI's opening towards traditionalists, explained the Pope's intentions this way: "What touches me most is the Pope's expressed desire for reconciliation... It is his fundamental concern. It is important that Catholics who have different positions about this issue be reconciled. Far more than just tolerance, the Pope asks for reciprocal understanding and acceptance from all sides. He has asked both sides to take the same path. His decision does not result in any winners or losers." [And the cardinal really thinks the faithful cannot understand that? Of course, there are winners. Everyone wins, because now, everyone has a free choice. No one is being forced to choose one way or the other.]

As to the role of the bishops, he said: "I am not at all worried about a diminution of my responsibility regarding the application of this Motu Proprio."

Besides, "it is now up to the parish priest to decide what to do if a traditionalist group requests him. But given the heavy workload already on their shoulders, I think it will be easier if these decisions are made at the diocesan level." [Ah, so!]

Does he think the Motu Proprio was addressed to the Lefebvrians? "It's not stated explicitly in any part of the text," Ricard said. "But in general, the Pope has the Fraternity of St. Pius X in mind. He told us himself [at the Pope's June 27 meeting in the Vatican with selected cardinals and bishops]. But I think this MP will just create difficulties for them, since the priests and faithful of the FSSP refuse to recognize any of the liturgical reforms of Vatican-II."


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The French bishops conference has posted the Motu Proprio translated to French and the Pope's Explanatory Letter in French on its website, along with a 3-question 'primer" which it anwers by citing the approproate portions of the MP or the Pope's letter:


What is the reason for this Motu Proprio?
[Answer: The Pope wants reconciliation within the Church, etc.]

Is this a retreat from Vatican-II?
[Answer: The Pope emphasizes that any fear of diminishing the authority of Vatican-II nor to question one of its essential decisions - liturgical reform - is unfounded....]

Won't the use of the 1962 Missal carry a risk of creating ruptures within the parochial communities?
[Answer: Benedict XVI emphasizes that this fear seems to him to be not realistically founded, to the degree that "the use of the old Missal presupposes a minimum of liturgical training and some knowledge of Latin" and that "neither of those will be much in evidence". He thus confirms, on the basis of these concretely foreseeable elements, that "the new Missal will certainly continue to be the normal form of the Roman rite, not only according to juridical norms, but also because of the real situations in the communities."]


Hmm, that third answer could have been phrased more directly: "No, the Pope thinks "this is not likely for the simple reason that...

Also, note that the USCCB site had '20 questions on the MP' and '10 questions on the 1962 and 1970 Missals', compared to the 3 questions on the French site.

Pope relaxes restrictions on use of Tridentine Mass

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a long-awaited overture to disaffected Catholic traditionalists, Pope Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions on the use of the Tridentine Mass, the Latin-language liturgy that predates the Second Vatican Council.

The pope said Mass celebrated according to the 1962 Roman Missal, commonly known as the Tridentine rite, should be made available in every parish where groups of the faithful desire it.

He said that while the new Roman Missal, introduced in 1970, remains the ordinary way of Catholic worship, the 1962 missal should be considered "the extraordinary expression of the law of prayer."

This implies no liturgical division, he said, but simply "two uses of the one Roman rite."

The pope's directive came July 7 in a four-page apostolic letter to the world's bishops titled "Summorum Pontificum." The new norms will take effect Sept. 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

An accompanying personal letter from the pontiff dismissed fears that the decree would foment divisions in the church or be seen as a retreat from Vatican II.

The pope said the new Mass rite would certainly remain the church's predominant form of worship. Use of the old missal presupposes a certain degree of liturgical formation and some knowledge of the Latin language, and "neither of these is found very often," he said.

But the pope expressed sympathy with Catholics who are attached to the Tridentine rite and uncomfortable with the new Mass. In the post-Vatican II period, he said, excessive liturgical creativity often led to "deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear."

"I am speaking from experience, since I, too, lived through that period with all its hopes and confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the church," he said.

The pope noted that many older Catholics have a long connection with the 1962 Roman Missal. But in recent years, he said, it has been clearly demonstrated that young people are also being attracted by the old liturgy.

By widening its availability, the pope said, he hoped to make the new and old liturgical forms "mutually enriching."

The Tridentine Mass has been allowed as a liturgical exception since 1984, but Catholics had to request permission from local bishops, who did not always consent.

The new decree significantly altered the bishop's role, maintaining his general oversight on liturgy but removing him from initial decisions on Tridentine Masses.

The document said a priest who wishes to celebrate the Tridentine Mass alone "does not require any permission," and lay Catholics who spontaneously wish to attend such semi-private Masses may do so.

Local pastors are to handle more formal requests for scheduled Masses, the document said. The text does not require all parishes to automatically establish a Tridentine Mass schedule, but it said that where "a group of faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably," the pastor should "willingly accede" to their request to make the old Mass available.

In scheduling Tridentine Masses, the document said local pastors should balance these special requests with the ordinary pastoral demands of the parish. It offered some guidelines: On Sundays and feast days, parishes may offer only one Tridentine Mass; the old Mass can also be celebrated on weekdays and in particular circumstances such as weddings, funerals or pilgrimages. It said bishops may celebrate the sacrament of confirmation according to the old rite, too.

When a group of the lay faithful "does not obtain what it requests from the pastor," it should inform the local bishop, who is "earnestly requested to grant their desire," the document said. If the bishop is unable to provide for this kind of celebration, the matter goes to the Vatican's Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which is charged with "maintaining vigilance over the observance and application" of the new decree, it said.

Religious orders may offer Tridentine Masses in conventual or community celebrations in their own oratories, it said.

The document also gave bishops the power to erect a "personal parish" for celebrations according to the old liturgy.

The text allowed for Mass readings in local languages, even when the 1962 missal is being used, using a Lectionary, or book of Mass readings, that has been approved by Vatican. In his personal letter, the pope also suggested that new saints and new prefaces should be inserted in the 1962 missal; that question will be studied by the "Ecclesia Dei" commission.

Priests may use the Roman Breviary of 1962 to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, including morning prayer and evening prayer, the document said.

Unlike the 1984 indult offered by Pope John Paul II, the new decree did not explicitly state that those requesting permission for the Tridentine Mass must accept the legitimacy of the new Mass. Vatican sources said such acceptance would be presumed, however.

In his personal letter, Pope Benedict said the priests who celebrate according to the Tridentine rite cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating the new Mass.

"The total exclusion of the new rite would not, in fact, be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness," he said.

That could be an important point in the Vatican's ongoing reconciliation efforts with the members of the Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated in 1988. The society rejects the new Mass and several teachings of Vatican II.

The pope invited bishops to report on implementation of the new decree after three years. If serious problems emerge, "ways to remedy them can be sought," he said.

The publication of the decree came after nearly two years of review. Although it was issued "motu proprio," a phrase that signifies a pope is acting on his own initiative, Pope Benedict consulted on the question with the world's cardinals and bishops.

The strongest apprehensions were voiced by French and German bishops, who worried that internal church unity -- and their own authority -- could be weakened by creating parallel worshipping communities. Other bishops said the move could be seen as delegitimizing the liturgical reform of Vatican II.

The pope, in his personal letter, dismissed both fears as "unfounded." He blamed in part "news reports and judgments made without sufficient information" for confusion over his decision and for divergent reactions ranging from joyful acceptance to harsh opposition.

He emphasized that although the new Mass of 1970 was designed to replace the old liturgy, the 1962 Roman Missal was "never juridically abrogated." Its restoration as an extraordinary form of worship thus does not undermine the council's decisions, he said.

"There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture," he said.

"What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful," he said.

As for church unity, the pope told the bishops that he had essentially freed them from having to decide on specific requests for the old liturgy, but was relying on them to maintain communion among their faithful. In particular, he asked the bishops to demonstrate "charity and pastoral prudence" in dealing with and improving the attitude of Catholic traditionalists.

"I very much wish to stress that these new norms do not in any way lessen your authority and responsibility, either for the liturgy or for the pastoral care of your faithful. Each bishop, in fact, is the moderator of the liturgy in his own diocese," he said.

He said that if a problem arises that the parish priest cannot resolve, the local bishop can always intervene, "in full harmony, however, with all that has been laid down by the new norms."

The pope expressed his conviction that in relaxing restrictions on use of the pre-Vatican II liturgy, he was fulfilling a historic papal duty to maintain church communion. Looking back at divisions in the church's history, he said, it seems 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."

On the question of the old Mass, he urged the bishops: "Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows."

The pope did not get into specifics about how the new decree might affect the Vatican's difficult dialogue with leaders of the Lefebvrite religious order, the Society of St. Pius X.

In his personal letter, the pope told the bishops that fidelity to the old Mass has become an external sign of identity for the Lefebvrite society, but noted that the reasons for their break with the Vatican "were at a deeper level."

In a meeting in 2005 with the pope, Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the society, asked for the restoration of the Tridentine rite as a sign of good will.

In the Tridentine rite, the priest celebrated Mass facing east, which -- given the layout of most churches -- meant he celebrated with his back to the congregation. Since the promulgation of the new Roman Missal, the priest normally faces the congregation. And while Latin is the original language of both liturgical texts, the new missal permits use of the vernacular language; because it called for full, active participation, the use of a local congregation's language became customary.

The Roman Missal of 1962 raises an issue in Catholic-Jewish relations. Although the phrase "perfidious Jews" was no longer in the 1962 version of the missal, it did ask for prayers for the conversion of Jews and for "the blindness of that people" so they may acknowledge Christ.

The new Mass changed that language, asking prayers so that Jews, as the chosen people, "may arrive at the fullness of redemption."

The text of the apostolic letter was officially issued only in Latin. The pope's accompanying personal letter was made available in several languages, including English.

Also from Apcom, translated:

Mons. Fellay:
Doctrinal divergences remain

ROME, July 7 (Apcom) - The Fraternity of St. Pius X founded by the schismatic French bishop Marcel Lefebvre 'rejoices' at the liberalization of the Latin Mass by Pope Benedict XVI, expressing 'sincere thanks' to him, but pointing out 'persistent differences', in a statement issued by its superior-general, Mons. Bernard Fellay, shortly after the Papal decree was released today.

The full statement reads:

"With the Motu Proprio Summum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI has reinstated, as he is empowered to do, the Tridentine Mass, stating clearly that the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V was never abrogated. The Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X rejoices to see the Church recover its liturgical tradition, allowing priests and faithful who were deprived of it till now, free access to the treasure of the traditional Mass for the glory of God, the good of the Church, and the salvation of souls. For this great spiritual benefit, the Fraternity expresses its sincere thanks to the Supreme Pontiff.

"Nevertheless, the letter which accompanies the Motu Proprio does not conceal the difficulties which still remain. The Fraternity expresses the wish that the favorable climate resulting from the new dispositions of the Holy See will allow - after the withdrawal of the excommunication decree that still weighs on our bishops - a calmer look at doctrinal points of divergence.

"Lex orandi, lex credendi - the law of liturgy is that of the faith. Faithful to the spirit of our founder Mons. Lefebvre, the attachment of the Fraternity to traditional liturgy is indissociably united to the faith we profess 'always, by all and for all.'"

The first item here is from PETRUS, and the other two are APCOM reports from Lella's blog,all translated here.

Castrillon says John Paul II
had intended a similar MP



VATICAN CITY - The Pope has met the Lefebvrians halfway by liberalizing the Latin Mass, but they should not "reject the value and validity" of the post-Conciliar Mass, said Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos in a long interview given to the magazine 30 GIORNI about the Pope's Motu Proprio. Part of the interview was disclosed prior to publication.

Cardinal Castrillon, president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei which is the Vatican's official liaison with traditionalist groups, said, "The Lefebvrian priests have always asked for the possibility that every priest may be able to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V. Now this has been made official. But the Pope also makes it clear that the Mass we all celebrate every day, that of the Novus Ordo, remains the normal way of celebrating the one Roman rite, therefore, neither the value nor the validity of the Novus Ordo can be denied. This should be clear to everyone."

Castrillon recalled that John Paul II established Ecclesia Dei in 1988 primarily "to tend to the faithful and priests who left the Lefebvrian movement after the illegal bishops' ordinations [carried out by Mons. Lefebvre]."

He thinks the Motu Proprio will widen the scope of Ecclesia Dei's responsibility since the Pope's decree "is addressed to all faithful who are attached to the traditional Mass, not only to the Lefebvrians."

He also said that in all the meetings preparatory to the MP with cardinals and dicastery heads, "the resistance was truly minimal to the concept that traditionalists should not be considered second-class Catholics."

Pope Benedict, he said, followed all consultations closely and took the time necessary to "take an important step that had already been envisioned by John Paul II."

He recalled that thousands of letters had been received at the Vatican asking for free access to the traditional Mass, and that John Paul II was thinking of issuing a Motu Proprio "similar to what we now have".

He denied that it was a step back to the past nor that it would mean 'reducing the power of the bishops.'


The following two are APCOM reports - translated here:

CARDINAL LEHMANN ALSO
WRITES GERMAN BISHOPS

Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German bishops' conference, has written his own bishops to point out that the Pope's Motu Proprio does not in any way contradict Vatican-II, as the Pope says himself in his explanatory letter.

"Anyone who reads the two documents will note right away that the Pope has not questioned either the decisions of the Council nor the validity of its liturgical reforms. His letter makes it clear that as a guiding principle, no one who professes to be in full communion with the Church can reject the reformed liturgy," Lehmann wrote.

The cardinal was among the prelates invited to the Vatican last week when Pope Benedict XVI personally presented the Motu Proprio and his Explanatory Letter to them.

Lehmann stresses in his letter that "Pope Benedict wishes a reconciliation within the Church, and asks that even among those Catholics who are using the post-Conciliar Mass, the Motu Proprio should be a good incentive to give proper attention to a Mass celebration that is worth of the Eucharist."

The German bishops will discuss the Motu Proprio at a meeting of the permanent council of the bishops conference On August 27 and a General Assembly in Fulda on Sept. 24-27.


SWISS BISHOP HAS 8-PAGE LETTER
THIS BISHOPS ON THE MP


Mons. Kurt Koch, president of the Swiss bishops conference, says the risk that the Pope's new decree on the Mass will cause divisions within the Church among traditionalists and regular parishioners "should not be under-estimated."

It is the key passage in an 18-page commentary in German on Summorum Pontificum. But he adds, "A look at Church history shows that this will not necessarily happen." [But why on earth does he think it will, if each group can just go about its own business now? The whole point of the MP is the possibility of choice now, which wasn't there in the past 47 years]

He also stresses that, as the Pope points out in his explanatory letter, there has been no lack of excesses and arbitrary 'liturgies' following Vatican-II.

In fact, Koch notes, the Pope "does not want to start any polemics over liturgy. What he want above all is reconciliation within the Church."

Koch's note comments, explains and goes into detail about the three objections that Pope Benedict XVI addresses in his explanatoruy letter: the risk of betraying Vatican-II, the risk of annulling it, and the risk of generating a division within the Church.

He concludes: "Pope Benedict is convinced that the Church, with the Roman liturgy as it developed over centuries and as it is in the 1962 Missal has a treasure that should not be lost but should be cherished for the future of the Catholic Church". [I don't know what the original sounds like, but this sounds to me like reducing the Pope's reasoning to sticky sentiment!]

The Swiss bishops will discuss the MP at their autumn assembly on September 10-12.

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First, these European bishops had been among the most vocal in saying that hardly anyone is interested in the traditional Mass so no Motu Proprio was necessary. Now that it is out, they claim it will cause divisions. Among who, then, if they claim 'hardly anyone is interested'???? You'd think French, Germans and Swiss would reason better than the petty 'risks' they are inventing!

ZENIT ran this story yesterday stating clearly where the Roman rite now stands concerning any 'disputed' Prayers for the Jews:

ABOUT THE QUESTIONED
'PRAYER FOR THE JEWS'

VATICAN CITY, JULY 6, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's apostolic letter concerning the Roman Missal promulgated by John XXIII in 1962, will not reinstate a prayer for the conversion of "perfidious Jews."

Several media reports erroneously contend that the letter could in effect reinstate a prayer offensive to Jews from the Good Friday liturgy of the Tridentine Mass, which dates back to 1570. The prayer stated: "Oremus et pro perfidies Judaeis" (Let us pray for the perfidious Jews).

On the first Good Friday after his election to the papacy in 1959, Pope John XXIII eliminated the adjective "perfidious" from the prayer. Since then the expression "Let us pray for the Jews" has been used.

That same year, he also eliminated from the rite of baptism the phrase used for Jewish catechumens: "Horresce Jusaicam perfidiam, respue Hebraicam superstitionem" (Disavow Jewish unbelieving, deny Hebrew superstition).

Also eliminated were similar formulas for those converting from idolatry, Islam or a heretical sect.

The 1962 missal was promulgated with an apostolic letter issued "motu proprio" by John XXIII "Rubricarum Instructum." The missal does not make reference to "perfidious Jews."

On Good Friday in 1963, John XXIII underlined the importance of this decision when the old formulation of the prayer for the Jews was read. The Pope interrupted the liturgy and asked that that the liturgical invocations begin again from the beginning, following the new text.

The Roman Missal adopted by Pope Paul VI in 1969, and put into effect in 1970, reformulated the prayer. It reads: "Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.

"Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption."

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And Summorum Pontificum says:

"...each Catholic priest of the Latin rite, whether secular or regular, may use the Roman Missal published by Bl. Pope John XXIII in 1962, or the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970, and may do so on any day with the exception of the Easter Triduum."

In the Easter Triduum rites (on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday), only the 1970 Missal may be used.


The 'TWENTY QUESTIONS ON THE MOTU PROPRIO' on the website of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops gives an ample answer to the question:

---

Does the wider use of the extraordinary form of the rites of Holy Week reflect a change in the Church's teaching on anti-Semitism?
No. The 1962 Missale Romanum already reflected Blessed John XXIII's revision of liturgical language often construed as anti-Semitic. In 1965, the watershed statement Nostra Aetate, of the Second Vatican Council then repudiated all forms of anti-Semitism as having no place within Christian life. When Pope Paul VI issued the Missale Romanum of 1969, the only prayer for the Jewish people in the Roman liturgy was completely revised for Good Friday to reflect a renewed understanding of the Jews as God's chosen people, "first to hear the word of God".

Throughout his papacy, John Paul II worked effectively to reconcile the Church with the Jewish people and to strengthen new bonds of friendship. In 1988, Pope John Paul II gave permission for the Mass to be celebrated according the Missale Romanum of 1962 only as a pastoral provision to assist Catholics who remained attached to
the previous rites, thereby hoping to develop closer bonds with the family of the Church.

By this new Apostolic Letter, Pope Benedict XVI is merely extending such permission for wider pastoral application, but remains committed to "the need to overcome past prejudices, misunderstandings, indifference and the language of contempt and hostility [and to continue] the Jewish-Christian dialogue ... to enrich and deepen the bonds of friendship which have developed".

---

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And here's precisely the kind of irresponsible robot journalist who needs to have done the most basic research - like the lesson above. Everything the story says about the 'Jewish problem' is wrong, wrong, wrong:



Pope revives old Latin mass,
sparks Jewish concern
By Phil Stewart



VATICAN CITY, July 7 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, in a decree issued on Saturday, authorized wider use of the old Latin mass and told the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics that his nod to Church traditionalists was nothing to be afraid of.


The decree met with mixed reaction from Catholics, ranging from concern among liberal lay groups to a wary welcome from schismatic traditionalists. Two cardinals who had warned about restoring the old rite supported the way the Pope had done it.

One prominent Jewish leader criticized the revival of a prayer for the conversion of Jews, saying the old text was "insensitive ... insulting" and said it could set back the historic reconciliation between Catholics and Jews.

In a letter to bishops, the German-born Pontiff rejected criticism within the Church that his long-awaited move could split Catholics and turn back the clock on reforms introduced in the 1960s, which are opposed by many traditionalists.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) replaced Latin with local languages in the liturgy, reached out to other religions and struck out texts that Jews found particularly offensive.

"This fear is unfounded," the Pope wrote. "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful."

Catholics around the world will have the Pope's blessing to ask local priests to celebrate mass in Latin or get baptized or married according to the old rite. Few are expected to want to return to the very formal rite in a language they do not speak.

The Pope said he wanted reconciliation with traditionalists, some of whom were so angered by the 1960s reforms that they broke with Rome, causing the first schism of modern times.

Traditionalists thanked Benedict for the decree, but their further reaction differed according to whether they were still loyal to Rome or in the schismatic group led by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and excommunicated in 1988.

"The traditional mass is a true a gem of the Church's heritage, and the Holy Father has taken the most important step toward making it available to many more of the faithful," said Michael Dunnigan, chairman of Una Voce America.

The schismatic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), based in Switzerland, stressed it had to iron out doctrinal differences with the Vatican before a reconciliation could take place.

The decree made no change in the 1962 missal - the main prayer book for the old rite - which includes prayers on Good Friday for the conversion of the Jews and calls them blind to the Christian truth.

"The language is insensitive. The language is insulting," said Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a U.S.-based Jewish civil rights group.

The Second Vatican Council repudiated the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death and highlighted the Jewish roots of Christianity. Relations improved markedly under Benedict's predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II.

French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard said the Good Friday prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews.

Church sources said it would rarely be prayed because the old rite is an exception and the new rite -- which drops this text -- would be used in most churches around the world on that day. [That is not at all the answer!]


(Additional reporting by Tom Heneghan in Paris and Sam Cage in Zurich) - Three people worked together on this story and not one of them got it right, nor bothered to!

Here's a great service by RORATE CAELI:
rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/


Saturday, July 07, 2007
RORATE CÆLI Interview:
Mons. Rifan speaks


In January 2002, Pope John Paul II established the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney, a Particular Church for the clergy and the faithful attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite with the same area as that of the Diocese of Campos, in Brazil.

For the past five years, as Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos declared in his address to the Bishops of Latin America in Aparecida, Brazil, the Campos experiment has allowed the Holy See to display to the world the possibility of a full peaceful cohabitation of the Catholic faithful attached to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite (the Diocese of Campos) and those attached to the "Forma Extraordinaria" of the Rite, the names used by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, published today.




The Apostolic Administrator of the Campos Apostolic Administration, Bishop Fernando Areas Rifan, granted RORATE CÆLI an exclusive interview which will be published in two installments. Today, a day of celebration, we present the first part, which deals with his general impressions regarding Summorum Pontificum and lessons from Campos, as well as with the SSPX.


RORATE CÆLI: Bishop Fernando Rifan, thank you for accepting our invitation. Summorum Pontificum has finally been published. How long have you waited for it?
Bishop Fernando Rifan: We have been waiting for this document since the creation of our Personal Apostolic Administration Saint John Mary Vianney. That is, we hoped that the immense benefit which had been granted to us could spread throughout the world and that all could profit from this great treasure which is the ancient form of the Roman Rite.

Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos said in Aparecida that the Campos experience was an example of peaceful coexistence for the Catholic world. Could you tell us what the relationship between both communities is like, in some detail?
Cardinal Castrillon said in his pronouncement before the CELAM that "The Holy Father's project has been partly proved in Campos, where the peaceful coexistence of the two forms of the only Roman Rite in the Church is a beautiful reality. We hope that this example will also bear fruit in other places of the Church where Catholic faithful with diverse liturgical sensibilities live together."

There is a good communal and cordial relationship between both bishops, the one of the Apostolic Administration and the diocesan Bishop, Dom Roberto Gomes Guimarães. Mutual consultations, frequent visits. For important ceremonies in the Cathedral, Dom Roberto invites me, and I attend.

Last year, I gave the inaugural philosophy class at the diocesan seminary. One of the priests of the Administration is a Latin professor in the diocesan seminary. At the last priestly ordination in the diocesan Cathedral, it was the choir of the seminarians of the Apostolic Administration which sang the musical parts of the mass in Gregorian chant, at the request of the diocesan seminarians.

There is an exchange of apostolates between the priests of the Administration and the Diocese: our priests are invited to aid in hearing confessions in diocesan parishes at certain events. And there is, in general, a good friendly relationship between both clergies, though safeguarding our liturgical identity and our independence.

It has been rumored that you were consulted in the preparatory phases of the creation of what would become the Institut du Bon Pasteur. Is this true? Were you ever consulted in during the preparatory phases of Summorum Pontificum?
In the creation of the Institute of the Good Shepherd, I attempted to give all my support. The priests who had left the Fraternity of Saint Pius X wished to regularize their situation. They asked for our support.

I went to France, presented them to Cardinal Ricard, of Bordeaux, who received them very well knowing that relations were shaken before. I introduced them to the Nuncio in Paris, to the Bishop of Chartres, in whose diocese they have their seminary, and I visited the Archbishop of Paris to speak of the matter.

I believe that I thus attempted to open the doors for the establishment of the Institute of the Good Shepherd. As for our contribution to the motu proprio, our very existence and our good relations spoke in favor of it.

Are you concerned that the kind of liturgical abuse so prevalent in the celebrations according to the Missal of Paul VI may affect the Traditional Mass? How is it possible to avoid this from happening?
No. Precisely, one of the reasons for which we prefer and adopt the Traditional Mass is because its structure and form of celebration exempts it from such abuses. The best way to avoid them is the preservation of the Traditional Mass in all its purity, sobriety, respect, sacredness, and solemnity. The rubrics of the Traditional Mass are very rigorous and do not allow for creativity and inventiveness.

From your past experience, and considering your knowledge of your fellow Bishops in the Brazilian Episcopal Conference, what do you believe will be the reception of the papal document in Brazil? Will Bishops establish obstacles to those priests and groups of faithful who wish to see the new papal directive implemented? Do you believe there will be an increase in the interest and demand for the Traditional Mass in Brazil? On a practical side, is the Apostolic Administration planning any formal effort to train priests to say the Traditional Mass?
As Cardinal Castrillon said in his talk to the CELAM, due to the influence of our Apostolic Administration, "some Brazilian dioceses have contacted the Campos Apostolic Administration, which has allowed some of their priests to give pastoral care to the traditionalist faithful in their local churches."

We have 13 dioceses offering the Traditional Mass in Brazil already. There will be hardships. But it will be much easier [with the motu proprio]. I am aware of Bishops who are waiting only for the Motu Proprio to liberate the Mass in their dioceses. And I believe that many groups will achieve it. We receive visits from many priests wishing to learn how to celebrate the Traditional Mass. We have even made a didactic DVD to teach priests how to celebrate Mass the Traditional way.

How is the construction of your new seminary coming along? Do you have seminarians from other Brazilian dioceses and from foreign countries?
The building of our new Seminary is coming along. We expect to move there next year, even though it will be only half done. We need help. We have some seminarians from other dioceses, but the majority are from here [Campos]. At this time we have 30 seminarians. The new seminary will have room for 80 students.


You have visited and traveled across the United States: do you believe that there is a potential for growth of the Mass in the U.S. or do you believe that there is a low interest for the Mass in America?
The United States is maybe, next to France, the country with the greatest interest in the Traditional Mass. In the United States and Canada there are about 600 places where the Traditional Mass is celebrated. There is a great interest [in the Traditional Mass].


Do you still have friends inside the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX/SSPX)? If so, what do they tell you about a future reconciliation with the Holy See? Do you believe there is at least a chance for a intermediary stage, something less than a full agreement, particularly after the liberalization of the Traditional Mass?
Yes, some. Some are of the opinion that the reconciliation should be done in groups, each in its own diocese. But, we fear that the hard line will fall away into schism. Maybe the freedom of the Traditional Mass will bring us closer. What is bad is the spirit of criticism, that sees only the negative side of things, and makes everything more difficult. They are not yet conscious of the irregularity of their situation and of the theological necessity of a canonical regularization and the recovery of a perfect communion with the Church.

On a personal note, since you were Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer's secretary for a long time, and particularly looking back at the dramatic events of 1988, what would a motu proprio like Summorum Pontificum have meant to Bishop de Castro Mayer?
I sincerely believe that he would have been very happy. Dom Castro Mayer was always a man of the Church, very faifthful to its Magisterium. One must only see the body of his written work to arrive at that conclusion.

And, on the day of my Episcopal Ordination, I said, in the presence of Cardinal Castrillon and of all the bishops who were there, that our regularization signified, also, the reestablishment of Dom Castro de Mayer, upon which I was applauded, including by them [the bishops].

7/11/07 Here's the second part of the interview:

Wednesday, July 11, 2007
RORATE CÆLI Interview: Rifan speaks
Part Two: Comments on Summorum Pontificum


Bishop Rifan, we now know the contents of Summorum Pontificum and of the papal explanatory letter. Many Traditional Catholics throughout the world, though filled with gratitude to the Pope, believe that, despite the changes, they will remain hostages of a hostile situation, as happened with the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, whenever their diocesan ordinary does not wish to comply with the papal will. What does the new motu proprio generally change, in relation to the indult system established by John Paul II with Quattuor Abhinc Annos and the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei?

There will always be hardships. The cross is, indeed, one of the signs of Gods blessings. Yet this Motu Proprio is quite different from the previous one on the Mass of Saint Pius V. The other counseled; this one mandates, gives precise rules. And it places an instance in the Roman Curia for appeals in case of litigation or of the non-fulfillment of what is ordered in it.

As far as you understand them, could you give us an overview of how the general procedure would work out for the groups of faithful, the steps the stable groups would have to take to have access to the Mass?

First, the faithful who wish to attend the Holy Mass in the extraordinary form will have to follow the procedures indicated in the Motu proprio. As a first step, they should look for a priest willing to celebrate it privately, and even try to convince him, which will be easier since he has all liberty to do so. And they may attend his Mass.

With the growth of the group, they may ask the parish priest for a public Mass in the parish church, particularly on Sundays. And, finally, they may attain from the Bishop a personal parish, which would be the maximum ideal, with Masses, catechism, spiritual direction, parish movements, etc., with the Mass of Saint Pius V.

Are there any procedural safeguards for the faithful and Priests who want access to the Mass?

According to the Motu Proprio, the Bishop cannot prevent a priest from saying such Mass privately, nor a group of faithful from attending it (art. 2 and 4). Neither can he do anything against the Motu proprio. If he does, appeal to Rome is applicable.

Your Excellency, we are particularly interested in Art. 7 of Summorum Pontificum, which states: ["Art. 7 If a group of lay faithful, as mentioned in art. 5 § 1, has not obtained satisfaction to their requests from the pastor, they should inform the diocesan bishop. The bishop is strongly requested to satisfy their wishes. If he cannot arrange for such celebration to take place, the matter should be referred to the Pontifical Commission 'Ecclesia Dei'."] Can a layman also appeal to the Commission, does he have standing to appeal to Rome if the Ordinary refuses to refer the matter to Rome?

Not only the priests, but also the lay faithful may appeal to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which has papal authority to solve these matters.

Assuming that a layman can appeal to the Ecclesia Dei commission directly, in the case of Art. 7, does the Commission have the power to solve the problem?

It is clearly expressed by the document that the Pope has just endowed the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei with wider powers than it had before, as it can be seen from art. 12: "the authority of the Holy See, supervising the observance and application of these dispositions."

Bishop Rifan, in the Explanatory Letter, Pope Benedict says that, "in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books". Even though this is not part of the legal text, does it mean that the priests in these communities dedicated to the Extraordinary Form may be forced to celebrate rites according to the Ordinary Form?

No one will be forced to celebrate in the new rite. But the possibility cannot be excluded in principle. Even if the Mass in the rite of Saint Pius V is celebrated exclusively, as we do here in our Apostolic Administration by concession of the Holy See, the possibility of celebrating in the ordinary rite cannot be excluded as a matter of principle - it is a matter of coherence, that is the argument of the Pope.

To exclude the celebration in a Catholic rite approved by the Church as a matter of principle would not be a manifestation of the Catholic spirit, and more, if as a matter of questioning the catholicity of the new rite, then it would be a position with incorrect theological implications, because the catholicity of a rite universally proclaimed for the entire Church by its Supreme authority and preserved by the Teaching Church would be put in doubt.

On a momentous day, this too:




In the presence of the Holy Father, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State,
was sworn in today at the Urban VIII Chapel as Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church.


May he never get to exercise his functions!

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

Which writer will come out this weekend - soon, at any rate - with the wrap-up commentary and assessment on everything historic and significant Benedict XVI has managed to do in the past two weeks? Allen and Weigel, as I noted earlier, are MIA - maybe Sandro Magister will. I'd be surprised if he does not come up with something by Monday at the latest.

And how strange that not one writer has so far remarked that Summum Pontificum is the emblem and spearhead of that 'reform of the reform' he has talked about for so long! Although I read one German commentator suggest that with Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI has reversed a Cultural Revolution in the Church, a concept I would expand to "the disastrous Cultural Revolution wrought by the post-Vat-II equivalent of the Gang of Four".

AD MULTOS ANNOS, SANCTE PATER, BENEDICTE!

Well, Magister actually came out with something yesterday, but a news item rather than a commentary, which I am still expecting fromhim tomorrow!

Benedict XVI Liberalizes the Ancient Rite of the Mass -
And Explains Why

This is how the Mass was celebrated before, during, and after Vatican Council II, until 1970.
If the passage to the new rite has created divisions and ruptures among the faithful, the fault is partly that of the Church:
a fault which the pope now means to remedy

by Sandro Magister




ROMA, July 7, 2007 - The highly anticipated papal Motu Proprio on the rite of the Mass prior to the reform of 1970 was made public today, together with a letter of explanation from Benedict XVI to the bishops.

The two documents were sent a few days earlier, in secret, to all the presidents of the episcopal conferences and to all the nuncios, who saw to sending them along to all the bishops of the world.

The Motu Proprio is in Latin. It will come into effect on September 14, 2007.

The new rules fixed by Benedict XVI widen the permission to celebrate the Mass according to the liturgical books published by John XXIII in 1962, while leaving in place as the 'ordinary' form of celebration in the Catholic churches the one established by Paul VI in 1970.

The Mass according to the liturgical books of 1962 is celebrated in Latin, but with the option of reading the Gospel and the other readings in modern languages. Nothing is said in the 1962 missal about the orientation of the altar and the celebrant, whether these should face the people or not.

The two forms of the Mass, the 'ordinary' one of 1970 and the 'extraordinary' one of 1962 follow slightly different calendars. The selections from the Gospel and the other readings also do not coincide.

But such differences are not unusual in the Catholic liturgy. The Ambrosian rite used in the archdiocese of Milan also has a its own calendar, lectionary, and ritual. For example, Advent begins six Sundays before Christmas, instead of four, as in the Roman rite. The sign of peace is placed before the offertory, instead of before communion.

The missal of 1962, the only one authorized for those who wish to celebrate the Mass according to the ancient rite, does not contain the prayer 'pro perfidis Judaeis' - which properly means: "for the Jews who do not believe [in Jesus Christ]" - nor other formulas that have today become objects of criticism, these having been modified already by John XXIII. Nor do these formulas exist in the baptismal ritual preceding Vatican Council II: this ritual, too, is authorized by the Motu Proprio.

In the accompanying letter, Benedict XVI asks the bishops to provide an evaluation after three years, in order to seek out solutions if serious difficulties surface.

[He then posts a link to the MP on the Vatican site and the text of the explanatory letter]

Don't forget the CDF document to be released Tueday, July 10, when the Holy Father will have started his vacation in Lorenzago. I thought when Andrea Tornielli first wrote about it that it might well trigger off a Dominus-Iesus type firestorm. Father Philip Powell, OP, who describes himself as 'a large Dominican friar from Missisippi, whose blog is 'Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!' (Lord, give me this water!) on
hancaquam.blogspot.com/
sees it as the next step in exorcising that insidious, counter-productive Spirit of Vatican-II:

Saturday, July 07, 2007
Just to be clear:
The Catholic Church IS the Church of Christ

With the motu proprio liberalizing the use of the '62 Missal, our Holy Father, Benedict, has banged another nail in the coffin of the so-called "Spirit of Vatican Two" hermeneutic of discontinuity.

One of his first efforts at slaying this fictitious ghost of the dissident imagination was published to much boo-hooing in the year 2000. This outrageous document, Dominus Iesus makes the ridiculous claim that Jesus Christ is the one and only savior of mankind.



Now, Jesus himself makes the identical claim for himself, but we can ignore his claim b/c he didn't have the benefit of the obfuscating techniques of transcendental analysis or any highly politicized commitment to radical theological pluralism (read: neo-pagan syncreticism). He hadn't read Heidegger at that point and probably couldn't understand the finer points of Rahner even if he wanted to.

Anyway, Cardinal "Pitbull" Ratzinger issued the CDF clarification and our Holy Father, John Paul II signed off on it. So there. It's official: Jesus Christ is the only name under heaven given for our salvation.

With the M.P. and Dominus Iesus, our Holy Father is planning another exorcism of the Spirits of Vatican Two from the Body of Christ. This time he is slinging holy water on the false claim that the Fathers of Vatican Two taught that the Roman Catholic Church is part of the Church of Christ but not identical to it. This is the so-called "subsists in" problem rooted in Lumen gentium 8....

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

He goes on to cite an argument about this, articulated by a Jesuit priest in Theological Studies - it comes down to an analysis of various Latin verbs used to convey the idea that 'the one true church of Christ is the Catholic Church' - and whether est, adest or subsistit best expresses the sense of the verb that is meant, and Vatican-II having chosen 'subsistit', all the conflicting interpretations that have been given to it.

Best to hold off on this 'debates' until we see what the July 10 document actually says!

Of course, the Italian papers today all discuss the Mass MP. I've chosen to start off with Andrea Tornielli's commentary in Il Giornale accompanying his news story itself on the MP and the Pope's explanatory letter. [Obviously, there is no point to rehashing the news stories today.]


Benedict XVI's courageous
and epochal decision
By Andrea Tornielli


As late as last week, there was a columnist in a national daily who wrote he was sure - or rather very very sure (certissimo) - that the Pope would never issue it. And another one who launched a 'preemptive attack' against a document he had not even seen [he means here specifically the dissident Alberto Melloni, parts of whose pathetic screed in Corriere della Sera I will translate later, just to show how vainly he was tilting at ideological windmills and his own prematurely apocalyptic notions of what he thought the Pope would decree!]. And who, in fact, said outright that by liberalizing the traditional Mass, Papa Ratzinger was making a mockery of Vatican-II!

Benedict XVI, with the Motu Proprio and letter published yesterday, made a courageous - and in many ways, epochal - decision that was
consistent with everything he has ever said in the past two decades about this issue. He's not stepping back to the past, nor is he defying Vatican-II!

Those who feared a plunge 'back to the obscurity of the past' - as though the five centuries during which the Pius V rite was in use were a parenthesis that needed to be forgotten - can now calm down. There won't be - at least not in Italy - hordes of militant faithful hammering on church doors to demand the traditional Mass. And those who go to Sunday Mass will not suddenly find themselves attending an unknown, musty rite.

With some irony, Papa Ratzinger himself dispenses the tranquillizer, pointing out that the traditional Mass "presumes a certain degree of liturgical training and some knowledge of Latin" both of which "are not to be often found".

No one is being constrained to do anything, nor barred from anything - except from preventing celebration of the old Mass.

So why this Motu Proprio, if basically, this decision only has to do with a small minority of Catholics - some of them even unabashed advocates of nostalgic socio-political positions that are so ancien regime?

"In the history of liturgy, there is growth and progress, but no rupture," Benedict XVI explains. "It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church."

The old Missal was never prohibited nor abrogated. The Pope thus opens the door to all traditionalists, including the Lefebvrians, whose failure to return to full communion with the Church, after this document, would appear inexplicable.

It is nevertheless very strange that people who keep advocating for more 'democracy' in the Church would simply ignore any requests coming from below, from traditionalists who are not seeking to defy any Church teaching! Just as it is equally strange that those who daily inveigh against clerical powers would wield such power to deny traditionalists the right to use the traditional Mass.

But let us also be very clear. The true 'motivators' of the Motu Proprio have been those bishops who - ignoring John Paul II's appeal for them to be generous in authorizing the old Mass - have simply flatly refused, and in many cases, refused even to discuss the matter! At the same time, however, making their churches available to 'our separated brothers' in the Orthodox and Protestant confessions, while scorning brothers 'united' in and with the Church even if they have a different liturgical taste.

And all those claims that this Motu Proprio places the very unity of the Church at`risk!`This, in a Church that has always had a wealth of liturgical diversity. And why should a Catholic rite that nourished all the great saints through the centuries now be considered like a dangerous time bomb?

And when did these advocates of progress ever invoke 'unity' in all these years of a whole spectrum of post-Conciliar liturgical abuses? Masses as puppet shows, liturgy transformed to show business, dancing the Lord's Prayer to some rock tune, changing Scriptural texts at will, even omitting parts of the Mass at will - no excess or abuse has been protested or stopped. Now, all of a sudden, the traditional Mass will shatter unity!

Benedict XVI acted in continuity with John Paul II's earlier directives in this matter. This new freedom to use the traditional Mass in order to favor reconciliation cannot but be welcomed even by those like this writer who are not traditionalists and feel quite at home with the New Mass when it is well celebrated.


Il Giornale, 8 luglio 2007

Of course, the Italian papers today all discuss the Mass MP. I've chosen to start off with Andrea Tornielli's commentary in Il Giornale accompanying his news story itself on the MP and the Pope's explanatory letter. [Obviously, there is no point to rehashing the news stories today.]


Benedict XVI's courageous
and epochal decision
By Andrea Tornielli


As late as last week, there was a columnist in a national daily who wrote he was sure - or rather very very sure (certissimo) - that the Pope would never issue it. And another one who launched a 'preemptive attack' against a document he had not even seen [he means here specifically the dissident Alberto Melloni, parts of whose pathetic screed in Corriere della Sera I will translate later, just to show how vainly he was tilting at ideological windmills and his own prematurely apocalyptic notions of what he thought the Pope would decree!]. And who, in fact, said outright that by liberalizing the traditional Mass, Papa Ratzinger was making a mockery of Vatican-II!

Benedict XVI, with the Motu Proprio and letter published yesterday, made a courageous - and in many ways, epochal - decision that was
consistent with everything he has ever said in the past two decades about this issue. He's not stepping back to the past, nor is he defying Vatican-II!

Those who feared a plunge 'back to the obscurity of the past' - as though the five centuries during which the Pius V rite was in use were a parenthesis that needed to be forgotten - can now calm down. There won't be - at least not in Italy - hordes of militant faithful hammering on church doors to demand the traditional Mass. And those who go to Sunday Mass will not suddenly find themselves attending an unknown, musty rite.

With some irony, Papa Ratzinger himself dispenses the tranquillizer, pointing out that the traditional Mass "presumes a certain degree of liturgical training and some knowledge of Latin" both of which "are not to be often found".

No one is being constrained to do anything, nor barred from anything - except from preventing celebration of the old Mass.

So why this Motu Proprio, if basically, this decision only has to do with a small minority of Catholics - some of them even unabashed advocates of nostalgic socio-political positions that are so ancien regime?

"In the history of liturgy, there is growth and progress, but no rupture," Benedict XVI explains. "It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church."

The old Missal was never prohibited nor abrogated. The Pope thus opens the door to all traditionalists, including the Lefebvrians, whose failure to return to full communion with the Church, after this document, would appear inexplicable.

It is nevertheless very strange that people who keep advocating for more 'democracy' in the Church would simply ignore any requests coming from below, from traditionalists who are not seeking to defy any Church teaching! Just as it is equally strange that those who daily inveigh against clerical powers would wield such power to deny traditionalists the right to use the traditional Mass.

But let us also be very clear. The true 'motivators' of the Motu Proprio have been those bishops who - ignoring John Paul II's appeal for them to be generous in authorizing the old Mass - have simply flatly refused, and in many cases, refused even to discuss the matter! At the same time, however, making their churches available to 'our separated brothers' in the Orthodox and Protestant confessions, while scorning brothers 'united' in and with the Church even if they have a different liturgical taste.

And all those claims that this Motu Proprio places the very unity of the Church at`risk!`This, in a Church that has always had a wealth of liturgical diversity. And why should a Catholic rite that nourished all the great saints through the centuries now be considered like a dangerous time bomb?

And when did these advocates of progress ever invoke 'unity' in all these years of a whole spectrum of post-Conciliar liturgical abuses? Masses as puppet shows, liturgy transformed to show business, dancing the Lord's Prayer to some rock tune, changing Scriptural texts at will, even omitting parts of the Mass at will - no excess or abuse has been protested or stopped. Now, all of a sudden, the traditional Mass will shatter unity!

Benedict XVI acted in continuity with John Paul II's earlier directives in this matter. This new freedom to use the traditional Mass in order to favor reconciliation cannot but be welcomed even by those like this writer who are not traditionalists and feel quite at home with the New Mass when it is well celebrated.


Il Giornale, 8 luglio 2007

Pope, about to start holiday in Alps, hopes others get vacation to recharge body and soul


The Associated Press
Sunday, July 8, 2007

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI, about to begin an Alpine holiday, said on Sunday that the mountain air will be good for him, and he wished everybody the chance to go on vacation to recharge body and soul.

Benedict told pilgrims and tourists that he leaves on Monday for Lorenzago di Cadore, where he will stay in a villa until July 27 in the Dolomite mountains. He noted that the Alpine town was a favorite of his predecessor, John Paul II.

"The air of the mountains will do me good, and I will be more free to dedicate myself to reflection and prayer," Benedict said in his weekly appearance at his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square.

"I hope everybody, especially those who feel a great need for it, can have a bit of vacation, to recharge physical and spiritual energies and regain a healthy contact with nature," the pontiff said.

"Mountains, in particular, evoke the ascent of the spirit toward on high, the elevation toward the 'high altitude' of our humanity, which, unfortunately, daily life tends to bring down," he said.

Benedict's private vacation was described as a "period of rest," although the 80-year-old pontiff has two scheduled appearances, on July 15 and July 22, to deliver the traditional Sunday noon Angelus prayer.

From the Alps, Benedict will head to the Vatican summer palace outside Rome in the hill town of Castel Gandolfo.

The pope lauded another way to spend free time  sports.

Referring to an international handball tournament was being held in Italy, Benedict noted that many of the participants come from countries in conflict with each other.

"Yet this peaceful gathering of athletes is an example of how sports can bring us together in the spirit of fellowship between peoples and cultures," he said. "Sports is a sign that peace is possible."



A translation of the Holy Father's homily and message at Nagelus today has been posted in AUDIENCE AND ANGELUS TEXTS.

Before working on some translations from the Italian press, including Vittorio Messori's exclusive interview with Mons. bernard Fellay, superior-general odf the Lefebvrians, I thought I'd check any 'reaction stories' in the English-speaking press - and sure enough, Reuters, the British agency that has been most relentlessly assiduous in pushing any negative angle about Benedict XVI, lives up to its avowed mission. Just look at the two stories filed today.

Before going any further, allow me to post first two objective references which any journalist of good will would have turned to and cited against the two groups of uninformed or misinformed or deliberatley-playing-dumb objectors they are now pandering to - some aggrieved bishops and Jews.

To the bishop 'in tears' and 'mourning' described in the Reuters story - and others with the same blind prejudice - has he taken a look at the Vatican-II documents lately?

---

From Sacrosanctum Concilium, Paragraph 4:

4. Lastly, in faithful obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that holy Mother Church holds all lawfully acknowledged rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way. The Council also desires that, where necessary, the rites be revised carefully in the light of sound tradition, and that they be given new vigor to meet the circumstances and needs of modern times.

---

And to the Jews who seize on every opportunity to find fault with the Church, please get this clear once and for all.

---

From the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Q&A about Summorum Pontificum:

The 1962 Missale Romanum already reflected Blessed John XXIII's revision of liturgical language often construed as anti-Semitic. In 1965, the watershed statement Nostra Aetate, of the Second Vatican Council then repudiated all forms of anti-Semitism as having no place within Christian life. When Pope Paul VI issued the Missale Romanum of 1969, the only prayer for the Jewish people in the Roman liturgy was completely revised for Good Friday to reflect a renewed understanding of the Jews as God's chosen people.

[I've taken the English text of the prayer from a ZENIT story, as my Novus Ordo Missal is in French]

Here is the prayer:

"Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption."

---

And now to the lachrymose 'stories' which any responsible journalist could have stemmed on the spot by citing the appropriate objective reference to the whiner, or at least reporting the objective facts in the news item itself to present both sides of the picture!


Bishop mourns Latin decree,
Jews ask for clarity
By Silvia Aloisi


VATICAN CITY, July 8 (Reuters) - A decree by Pope Benedict allowing priests to say the old Latin Mass more frequently has drawn criticism within Catholic and Jewish ranks, with one Italian bishop saying he was "in mourning."

The decree, a nod to traditionalists which the Pope said was meant to heal divisions within the Church, was regarded by some as a blow to reforms introduced in the 1960s that promoted mass in local languages and understanding with non-Catholics.

"I can't fight back the tears. This is the saddest moment in my life as a man, priest and bishop," Luca Brandolini, a member of the liturgy commission of the Italian bishops' conference, told Rome daily La Repubblica in an interview on Sunday.

"It's 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 cancelled."

The Pope, in a letter to bishops on Saturday, rejected criticism that his move could split Catholics and reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

Some Jewish leaders have sharply criticized the decree, which revives a passage from the old Latin prayer book for Good Friday calling for Jews to be converted. Others, however, took a more measured tone and called for clarification.

"I think there are those who have interpreted it in an extremely alarmist fashion," Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) told Reuters.

"That doesn't mean that there aren't things that need clarification but there is no question of Pope Benedict's commitment to respectful relations with the Jewish people."

The AJC's Rome representative, Lisa Palmieri-Billig, said the text of the decree was ambiguous on the issue. Church officials however had no doubt the prayer could now be said in certain circumstances, even if its use would probably be rare. [Which Church officials said that???? This is a general allegation made by an ignorant reporter who is cloaking her/his ignorance by attributing a statement to some unnamed 'officials'!]

"I find it difficult to believe that the Pope would permit the Good Friday prayer, it could be a communication mistake," Palmieri-Billig said.

"Conversion is a very sensitive issue for Jews and if the prayer is allowed, it would be a step backwards for dialogue."

French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard said on Saturday the prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews.[Did he really? He wasn't aware of Paul VI's revised prayer? To think I have been using a French Novus Ordo missal where the prayer is unequivocally clear on page 438 of the Missel Communautaire, ed. Bayard!!!]

Defending the decree, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who is trying to heal the rift with the traditionalists' main flag-bearer, the schismatic Society of Saint Pius X, said it opened the door for their return and "I wouldn't understand if they don't come back."

However the group, which claims one million members, said on Saturday it had to iron out doctrinal differences with the Vatican before a reconciliation could take place.

The decree, possibly the most important of Benedict's papacy so far, was issued on a summer weekend without the publicity that normally accompanies key documents. [Without publicity!!! The Pope himself presenting it personally to key bishops the week before in an event that was amply reported, commented and re-reported in ancitipation of publication???]

The Pope did not mention it in his weekly Angelus blessing on Sunday and will retreat to the Dolomites mountains on Monday to start his summer holidays.

The Vatican will issue another text on Tuesday expected to declare Roman Catholicism the only true church of Jesus Christ, a statement that could anger Protestants.

Other Christian churches criticized Rome in 2000 when it issued a similar document signed by the Pope, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the top defender of Church dogma.

(Additional reporting by Tom Heneghan in Paris, Avida Landau in Jerusalem)


As to the 'looming' phantom referenced in the next story, let me first post what Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, president of Ecclesia Dei, said - to anyone who would interpret the MP as forcing anyone to do anything, or asking anyione to give up the New Mass:

---

"No parish priest is obliged to celebrate the traditional Mass. But if a group of faithful, having a priest [belonging to the parish] who is qualified and willing to say this Mass, requests the parish priest or the rector of a church to allow the Mass, then they cannot be refused."

---

Latin mass a looming headache
for Catholic parishes
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor


PARIS, July 8 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's decision to promote the old Latin mass is a dream come true for delighted Roman Catholic traditionalists and a looming headache for the harried priests now expected to celebrate it.

By issuing his decree on Saturday, Benedict aimed to end a 40-year "culture war" between the overwhelming majority of his 1.1-billion strong Church and a small minority that never accepted the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

His solution was to allow the long-sidelined traditionalists to ask their local priests to offer the 16th-century liturgy and protest all the way to the Vatican if they don't comply.

His letter to bishops explaining the step skated over some practical problems that local pastors now face. Few priests know how to say the old rite mass. The clergy's thinning ranks already have their hands full saying the usual masses on Sunday.

Many mainstream clergy are also worried by the tenacity of the traditionalists, who have spent decades bucking the trend and are expected to promote the Latin mass with renewed vigor.

"Where there are groups that want it, it's going to be a real pain in the neck for the pastor," said Father Tom Reese S.J. of the Woodstock Theological Center at Washington's Georgetown University. "He's going to be pressured to do it."

Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, head of the French Bishops' Conference, chose a old baker's saying to hint the transition to using two very different rites may not be smooth. "There'll be some lumps in the dough," he quipped to journalists in Paris. [Of course, he would say that. He's not being a good sport about failing to block the MP!]

Before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Catholic mass was an elaborate ritual [No! There is a hierarchy of Masses - Low Mass is as low-key as you can get, then there's a sung Mass, then there's a High Mass, which is the one that has all the bells and incense and 'elaborate' ritual, and is obviouslt reserved for special occasions] led in Latin by a priest with his back to the congregation. Vatican II reduced the formality and had the priest face the faithful to pray in their local language.

Traditionalists rejected the new style's sing-along hymns and guitar music. Many missed the Latin rite's sense of mystery and awe and the centuries-old Gregorian chant that went with it.

Some went further, denouncing Council reforms including respect for Jews and cooperation with other faiths. Leaders of the biggest group, the 600,000-strong Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX), were excommunicated in 1988 for defying the Vatican.

Both the SSPX and traditionalists loyal to the Pope hailed the decree. But SSPX Bishop Bernard Fellay upped the ante by saying Rome must end his excommunication before he can even start to discuss the doctrinal disputes that separate them.

Many bishops seem concerned that the decree will revive the heated debates between modernizers and traditionalists that followed the Council, even though Benedict made clear the new mass remains the rule and the Latin rite a permitted exception.

Another argument Benedict made - that promoting the old Latin mass did not mean reversing other Vatican II reforms - also seems to have met with some skepticism in the Church.

Bishop Luca Brandolini, an Italian liturgy expert, said after the decree he was in mourning and fighting back tears.

"A reform for which many people worked, with great sacrifice and only inspired by the desire to renew the Church, has now been cancelled," he told the Rome daily La Repubblica.

"The Holy Father says in the document that his desire of course is to help to foster unity," said Father Keith Pecklers, liturgy professor at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.

"A concern on the part of many bishops is that in reaching out to this very small minority who desire this rite ... (it) will actually bring about disunity in the mainstream Church."

Germany's top bishop, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, said Catholics there mostly liked the new mass, but added: "I hope we can get the hotheads from both sides to move to the middle."

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Silvia Aloisi in Rome)

Picked up from Italian news reports about the MP:

From La Stampa:

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster (London):
"I don't think the Motu Proprio can open new tensions between progressives and traditionalists. There have always been tensions among various groups within the Church. I think everything depends on the bishop: he is the center of unity in the diocese, just as the Pope is the center of unity and truth in the universal Church. I think this Motu Proprio will be received very well by the bishops."[Surprising statement - he had been one of the more vocal objectors to the MP, thinking it was 'not at all necessary']


From Il Messaggero:

Hans Kueng:
...In Germany, theologian Hans Kueng does not hide his disappointment at Benedict XVI's decision:
"There are other ways to be Catholic other than the Roman way. I disagree with this policy, even as applied to the Mass in Latin."
He says he has put together all of his criticisms against the Roman Church in a book to come out soon entitled "Contested Truths". [If anyone has seen a better story or quote from Kueng about the MP - please share!]

Fr.Gottardo Pasqualetti, professor of liturgy at the Urban University, ex-secretary of Cardinal Bugnini, and one of the most authoritative interpreters of the post-conciliar liturgical reform, asks what use a Motu Proprio 'of this kind' would ever serve:
"In my opinion, it could only lead to problems and splits. Maybe the Pope did it to please the traditionalists, to patch up things with them. Even before this, anyone who wanted to use the traditional Mass could - it wasn't prohibited!"[Now that's a typical statement by someone who is just flatly prejudiced! 1) He never bothered to read the Pope's explanation, nor the MP probably; and 2) What planet has he been living on where 'anyone who wanted to use the traditional Mass could'? I can understand he has a vested interest in the Novus Ordo, which from all accounts was principally the creation of his mentor Bugnini, but Benedict has not and never has disavowed the Novus Ordo and makes it clear it remains the normal or 'ordinary' rite today. So what's his problem? God help us and the seminarians who would train in liturgy under someone like him! God help him!]


Liliana Cavani, film director:
"At first glance, it would seem like a sophisticated move. But it's rather capricious, a bit snobbish....I grew up with the Old Mass, but I have grown accustomed to the new rite. Everyone is." [So, what's the problem? No one's asking you to switch back to the old Mass! Did this lady even read the MP? - to call the Pope's epochal move 'capricious' misses the whole point of 'Summorum Pontificum cura semper fuit...(It has always been the concern of Supreme Pontiffs...)]

Here's a translation of Vittorio Messori's report in Corriere della Sera today on his interview with Mons. Bernard Fellay :

The Lefebvrian superior-general
is optimistic about the MP:
'This is a historic day - a leap
in the right direction'
By VITTORIO MESSORI

At the chalet of Menzingen, in the Swiss canton of Zug, seat of the general headquarters for the Priestly fraternity of St. Pius X (FSSPX, from the Italian initials), the envelope arrived a few days earlier.

It contained a copy of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the explanatory letter from Pope Benedict XVI, and a personal letter from Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos.

Its addressee: Mons.Bernard Fellay, superior-general of the community better known as the Lefebvrians after their founder, the late Mons. Marcel Lefebvre, the traditionalist group which opposes the ministry and doctrines of the Catholic Church arising from the Second Vatican Council.

With 481 priests, 90 lay brothers, 206 religious men and women, six seminaries, 117 priories, 82 schools, 6 university-level institutions, and 450 places of worship in 62 countries - with at least half a million true believers, the Lefebvrians have been a major thorn in the side for Rome, which was forced to excommunicate bishops consecrated validly but illegitimately by Lefebvre in 1988.

After his first reading of the documents from Rome, Mons. Fellay agreed to talk to Corriere about his reactions in advance of the publication of the Papal texts.

Let me point out that his reactions were much more positive than could be expected by anyone who knows the complexity of the Lefebrvrian issue that Rome has had to deal with for decades now.

Of course, the traditional Mass was always the most obvious battle standard of the Lefebvrians. But they have always insisted that the new liturgy was simply the expression of an orientation taken by the Church after Vatican-II which the group finds unacceptable.

Thus, certain traditionalist quarters often said that a decree like that issued now by Pope Benedict not only would be inadequate, but that it could even be distracting and diversionary, serving to reinforce wrong impressions about their demands.

But it does not seem to be the case, at least the way Mons. Fellay spoke on this occasion: "This is a truly historic day," he said. "We wish to express to Benedict XVI our profound gratitude. His decree is a gift of grace. It's not just a step, it's a leap in the right direction."

For the bishop, the 'normalization' of the Mass "not of St. Pius V," he points out, "but rather the Mass of the eternal Church" is "an act of justice (that is) supernaturally, extraordinarily helpful at a time of serious Church crisis."

"The Holy Father's re-statement of the continuity of Vatican-II and the new Mass with the constant Tradition of the Church - which belies that the Council is a rupture from the 19 centuries that preceded it - inspires us to carry on with our dialog on doctrine...Lex orandi, lex credendi: one believes what one prays; one prays as one believes. And now, it is acknowledged that, in its Mass 'for always', the Church prays correctly." At any rate, according to the Pope, from here on, just one rite, with two forms that are equally legitimate, to express the one faith.

To get to this point, the opposition of Mons. Lefebvre and his followers was decisive. Even as cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger had felt that the Church ought to pay attention to these brothers who had serious issues, one of which he shared in some way.

Fellay comments: "Yes, Providence has made us an instrument to prod Rome and get to this point. But we are also aware that we are only a sort of thermometer to measure a fever that requires the right treatment. This document is a basic stage in a procedure which can now be accelerated - with comforting prospects, we hope - for instance, on the question of excommunication."

So, no disappointments?
"I would say none at all - even if some passages in the Pope's letter may be less satisfying when he states conditions about ecclesiastical policy."

But all in all, Fellay thinks that 40 years of resistance have not been futile. In the next few days, he will send a letter to all the FSSPX followers around the world, which will begin with the words: "The Pontifical Motu Proprio re-establishes the Tridentine Mass with full rights and states clearly that it was never abrogated. Therefore, loyalty to this Mass - for which many of our priests and faithful have been persecuted and sanctioned for decades - was never an act of disobedience."

The strategy to 'recover' tradition, begun by John Paul II (although he had been constrained to declare excommunication of the illegitimately ordained bishops), has gained notable progress with Benedict XVI, who has spoken often in the past about a necessary 'reform of the reform' not limited only to liturgy.

What about the protests from some bishops? Someone has observed that from current projections, at least one-third of the dioceses in the Western world - including France, which has been the most censorious of the Pope's initiative - will be suppressed over the next 20 years because there are not enough priests.

So perhaps, Fellay and his group are right to ask: How can bishops with diminishing congregations and clergy dare to criticize groups like them who enjoy an uninterrupted stream of vocations?For example, in the Archdiocese of Paris itself, diocesan priests (mostly aging and often mistrusted by their parishioners) currently number just about what the Lefebvrians have - and their priests are mostly young, resolute, and trained with implacable rigor).


Corriere della sera, 8 luglio 2007

Here is an interview from Il Giornale today with Cardinal Castrillon of Ecclesia Dei.

INTERVIEW WITH CARDINAL CASTRILLON

He is the man who has been patiently carrying on all Vatican contacts with the Lefebvrians and has the task of overseeing traditionalist groups. Dario Castrillon Hoyos, president of the Ecclesia Dei Pontifical Commission created specially by John Paul II for that purpose, is also been Pope Benedict's closest collaborator on these issues.

What is the significance of the Pope's decision?
The Pope's letter is clear. It was a decision that came from the heart and mind of a Pope who loves and knows the liturgy very well. He wants to preserve the patrimony represented by the traditional liturgy without in any way contradicting the new liturgy. The Vatican has received thousands of letters from all over the world requesting for the freedom to worship with the traditional rite.

Someone has written that Papa Ratzinger is making a mockery of the Council...
In no way and in no statements has Benedict XVI gone against what the Council has indicated. The New Mass continues to be the 'normal' Roman rite. Neither the Motu Proprio nor the Pope's letter has the least sign of the least deviation from the Council. It does point out that Vatican-II never prohibited the old Mass, that it was the Mass celebrated by the Council Fathers during the Council itself. So
no mockery, no rebuff. It's simply a way of meeting the legitimate demands of a group of faithful, an act of generosity.

Is this in continuity or in divergence with the pontificates of Papa Montini and Papa Wojtyla?
It's a continuation, not a contradiction. Paul VI himself, shortly after the New Mass came into force, granted indults to allow celebrating the old Mass. And Papa Wojtyla planned to work on a Motu Proprio similar to that which has now been promulgated.

Is the bishop's authority being undermined?
Whoever says that is speaking purely on the basis of preconceptions about the Motu Proprio - which, in fact, reaffirms the bishop's role. It doesn't affect his canonical rights. It is the diocesan pastor's role to coordinate liturgy in his diocese, in harmony with the Church's supreme authority on divine worship, the Pope. As far as the new disposition, it is the bishop who intervenes in case of disputes which he must resolve according to the guidelines established by the Motu Proprio. And I am sure that the pastoral sense of every bishop will find a way to act in favor of Church unity, avoiding any occasion for schism.

What about the Good Friday prayers about the Jews?
The Motu Proprio authorizes the 1962 Missal of John XXIII, who already took out the phrases that were considered offensive....

But what about the personal missal books recently republished that still contain those phrases?
There should be no confusion on that account...

[In any case, the rite authorized by the Motu Proprio, exceptionally for the Paschal Triduum (which includes Good Friday) is the Novus Ordo which carries Paul VI's completely revised Good Friday prayer for the Jews.]

Do you see foresee any difficulties?
I don't know of any time, in the history of the Church, when difficulties did not result from any important decision. I sincerely hope however that any problems can be confronted and overcome with the approach that the Pope suggests in his letter.

Does this decision mean that the break with the Lefebvfrians is coming to a close?
The Motu Proprio throws open the doors for the Fraternity of St. Pius X to come back to the Church. If this does not lead to their return, then I truly would be hard pressed to understand why not.

I would simply want to make clear that the Papal document was not tailored for the Lefebvrians. The Pope is convinced it is urgent to
underscore the continuity with tradition, and that the Church cannot proceed by being split. That's why he points out that the traditional Mass was never abolished nor prohibited.

Il Giornale, 8 luglio 2007

Perhaps only someone who has learned his Latin and appreciates what a privilege it is to have done so can use the title that Socci does in this essay for Libero today. But I am sure Alberto Melloni learned Latin as well, and yet, he couldn't care less. I'm translating Socci whose references to something Melloni wrote two days ago make clear what Melloni has to do with all this.


Welcome back, Latin -
Now I feel more at home
By ANTONIO SOCCI


He is a great Pontiff [bridgemaker in the etymological sense of the word], Pope Benedict, who will have great historical importance for the Church. And by restoring the freedom to celebrate the traditional Mass, certain 'progressives' will unleash a ferocious war against him.

Such as, for instance, falsely reviving controversy over the Good Friday prayer for the Jews, which is no longer there in the protested form.

This Pope, a kind and humble man, who is also determined 'not to place anything ahead of God' and 'not to flee from the wolves', has shown so many signs of courage.

Recently, his letter to the Catholics of China (to unite the two Churches - open and underground - and to demand religious freedom from the regime) and the other day, recognizing the martyrdom of 800 residents of Otranto who were beheaded in 1480 by Muslim invaders because they refused to to give up their faith in Christ.

But above all, by this Motu Proprio which carries great weight and through which the Pope has restored to the Church - alongside the Mass in the vernacular - the bimillennial Latin rite which was summarily brushed off in 1969 contrary to every Church rule and precedent.

For the Church, liturgy encloses and embodies the treasures of the faith, and therefore, "the integrity of the faith, because the the law of prayer is the law of the faith." For this reason alone, the Latin Missal cannot possibly be outlawed - as in fact, juridically, it was never invalidated.

But in the post-conciliar delirium, the intolerance shown by the progressivists succeeded in giving the general impression that he old Mass had been banned.

That was a time of frightening apostasy among Catholics and an apocalyptic crisis in the clergy: within a few years from 1965, some 100,000 priests had abandoned the priesthood, and some 110,000 nuns left their congregations between 1966-1988. An unparalleled tragedy in the history of the Church.

What was a Christian to think? Was this God's sign of displeasure for all the 'reforms' that purported to be in the spirit of Vatican-II but were instead unfounded changes? Benedict XVI speaks of 'deformations of the liturgy that were at the limits of what could be tolerated."

As a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger called the blow against traditional liturgy 'a rupture' with 'tragic' consequences. A great layman, Giuseppe Prezzolini, wrote an editorial in 1969 - the year of the liturgical reform - entitled "The liquidation of the Church." Although he was an agnostic, he noted bitterly the revolutionary fever that had afflicted even the Church, reducing it to a near-caricature of 'Protestant sects' and 'modern civilization'.

In fact, it was the world of secular culture at the time which denounced the immense loss represented by the arbitrary dumping of the Catholic liturgy that had literally shaped European culture.

Cultural figures made two public appeals, in 1966 and again in 1971, in defense of the Mass of Pius V as a great spiritual and cultural patrimony that must be preserved. Signatories included names like
Borges, De Chirico, Elena Croce, W. H. Auden, Bresson, Dreyer, Del Noce, Julien Green, Maritain, Montale, Cristina Campo, Mauriac, Quasimodo, Evelyn Waugh, Maria Zambrano, Elémire Zolla, Gabriel Marcel, Salvador De Madariaga, Contini, Devoto, Macchia, Pallottino, Paratore, Bassani, Luzi, Piovene, Andrés Segovia, Harold Acton, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, and the man who was then editor of the Times of London, William Rees-Mogg.

In vain. By then, the progressivist inebriation (or perhaps, more rightly, 'the dictatorship of relativism') had spread throughout the Church, tearing down its traditions.

Much later, these misguided elements in the Church would even boycott John Paul II for having granted two indults - in 1984 and 1988 - which stated that the Mass of Pius V had never been abolished and therefore could be celebrated with the permission of the local bishop.

John Paul called on the bishops "to use this faculty amply and generously in favor of all the faithful who requested" the old Mass. But many bishops did the opposite, effectively negating the papal concession. Some of them allowed Muslims to use their churches for worship, but denied their fellow Catholics to use them for the old Mass.

And now, in the light of such abuse of authority, Benedict's Motu Proprio makes Peter's Successor himself the protector of the rights of the faithful, who, in this case, are no longer left at the mercy and whim of the local bishop.

Two days ago, Alberto Melloni, writing in Corriere della Sera, vented the wrath of the progressivist faction by defining the Motu Proprio - sight unseen - as a "rude mockery " of Vatican-II. How ridiculous!

A 'historian of the Council' like Melloni chooses to ignore that during the Council itself, the rite in use was the liturgy he refuses to recognize and which the Pope has now restored to full rights. And he simply ignores that the Council never outlawed the liturgy. On the contrary, one might say it was the despotic imposition of the new Mass in 1969 that contradicted the Council. (See Sacramentum concilium, N.3-4)

Another obvious irony: Melloni and his fellow 'progressivists' - who made John XXIII the very symbol of their 'progressivism' - now oppose the Motu Proprio that revalidates his Missal, the 1962 Missal that is the basis for the restored traditional liturgy.

They completely ignore Papa Roncalli's speech on February 22, 1962, in which, among other things, he praised the Latin liturgy and said it had profound links to the 'Chair of Peter'.

What did Pope John say? "Latin was the instrument for spreading the Gospel, which was carried along the consular routes almost as a symbol of the highest unity of the Mystical Body...And even when the new languages with their individual European identities eventually replaced the one Roman language, it continued to be the language of the Roman Church, in the expressions of its liturgy and in the solemn documents of the Apostolic See, as well as the instrument of communication with the august center of Christianity."

Finally, he reaffirmed the value of Latin not only 'for historical and emotional reasons' but because even 'in the present historical moment,' it is a sign of unity among all Catholics and "serves the Church's mission of pacification and unification." It is not linked, he said, to any national interests, it is a source of clarity and doctrinal certainty, it is accessible to all who have had a high school education [in Italy]; and is a vehicle for reciprocal understanding" . Five years later, Latin was virtually discarded, and seminaries no longer required it for priestly formation.

[The young Ratzinger who came to Rome for the Council remarks in his autobiography that he was very glad he had learned Latin well because he now found he could follow and take part easily in Council discussions.]

Melloni accused Benedict XVI of breaking up a continuity and depriving bishops of authority. But wasn't it the other way around? Wasn't it the 'prohibition' of the Latin Mass that broke the millennial continuity of liturgy, and wasn't it the Novus Ordo that was imposed from above without any input from the bishops of the world?

Today these strange 'liberals' are opposing the freedom which the Pope is allowing and defending - a freedom of choice between two valid forms of the liturgy. And they would deny the right of a minority to exercise this freedom. Yet these are the very same elements who say the Church should be a democracy!

But are they not also the true obscurantists in their contempt for a patrimony that is exalted by men of genuine culture? [Actually, they see themselves as leading lights of culture, but fail to see that they have been blinded by ideology!]

Benedict XVI has entrusted his new norms to the 'powerful intercession of Mary." He published them in the 90th anniversary year of the Fatima apparitions, on the First Saturday of the month (which is the day of Our Lady of Fatima), and on July 7, the same day Pius XII in 1952 finally consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the Virgin had requested. And Benedict has chosen to have his decree take effect on September 14, feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. How better to recall the 'sacrificial' nature of the Mass, which the liturgical reform of 1969 had downplayed in order to make the Mass more like a Protestant service, with the risk of losing its essence.

Benedict's act is not a 'concession' to traditionalists. It is his restoration of the Church's patrimony for the benefit of all. Papa Ratzinger is restoring to the Church the dignity of her past.

Libero, 8 luglio 2007

The problem with the Mass MP is that the issue had been so worked over in the media in preceding weeks and months that they are at a loss to come up with some new twists. The Time magazine correspondent is unable to even do that...

Why the Pope is Boosting Latin Mass
Saturday, Jul. 07, 2007
By JEFF ISRAELY/VATICAN CITY

The decree, called a motu proprio, or personal initiative of the Pontiff, was made public Saturday along with an explanatory letter to the world's bishops acknowledging the recent "news reports" and "confusion" about the lifting of restrictions for access to the old rite.

Known as the Tridentine rite - delivered in Latin with the priest usually facing the altar, his back to the congregation - the old Mass (though never banned) had effectively been replaced, following the mid-1960s reforms of the Second Vatican Council, by a liturgy recited in the vernacular.

Some Vatican insiders caution that Benedict's new ruling will simply ease restrictions on access to the old liturgy, which has continued to be followed by a small minority of traditionalists. But others predict that the decree could turn into the most explosive internal Church policy of Benedict's papacy, bound to undercut decades of reform and sharpen divisions among the faithful. Here's why both may be true.

What changes

The old Tridentine rite was never actually abolished, but local bishops had to grant approval for a priest to say the Mass. Benedict's ruling authorizes parish priests to celebrate the Tridentine rite if a "stable group of faithful" requests it, without needing their bishop's permission. It also permits the old rite for weddings, funerals and other liturgical proceedings.

Why now

For more than a year, Vatican insiders knew Benedict was keen to ease restrictions on the Tridentine mass. Indeed, in the first months of his papacy, he'd met with leaders of the "schismatic" followers of the late ultratraditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who'd split with the Vatican over the introduction of the vernacular and other Vatican II reforms.

In his explanatory letter, Benedict says this decree alone will not heal the rift, which is on "a deeper level." So the Pope seems to be showing the ultratraditionalists - who want to undo all the Vatican II reforms - that he will move, but only so far, to accommodate their concerns. Benedict also acknowledged the document required many months of "reflection, numerous consultations and prayer."

Bishops in the West, particularly in France, had shared their concerns that widening access to the old Mass would deepen the rifts and create splinter movements among their followers.

The Pope also listened to concern about how this document could affect inter-faith affairs, given the inclusion of the Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of Jews. Though much less offensive than a reference to "perfidious Jews" that Pope John XXIII eliminated in 1962, some Jewish leaders are bound to ask why, after years of growing mutual respect, the Pope would not simply excise the conversion prayer. [Another one who hasn't done his homework! The conversion prayer has been excised. It is now a completely different prayer as rewritten by Paul VI. As though Benedict would simply excise a prayer placed there by another Pope, or tinker with the Missal unilaterally, motu proprio!]

The Pope says he knows some wonder if the document calls into question the very heart of the Second Vatican Council. "This fear," Benedict declares, "is unfounded." As for the precise timing of the release of the document, one can wonder (with a wink) if it's more than coincidence that it came out just before Benedict zips out of Rome for a three-week mountain retreat. [What does that have to do with it? That he's escaping? It's not as if he were an ordinary pol the Vatican newsmen might hope to 'ambush' with a question! The precise timing had to do with wanting to make sure all the bishops around the world had received their copies, and not have to read it first in the press! Jeez, Israely is stretching for anything he can use to plant innuendo!]

Why it may not be as big a deal as it seems

In practical terms, the vast majority of Catholics - even among the most traditionalist - are unlikely to relinquish the vernacular Mass. The number of priests who have the language skills or liturgical training for the old Latin Mass is small, and likely to get smaller.

Undoubtedly reflecting his own personal experience, the 80-year-old Pope cites Catholics for whom the Tridentine rite "had been familiar to them from childhood." As those generations pass there may be ever fewer faithful who are attached to the old Mass, and Benedict is simply providing a sort of bridge for the current over-50 crowd.

Why it may be an even bigger deal than it seems

The symbolic weight of this decision may actually be heavier than the practical effect. Church progressives, and indeed some conservatives, are asking why Benedict went out of his way to reopen a hot-button issue that, for the vast majority of Catholics, has long been settled. With traditionalists emboldened and progressives feeling under siege, the Church hierarchy and local bishops may wind up caught in the crossfire. [What crossfire - if anyone can now attend the rite that he prefers? In what way, for instance, were the clergy 'caught in the crossfire' of what the media gthemselves like to call the 'culture wars' of the past 47 years since the arbitrary overhaul of the liturgy?]

Still, on a more substantive level, Benedict's real long-term objective may be a sort of "counter-reform" of the alternative practices of the new Mass rather than a widespread return to the old one. He says the Vatican II reform "was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear." This document is certainly a clear warning to those progressives who have their own ideas about reforming the Mass.

What it says about Pope Benedict

The Pope, in any case, does seem to have an affinity for the old Latin Mass, as he does generally for the Church's ancient traditions. His explanatory letter states: "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful."

Still, even as he continues to show his traditionalist stripes,
Benedict wants all corners of the Church to know that he is open to at least listen to their input. What remains to be seen is whether this latest decree is ultimately more about the future, or simply the past.

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

Americans are usually so hip about latching on to buzz words. Israely came close there when he said something about a sort of counter-reform! Why do you think no one is using the term 'reform of the reform' which this is the very emblem of????

Also, I don't understand this seeking to 'analyze' what the Pope's motives are. He's spelled them all out as clearly and as cogently and as compellingly as anyone could in his Explanatory Letter, not to mention in the past 20 years of writing and lecturing and speaking out. There's no hidden agenda!

And I'm tired of reading the rote description of the traditional Mass as 'the priest has his back to the congregation.' No! The priest, like his congregation, is facing the Eucharist in the Tabernacle - which the churches of the Novus Ordo demoted to some side room.

Fellow Benaddicts - Do you know we are listed in the New York Times's Home Page for BENEDICT XVI NEWS [their list of archival material on him]

topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/benedict_xvi/index....
under Related Sites, thus:

---

Related Sites

American Papist, Theology student in Detroit
The Benedict Blog, Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club
Catholic News Service, Top-rate news and analysis
Catholic World News, Conservative updates and commentary
Chiesa, Analysis from Sandro Magister
Council on Foreign Relations: Pope Benedict's First Twelve Months
National Catholic Reporter, Senior correspondent John L. Allen Jr.'s blog
Papa Ratzinger Forum, With English translations from Italian press
The Tablet, Venerable, liberal Catholic magazine from Britain
Amy Welborn, American Catholic blogger
Whispers in the Loggia, Vatican gossip blog from Philadelphia

---

AIN'T THAT NICE????

WAY TO GO TERESA!!!


You notice your translations are mentioned prominently in the NY Times listing. That is one HUGE benefit our forum has that others don't--news about Benedict and the church translated from a variety of other language sources.

I wonder how Rocco feels about his blog being called a gossip column.

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

Rocco brought that on himself, because when he writes about the Vatican, he almost always make it sound like it's some scuttlebutt he picked up, even if he is just 'interpreting' the bare announcements made on RINUNCE E NOMINE in the daily Vatican bulletin. And his fellow bloggers were not too happy he broke the story on what was in the MP and the Pope's letter the night before the official release, violating the embargo.....He's a kid, a precocious one, but a kid at 22.

I came across that site list because I was looking for the NYT report on the Motu Proprio as I wanted to post it here for the record - after all, I think it is a profoundly historic action B16 has taken in behalf of the Church.

If Paul VI in 1969, with a stroke of the pen, consigned the traditional Mass to a limbo where it languished for the past 47 years, then Benedict just reversed that, with a stroke of a pen as well - but instead of a negative effect, he has restored a millennial patrimony to the Church and corrected a grave historical injustice.

It's awesome, literally - and yet MSM is treating it as just another curious, marginally significant action! Moreover, how can they fail to see it in the context of everything else he has done in the past two weeks - and what he has managed to do in 26 months????

And look how 'weak' the Times headline is! 'Eases restrictions' indeed!!!! That's even one degree less than the favorite verb everyone else is using - that he has 'liberalized' the use of the Latin mass. It's more than just liberalization - it's a literal liberation! He has unshackled it from the unlegislated chains with which the progressives have managed to bind it in the past 5 decades almost, and singlehandedly rescued this treasure of the Church's tradition from fading to oblivion. [A prejudicial and unwarranted obsession about Latin has also tended to skew MSM perception on this issue, of course - as though the use of Latin was the essence rather than the vehicle of traditional liturgy.]

Even if we all knew the Pope wanted to carry out this 'reform of the reform', did anyone really expect it would be such a total revalidation of the old Mass? The media certainly did not. The only limitation on it now is beyond anyone's control after 47 years of having been reduced to inconsequence - finding enough priests who are qualified to celebrate it!

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.

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



Pope eases restrictions
on Latin Mass
By IAN FISHER
Published: July 8, 2007


ROME, July 7 - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday authorized a wider use of the old Latin Mass, dismissing fears that its revival could divide the church or dilute the reforms of the Second Vatican Council that made standard worship in the languages of Catholics around the world.

In gentle but firm language, the pope acknowledged in an accompanying letter to bishops the depth of opposition to the change, voiced in recent months by European bishops and Jewish groups. He proposed, in fact, a review after three years to determine "if truly serious difficulties come to light".

He stressed that the current Mass that was approved in 1970 would remain the standard one - and that he did not expect any widespread return to the old rite, known as the Tridentine Mass. In it, the priest faces away from the congregation and prays, sometimes in a whisper, in Latin, a language unfamiliar to most of the worlds one billion Roman Catholics.

But the pope said that the change could both heal rifts with traditionalist groups that favor the Latin Mass as well as reconnect the church with a 1,500-year-old form of worship that faded since the Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965.

"What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us, too, and it cannot be, all of a sudden, entirely forbidden or even considered harmful," he wrote.

He noted "that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them".

Amid opposition from other Jewish groups, the Anti-Defamation League condemned the change on Saturday, calling it a 'body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations'. While an earlier reference to 'perfidious Jews' was removed officially from the Tridentine Mass just before the council, which set the stage for progressively better relations between Jews and Catholics, the group condemned a remaining prayer on Good Friday calling for Jews' conversion.

"We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly 40 years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday Mass, that it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted," Abraham H. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League's president, said in a statement. [Foxman has become such a professional anti-Catholic carper - he shoots from the lip the first chance he gets and doesn't even bother to check his facts. But then neither does Mr. Fisher, who reports a false statement unchallenged, when there is objective fact to belie it!]

For several months, church officials have signaled the pope's decision, and so the announcement on Saturday was expected and more notable for the specifics.

As expected, the pope removed a rule requiring a local bishop's permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, approved in its current form in 1962.

In his letter, Pope Benedict took pains to assure bishops that the decision would not "in any way lessen your own authority and responsibility", though priests or parishioners could under the decision say the Latin Mass even if a bishop opposed it. The pope said in his letter that the local bishop remained 'the moderator' of the form of worship in their dioceses.

The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, a French group that broke with the Vatican over the Latin Mass and other issues surrounding the council, hailed the decision, saying in a statement that it 'rejoices' in seeing the church 'regain her liturgical tradition'.

Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, chairman of the bishops' conference in France, where the opposition to the wider use of the Mass was strongest, told reporters that he did not expect many more requests for the Latin Mass.

"I don't see a tsunami coming," he said, according to Agence France-Presse.

[In fairness to Cardinal Ricard, I just read an account of a news conference he gave today and of his written statement about the MP - and even if interspersed with some dismissive remarks like the above that betray his anti-MP bias, he does convey what the Pope does in his explanatory letter.]



And here's the LA Times story - out of the same cookie-cutter, except it gives even more play to that character Foxman's misplaced paranoia:


Pope elevates Latin Mass

Benedict authorizes wider use.
Traditionalists are pleased,
but others see an erosion of Vatican II reforms.

By Tracy Wilkinson and Rebecca Trounson
Times Staff Writers
July 8, 2007


Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday authorized wider use of the long-marginalized Latin Mass, a move that delighted Roman Catholic traditionalists but worried others who fear the erosion of important church reforms.

Revival of the old service, which had been largely supplanted by the modernizing spirit of the Second Vatican Council, also angered Jewish groups because it contains a passage calling for the conversion of Jews.

In a decree known as a motu propio, essentially a personal decision, the pope urged priests to celebrate a 1962 version of the 16th century Tridentine Mass when their congregations request it.

Until now, priests could use the Latin Mass only with permission from their bishops, which was not always forthcoming.

The much-anticipated decision, nearly two years in the making, is an attempt to win back disaffected conservatives and to unite the church, Vatican officials said. It is also a reflection of Benedict's personal preference for traditional liturgy and incantations in Latin, a language he extols as beautiful and holy.

"What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful," the pope wrote in the decree.

But his announcement risks alienating some faithful. It could sow rather than mend divisions, undermine other reforms and harm interfaith relations, several church leaders and Catholic experts said. [How exactly will it alienate more faithful? The ones who favor tradition are happy. And the ones who are invested in the New Mass aren't affected in any way at all- the Pope's not imposing anything on them or having them change anything in their own habits or taking anything away from them! So how does ii sow divisions? How does it 'harm interfaith relations'? What do other faiths have to do with how Catholics worship? We don't tell them how to worship!]

The Tridentine Mass was largely replaced by newer liturgy approved during the Second Vatican Council, which took place from 1962 to 1965. In the newer rite, local languages replaced Latin, priests faced their congregations instead of turning their backs on them, and some wording deemed offensive to Jews was changed.

Attempting to reassure the doubters, Benedict said Saturday that since both the Tridentine Mass and the more modern liturgy would be available, there should be no concern that the church was turning back the clock.

"This fear is unfounded," he said in a letter to the world's bishops that accompanied his decree.

Benedict noted that the older liturgy was never outlawed; rather, he wrote, it fell out of favor in part because some bishops thought its use would challenge the broader Vatican II reforms.

But the reforms were sometimes misinterpreted as "authorizing or even requiring creativity," he wrote, deforming the liturgy and driving people from the church.

"I am speaking from experience, since I too lived through that period with all its hopes and its confusion," wrote the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, longtime watchdog of church dogma. "And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the church."

The Tridentine Mass, named for the 1545 Council of Trent, which spent two decades codifying the Latin rite from earlier liturgies, will not become common, the pope said, because so few people can speak or work in Latin. The Vatican II version remains the predominant form.

Benedict dismissed arguments that the existence of two versions might splinter the church.

"It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were 'two rites.' Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite," he wrote.

The pope has long held that suppressing the old liturgy essentially set one version against the other, said Father Thomas Rausch, a theologian at Loyola Marymount University who is writing a book about Benedict's theological outlook.

"He sees that as a wound and he wants to heal it," Rausch said.

Some of the strongest criticism Saturday came from proponents of interfaith dialogue and from Jewish organizations. Although references to "perfidious Jews" have been removed from the old liturgy, its Good Friday prayers contain a call for the conversion of the Jews and for God to lift the "veil from their hearts" so that they might know Jesus Christ. [WRONG, WRONG, WRONG - That, too, has been superseded. Please do your homework and not sow more misinformation!]

"This is a theological setback in the religious life of Catholics and a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations," Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who is in Rome for meetings with Vatican officials, said in a prepared statement. "It is the wrong decision at the wrong time." [And you sir, are a sanctimonious blabbermouth who should check your facts first before being so sententious. We also have a Catholic Anti-Defamation League now. You, of all people, should be careful before defaming others!]

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

Has anyone seen if Newsweek has weighed in already? I couldn't find anything in their current online edition.

This is a most helpful local map of the Cadore area which also shows its location relative to the rest of the Italian
northeast. I picked it up from Beatrice's blog and have gone in retrospectively to post it at least once on every page
containing accounts of the Pope's vacation in Lorenzago, for everyone's orientation whenever place names are mentioned.

Thanks to Lella's blog for these items from the regional newspapers of the Italian Northeast.

Here are translations:

This morning in Corriere delle Alpi:

Pope Benedict arrives at Treviso airport today, a little after 11 a.m. He was to be welcomed by the president of the Veneto region, Giancarlo Galan; the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, and the Bishop of Treviso, Mons. Andrea Mazzocato.

Then he was to transfer to a helicopter for the flight to Lorenzago, expected to touch down at a tennis court around 12 noon. In Lorenzago to welcome him : the Bishop of Belluno-Feltre, Mons. Giuseppe Andrich; the president of Belluno province, the mayor of Lorenzago, the parish priest and other town officials.

The papal motorcade will proceed to the center of town, where the Pope will be welcomed by children. And then on to the villa inside the grounds of Castello Mirabello, owned by the diocese of Treviso.

Accredited jorunalists and cameramen will be allowed to accompany him so they can take pictures of the vacation house, where John Paul II stayed during his six vacations in Lorenzago.

His private secretary and two sisters in charge of his household will stay in the villa with the Pope. Serving as his valet during this vacation is his former valet (and John Paul's) - Angelo Gugel, who retired last year. But he is from Treviso and apparently is taking over the during this vacation from Paolo who replaced him.


From Gazzettino del Nordest, 7/8/07:


Children in traditional costumes of the Cadore, with rhododendrons and St. John lilies, will join officials to welcome Benedict XVI who has chosen Lorenzago di Cadore for his summer vacations this year. Today and tomorrow, church bells in all the region will peal at noon.

Starting at noon tomorrow, the Pope will be resting and relaxing in the shadow of the Dolomite Alps as a guest of our province. On a vacation which, as the Bishop of Belluno-Feltre, Mons. Giuseppe Andrich, said, is a three-week period of rest. In near-monastic style.

But this is not his first time here. The Pope himself recalled, during a recent meeting at the Vatican with Mons. Giorgio Lise, that he first visited Pedavena as a young priest with three other colleagues, because the manager of a brewery was a family friend.

The second time he was in Belluno itself, the capital, and stayed at the Gregorian seminary. And by chance, as he learned later, he was given the room that used to be that of Mons. Albino Luciani (who became John Paul I) when he was a lecturer at the seminary.

And the most recent was in 2004 when the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made a two-day visit. It was October 16 and he came to the Papa Luciani Center at Col Cumano, to present his book "Fede, verita, tolleranza" (Faith, truth, tolerance) before a huge audience.

He had been invited to the center by its cultural coordinator, Fr. Michelangelo de Dona, who, along with journalist Antonio Socci, introduced the cardinal to the crowd.

The following day, Sunday, the Bavarian cardinal - whose mother's family comes from Val Pusteria in Alto Adige - came to Belluno to concelebrate a Tridentine Mass in the cathedral at Belluno. After an interview with some journalists and a meeting with priests, he proceeded to visit the diocesan sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes at 1000 meters altitude in the Nevegal.

Before that, he spent some time in the piazza by the cathedral where he watched children playing football, part of an autumn sports festival.

He mixed with the crowd and he was heard to say, "The most beautiful vacations are those spent in the mountains." Noticing that many houses had boats in the front yard, he asked if there were many lakes around.

Meanwhile, a Parliament deputy representing Belluno says that in September 2005, he had written the Pope "in the name of the people of Cadore, province of Belluno" inviting him to spend his next vacation 'amidst our mountains', recalling the peaceful vacations spent by John Paul II at Lorenzago. But he also said, "Your presence here would benefit a territory which has just had a terrible economic downfall and need some encouragement so they can recover self-confidence in the tourism potential of the province."

On Sept. 29, Paniz received a reply from Arcbishop Leonardo Sandri, who was then the deputy Secretary of State or Sostituto. Sandri said the Holy Father appreciated the invitation, thanked him for it and would keep it in mind.

In 2006, however, the Pope returned to Les Combes in Val d'Aosta. This time, even if one year later than Paniz had expected, he will be in Cadore for three weeks
.

From Corriere delle Alpi:

LORENZAGO - Exactly 30 years ago, papa Wojtyla came to Lorenzago for the first time. Tomorrow, Benedict XVI will be arriving here for the first time.

Mayor Tremonti, who had welcomed John Paul II for six vacations, is emotional about welcoming another Pope. He said that he ad assured Vatican officials who had visited earlier to look at security and housing arrangements, "We will leave him in peace to enjoy the monastic-style vacation he has said he wishes to have."

Nevertheless, Tremonti says he has received over a thousand letters from local people requesting a private audience with the Pope.

Lorenzago, at the foot of Mount Cridola, is at its festive best. A rcord number of summer visitors have arrived. The town is all decked in the flags of the Vatican and Italy, yellow and white flowers for the papal colors, and red geraniums all over the place.

Yesterday, a giant billboard with the pictures of the two Popes against Mt. Cridola in the background was set up at the main highway into town with the words, "Lorenzago di Cadore, summer destination of the Popes".

The patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, the top Catholic prelate in the northeastern region called the Tri-Veneto area, published a letter of welcome for the Holy Father today:

"Beatissmo Padre, Most Blessed Father, all of us, men and women of the Northeast, are very proud to be your hosts for several days of well-earned rest in our territory. You will be able to enjoy once more the fascination of the Dolomites, authentic cathedrals of nature; to admire the infinite nuances of the greenery in our woods; to look at the flowers, listen to birds, meet our people - although we assure you that we are most conscious as hosts that our first duty is to leave you in peace."

Scola thanked everyone who has been working to prepare for the Pope's visit: the dioceses of Treviso and Belluno, the civil and military authorities of the region, and the people.

"How can the Successor of Peter, physically present in our midst, not exercise by his presence alone, a beneficial effect by making us come to terms with the sense of life, of our individual lives? Holiness, we will not waste this great occasion for spiritual development during your time with us."

A press center in Lorenzago opened yesterday. The local government asked Mons. Andrich's spokesman, Fr. Giuseppe Bratti, to take charge of it. Bratti said there are already many European correspondents in Lorenzago, 'especially from Germany'.




Lorenzago is on the upper right margin of the green area (Belluno province)
about 1 cm on this map from the Austrian border.
Brown area on the right map is the Veneto region.
www.multimap.com/maps/?&t=l&map=46.4786,12.4577|15|4&loc=IT:46.4786:12.4577:15#t=l&map=45.68848,11.73706|8|4&loc=IT:46.4786:12...
The nearest big city to Lorenzago is Venice.


The villa where the Pope will be staying in Lorenzago
is at the site of the Castello di Mirabello (lower right part of town map, marked #17).

Lella provides us with a video link of the arrival:
www.skylife.it/application/html/443/singolo_cronaca_44...








And PETRUS has the first bulletin from ASCA, translated here:

LORENZAGO DI CADORE - "My thoughts go every day to Fr. Bossi," Pope Benedict told newsmen who welcomed him on his arrival here for his annual summer vacation.

"I spoke with the Sostituto [the new Deputy Secretary of State, Mons. Fernando Filone, who was the Nuncio the Philippines until his new appointment last month] the other day and he gave me the latest available news. Let us hope and pray that the Lord helps us."

Fr. Gianfranco Bossi, a missionary from the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, was abducted by armed men from his parish in Zamboanga, southern Philippines, on June 10. [Yesterday, the Philippine government said it had reason to believe Bossi was in the hands of an Al Qaeda faction based in southern Philippines. The abductors sent photographs of a notably thinner Fr. Bossi to one of his friends by cellphone last week.]



The Pope arrived in Lorenzago by helicopter around 12:30 after a flyover reconnaissance of the little town at the foot of the Dolomites and the nearby grounds of Castello Mirabello where the Pope will be staying during his vacation which lasts till July 27.

He was greeted by hundreds of townspeople and tourists. He stopped to greet many of them, including the children who welcomed him with flowers, and the newsmen who were present.


Other bits and pieces reported by the ANSA and ASCA so far:

Is he writing Part 2 of the JESUS book?
"I hope I can write some pages here....It's in God's hands. I don't know."

Is he working on a new encyclical?
"Yes, that too."

So there will be a new encyclical?
"Oh yes, eventually!"

To the children who welcomed him:
"Finally, here in the mountains! Away from the city, away from daily routine.
Here I will study and pray, I will meditate and rest."


[See preparatory stories from Lorenzago in preceding post]


AP makes the most of the snippets above to file this report:

Pope to write new book while on vacation
BY NICOLE WINFIELD



LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy, July 9 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI said Monday he plans to use his nearly three-week-long vacation in the Italian mountains to write a new book and said he was also preparing a new encyclical.

Benedict spoke briefly to reporters as he arrived at a church-owned villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in the mountains near Italy's border with Austria. He said he hopes to work on the second volume of the book JESUS OF NAZARETH. The first volume was published earlier this year.

"It's in God's hands," he said. "I hope to write some pages here."

The first volume, Benedict's first book as pontiff, offers a personal meditation on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The second volume is expected to explore the birth of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection.

Benedict was asked if he would use his time in between hikes through the mountains to also prepare a new encyclical. He laughed in response but said, "Yes, eventually."

Encyclicals are the most authoritative documents popes can issue. Benedict has only written one to date: "God is Love," an exploration of love and charity that focused on the different types of love  erotic and unconditional  that Benedict says are joined in marriage between man and woman.

The vacation comes after a busy few weeks for the 80-year-old pontiff. Over the weekend, he issued his eagerly expected document liberalizing the old Latin Mass, and a week before that he issued a letter to the Catholic faithful in China, urging them to unite.

On his first full day of vacation, another important document will be issued as well, this one from his old office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

As he arrived during a break in thunderstorms, the pope was also asked if he was thinking of the Rev. Giancarlo Bossi, an Italian missionary kidnapped in the Philippines. Benedict said the priest, seized by gunmen in the southern Mindanao region on June 10, was in his daily prayers.

"We hope and pray that the Lord helps us," he said.

Pope John Paul II frequently visited the home in the Dolomite mountains, although in his later years he moved west, to the Alps close to Italy's border with France. Benedict spent his first two summers as pope at that retreat in Valle D'Aosta, but this year he chose to come to Lorenzago, which had not hosted a pope since 1998.

Benedict said he was glad to be in the mountains "far from the city and all the things that go on every day."

"I can rest, study and pray," he said.

He can also play the piano. The house where he is staying has been recently renovated  and it has been outfitted with a baby grand piano. Benedict is an accomplished pianist; his favorite composer is Mozart.

Benedict's vacation here continues until July 27, after which he moves to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome. While here, he will have two public appearances to recite his traditional Sunday noon blessings.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls who was with Pope Benedict XVI as Vatican press director during the Pope's first vacation in Les Combes, Val D'Aosta, in July 2005, was also a guest of the Pope for a few days in July 2006, after Navarro-Valls had retired the position he occupied for 22 years. He wrote this article for today's issue of La Repubblica. Here is a translation.




The style of his vacations:
Music, books and nature
By JOAQUIN NAVARRO-VALLS



People who take walks in the mountains are generally advised to walk with a steady rhythm, without losing pace or stopping too often. This expert advice is a splendid metaphor for living, and it is the same impression that I observed most of the time during the days I spent with Benedict XVI in Val d'Aosta - in the silence that envelops the villa where the Holy Father spent his first two summer vacations as Pope.

The cool mountain air and the extensive panorama of the Alps, dominated by Mont Blanc, were most pleasant aspects of the limited time the Pope has for a holiday. But in a way, one might say, he followed the sage advice to mountain walkers to the letter`- days of tranquillity and perseverance. And will be doing so again this year.

In Les Combes, the Pope woke up very early, spending much time in prayer before celebrating morning Mass. After breakfast, he would spend at least 10 minutes at his piano - something he does not do at the Vatican. And throughout the day, one was likely to hear a few minutes of melody coming from that modest little upright piano in the villa. And then again at night, before he went to bed.

But most of his day was dedicated to his other passion: writing. Although it is true that this may have to do with his work as Pope and as theologian, I think that the time he devotes to writing is never just, for him, compliance with duty, but something more profound, something constitutive of his intellectual character, of what I have called his pastoral ministry of intelligence.

It is true that on those Alpine slopes, Benedict XVI wrapped up work on a book he started as a cardinal three summers earlier on vacation in Bressanone, another Alpine resort, resulting in the book on Jesus we now all know about. But one can say with certainty that his writing activity was not limited to that.

Afternoons were also spent reading and writing, with a 'work interruption' to deal with important correspondence from the Vatican - documents to sign, or dossiers to review.

Of course, on vacation, he does not have his private library nor immediate access to rare references such as are available when he is at the Vatican. But this provides the intellectual with valuable opportunities to use the lack of texts and ready references, for more concentrated reflection and to synthesize his thoughts - an ideal situation for finishing off works that are already under way.

The Pope stopped working in the early evenings to take a a long walk in the mountains - further opportunity to reflect further on his work or for meditating in the woods. Time to pray the rosary. Stopping often to pick wild fruits - blueberries, raspberries, wild currants. Even those of us who sometimes went with him on these walks derived childlike pleasure from these.

These daily excursions were also an opportunity for the Pope for unexpected encounters - making small talk with villagers - or chatting with us about current events till dinnertime.

His apparent distance from any center of activity was by no means a cut-off from reality. Benedict's constant interest in what takes place in the world is, of course, more than just his personal attitude or character trait, but something that corresponds to a fundamental element of his mission as Pope.

A Pope on vacation demonstrates the impossibility of separating the person and his role even for a moment. His institutional role necessarily defines him interiorly as well.

And this was clearly felt at the Sunday Angelus, his only scheduled public activity on vacation. He projects his constant interest and concern for the drama of humanity, something he does not abandon at all during the private moments on vacation.

Over the years, I have realized that a Pope is really never on vacation. He carries the institution within him, firmly imprinted
from the time he assumes it to the last moment of his life.

Before John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Leo the Great referred several times in his letters to this unique relationship between the immutable nature of the papacy and the historic individual identity of the man who represents it. Being the Pope is something tattooed indelibly on the soul, and is not a garment one takes off at night then puts back on in the morning.

St. Pier Damiani has said this means it is impossible for the Pope to detach his personal "I" from the universal "We" of the Church. This arises from the intimate union that indissolubly ties the mission of the Pope to the personal history of an individual. That is why no Pope can be considered transitional, or rather all Popes are, in the way all men are, having to live out the days we are allotted, not one minute more or less.

In Lorenzago, Benedict will keep his habits of serenity and perseverance. What pages will he write, in what scenery and in what ways will he be reflecting these days on that mystery that he carries in him, from which he cannot and would not ever be detached?


Repubblica, 9 luglio 2007

The white baseball cap

Thanks for the photo of Papa in the quilted jacket and baseball cap, Teresa. I always thought he looked really cute in that outfit.

It's that time of year when papal vacation attire becomes the news of the day. We've seen the ball cap, the quilted jacket, the sunglasses, the hiking boots. Will there be something new on the scene this year? Clean off your binoculars, girls. Time to do a little spying.

Quite by chance, there's an article in today's La Stampa, thanks to Lella's blog, that talks about Pope Benedict's style - but not his casual wear. Rather, his deliberate choices in papal wear and external forms are seen as an objective correlative to his adherence to tradition. An analogy is suggested to Paul VI's decision to dump a number of medieval Papal perks.


Benedict's quiet revolution:
The power of symbols
in the age of global TV
By FILIPPO DI GIACOMO

That Papa Ratzinger always intended to convey a Catholic message even in external forms has been quite clear from the first days of his Pontificate.

Even if the papal tailors did not have a ceremonial surplice with sleeves long enough to hide the sleeves of the ordinary black sweater the new Pope was wearing on April 19, 2005. There was never going to be another sartorial hitch after the Pope's first special audience two days later when his cassock was too short.

In his first winter as Pope, Benedict dusted off the galero or saturno (the wide-brimmed red hat with tasteful gold trim that had been Roman ecclesiastic tradition); the camauro and winter mozzetta (the ermine-trimmed Papal bonnet and capelet, respectively); and the greca (the long white cashmere overcoat much favored by Pius XII).
The camauro was last worn by John XXIII, and the winter mozzetta by Paul VI, although John Paul II had used the galero and the greca on rare occasions.

It was as if Benedict wished to project visibly the external signs of a pontifical tradition that was unsuitable for the media whirlwind of John Paul II's pontificate.

And there was Vatican gossip about it too. The winter mozzetta was supposedly a gift from three monsignor-friends of Georg Gaenswein (or alternatively from the Princesses Borghese and Thurn--und-Taxis). The gold-trimmed ceremonial stole from a 'liturgy master' seeking to curry favor. The surplices from the lacemakers of Cantu...
[One would think the Church did not have a budget to provide for its Pope's garments.]

Gossip which, even if true, would simple be matter of fact for any member of the Roman Curia. But regardless of their provenance, when these are worn by the Pope, they come under the scrutiny of the world, through the merciless eye of TV, that unwitting historical witness that has enabled the faithful around the world to follow and participate in the life of the Church and their Pope.

Had there been global TV on December 8, 1965, at the closing ceremonies of the Second Vatican Council, the world would have noted that Paul VI had chosen to complete his abandonment of Pontifical Roman liturgy in favor of something purely episcopal. In the preceding years since he became Pope in 1963, Papa Montini had gradually done away with the Pontifical court, reduced the papal cortege to purely liturgical use, simplified the honorific vestments of prelates, and decreed liturgical garments patterned after those in use before the Council of Trent.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1965, Paul VI presented himself to the world simply as the Bishop of Rome, an austere pastoral image of the papacy. [How exactly did he do that? The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, and he has no distinctive garments as such. Did he choose to preside at the Marian prayers in Piazza Spagna without stole and mozzetta?]

Flash forward to December 22, 2005, at the Pauline Hall of the Apostolic Palace. Benedict XVI presided at his first Christmas meeting with the Roman Curia from a golden 'throne' from which, in the past, dignitaries came forward to kiss Pius XII's ring in traditional homage.

He was dressed in ceremonial surplice, winter mozzetta, a jeweled pectoral Cross from the treasury of St. Peter's Sacristy, and a wine-red ceremonial stole gold-embroidered with the Keys of St. Peter and the papal coat of arms. The only post-conciliar item of papal wear were the red leather moccasins - which, contrary to gossip that they are designer shoes, are handcrafted by a Vincenzan cobbler patronized by Paul VI after he decided not to use the buckled red satin slippers that had been prescribed papal shoes for liturgical ceremonies.

No one in the Curia was surprised at Benedict's sartorial choices. They complemented the quiet changes he had been working on papal liturgies.

From the very beginning, it was obvious Benedict would never put up with, much less participate, in the kind of babbling confusion of styles that had characterized some Vatican ceremonies that had been broadcast on global TV in the past.

For example, he chose to say his inaugural Mass in Latin, with polyphonic music composed for the occasion by the Sistine Chapel choirmaster. Antiphons and hymns were in magnificent Gregorian chant, and the Mass ended with Bach's great Toccata and Fugue.

In the Catholic Church, rite and ritual mean discipline. Canonists could not restrain from smiling while reading the normative parts of the Pope's Motu Proprio on the Mass. It was the first papal document in 40 years - drawing from the pluralism of tradition as well as Vatican-II - to elicit a Thank-You from the tradition-bound followers of Mons. Lefebvfre. It may not seem very much, but it was the first time it happened in four decades.

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

Fr. Di Giacomo has an interesting premise, but I wish he had developed it more linearly and directly, rather than elliptically and suggestively as he did. Lella points out, by the way, that the RAI birthday documentary on Benedict had a similar analysis in its section about 'the style of Benedict."

An Underground Priest's
First Impressions On Papal Letter

HONG KONG, July 6 (UCAN) - A Catholic priest in his 30s, who asks to be identified as "a Priest from the Underground Church," has written his impressions of the letter Pope Benedict XVI recently issued for Catholics in mainland China.

The writer in northern China was trained in underground seminaries in China and has studied abroad. He asked not to be named in the commentary he wrote for UCA News on July 2, two days after the pope's letter was published.

The priest analyzes the situation and expresses thanks for the papal letter. He supports the pope's call for unity and reconciliation among all Catholics in China, and draws special attention to the vexing issue of clergy from open and underground Catholic communities concelebrating the Eucharist.

For the priest, the papal letter's only disappointment is that it fails to mention a single word about the clergy who continue to suffer in prison.

UCA News has translated the original Chinese text as follows:


First impressions about
"Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI
to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated persons
and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church
in the People's Republic of China"


The long awaited papal letter has finally been released. The pope's letter touches on various aspects of Church life in China. It cannot be simply summarized in a few articles of reflection, nor can its impact on the Church in China be explained in a few commentaries.

This letter undoubtedly will have a decisive impact on the future development of the Church in China. Now, I would like to express some of my personal feelings and views.


1. All through the letter, the pastor of the Universal Church and the successor of Saint Peter expresses concern for the faithful in China. He is willing to share the joy and hope, worries and anxieties of the Church there.

This will bring about much spiritual happiness to the Chinese Catholics. We can feel we are an important part of the Universal Church. We can feel his pastoral care and deeply feel that communion of the Church is not an empty concept. We know that we actually live in the communion of the Church.

2. For more than 50 years, the Church in China could not experience normal development. Therefore, the pope in this letter hopes to see the Church in China, in the process of overcoming many difficulties, slowly moving toward normal and full development.

Whether in revoking the faculties or in teaching various sectors among the faithful (bishops, priests, families), he expresses concern about the urgent problems the Church in China faces and points out how the Church can move toward healthy and normal development.

3. The most urgent mission of the Church in China is now reconciliation. Reconciliation means we look to Jesus Christ together in truth and charity. Such adoration and focus demand that we abandon past prejudices so as to sit down and engage in true dialogue.

If the Church is like a real person and we are to live together in communion with Christ, then the present situation in the Church in China can and must be altered first by you and me. We have to sit down and listen to one another. In communion with Christ, we must accept one another. We actually are one body.

Our quarrels and confrontation are definitely not what Christ wants. We need to sit down in love and truth - even better, in the truth of love and in the love of truth - so that we can pursue sincere dialogue. We should not look at each other's attitude.

I must first sit down unconditionally. To have the other sit down, I first must sit down. The only way to have the other listen to me is for me first to listen to the other. The only way to avoid quarrel is for me not to quarrel. Of course, I do this not to make the other sit down but because he and I are in communion with Christ and we live in the same Church of Christ.

In such dialogue of unity, it is equally dreadful to forget about love and to forget about truth. The pope has reiterated the truth of the Church in this letter. At the same time, he points out the concrete demand of love.

To brothers in communion with the pope and the bishops' conferences of the Universal Church, I should open my heart completely. This carries us to the question of "concelebration." Perhaps some members of the "underground" Church will find this hard to accept for the present. We should put aside personal prejudices and personal views and bear in mind the Church of Christ.

4. Regarding the legal aspect and actual reality, objectively speaking, it is clear that religious freedom (including freedom of belief and freedom of movement) promulgated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not yet fully observed in China.

As a priest in the "unofficial" Church, I personally believe the reason for our existence is to uphold human beings' vocation and continuous struggle for the fundamental rights of religious freedom. Different voices should be allowed and even encouraged within the Church. Diversity will only enrich Church life.

The true value of the "underground" Church's existence is the weak but real voice it utters. It is the voice of human conscience. While not denying the government's efforts to achieve religious freedom in the past 30 years, we have to admit that China still has a long way to go to achieve the generally accepted international standard.

5. As part of its normal development, a religious community will definitely relate to the local government directly or indirectly. Normal Church life cannot lack contact with the government authorities. Examples include recognition of the clergy and granting permission for venues of religious activities. However, the prerequisite is that the government should protect normal religious activities rather than control them.

6. As for Sino-Vatican relations, the pope clearly expresses his sincere desire to dialogue with Chinese authorities. The ball is now in the hands of the Chinese government to decide whether to express the same sincerity for dialogue.

From a practical point of view, if the government continues to use the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) - nominally an internal organization of the Church in China but actually a tool the government uses to control the Church - to lead the China Church, this would clearly indicate that the government is unwilling to have real dialogue. In the long run, if China and the Vatican are to establish diplomatic relations, the CCPA is a card that the government can afford to sacrifice.

7. The papal letter mentions not a single word about bishops and priests still in prison. I personally think this is really an imperfection.

We do not call on the pope to give much support to these suffering brothers in his letter since Church history tells us that those who give their lives and blood for their faith in any country subsequently have no important position at the negotiation table. Nor do we want to fight for anything in particular. For the sake of unity and for the good of the Church, we can put that aside and endure in silence.

However, the fact that the pope, as pastor of the Universal Church, does not even mention those still suffering in his letter is frustrating and shocking. We would not ask the pope to offend the Chinese government by mentioning it, nor request any special rights. We only want assurance that the Universal Church has not totally abandoned these people who are suffering, in silence. This is just a humble request.

Two reactions reported by UCAN to Pope Benedict XVI's two most important initiatives in the past two weeks - and in his young Pontificate so far - called my attention to the fact that both the Pope's letter to Chinese Catholics and the Motu Proprio on the Mass had the common - and very passionately articulated - theme of unity and reconciliation within the Catholic Church itself.

First, UCAN reports on Indian Cardinal Toppo's reaction to the MP, and there follows two excellent reactions to the Chinese letter.

I find the analysis by a Belgian expert on the problems of the Church in China very informative and illuminating - and leads me to wonder about recent statements made by Cardinal Zen of Hongkong which appear to contradict the papal letter on a very important point - the need for the Chinese underground to surface.

UCAN also has an analysis by an 'underground' priest in China who gets the point about 'unity and reconciliation' but faults the Pope for failing to mention anything about Chinese priests in prison.

I must thank Lori for posting UCAN (Union of Catholic Asian News) stories lately that have called my attention to the valuable service that this agency is doing in Asia and for reporting of Church news in Asia - an excellent complement actually to the AsiaNews service.



VATICAN
Pope Wants To Bring About Unity In Church
With Motu Proprio, Says Indian Cardinal
By Gerard O'Connell, Special Correspondent in Rome

ROME, July 9 (UCAN) -- Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi sees Pope Benedict XVI's decree authorizing wide use of the Latin-language liturgy in use before the Second Vatican Council as inspired by God's desire for unity in the Church.

"I think the motu proprio is the work of the Holy Spirit, who is moving the Church, through the Holy Father, to bring about unity and harmony among Catholics," he told UCA News in Rome.

Cardinal Toppo heads the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, which comprises bishops from the Latin-rite and two Oriental Churches -- Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara -- that form the Indian Catholic Church.

He spoke to UCA News in Rome, where he heard Pope Benedict explain the motu proprio on June 27 at a Vatican meeting called by Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The Vatican published the decree, which the pope issued "on his own initiative," the literal meaning of motu proprio, on July 7. It takes effect on Sept. 14 and allows priests to celebrate the earlier liturgy, often called the Tridentine Mass, as an "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite without requiring their bishops' permission.

"I think the Holy Father is trying to find a solution to accommodate all the different groups in the Church," Cardinal Toppo said.

"He wants all believers, especially this group, the Saint Pius X Society, which was once part of the Catholic Church but broke away, to be reconciled with the successor of Peter. He feels convinced that with this accommodation there will be unity," the cardinal explained.

In this way, he qualified, no one needs to lose. "Rather, it is to find a solution acceptable to all concerned, a 'win-win' situation."

Some charge the motu proprio takes power from bishops.

It "may create problems in some places," Cardinal Toppo acknowledged, but "the intent is pastoral, not juridical." He said the pope as leader of the college of bishops "is highlighting certain things for the sake of unity and harmony, for the good of the whole Church."

Furthermore, the cardinal called the decree "encouraging" for ecumenism because it affirms "unity in diversity."

In his view, the Holy Father is affirming "there was nothing wrong with" the way all Catholics worshipped before Vatican Council II. But while the pope accepts the way of worship that emerged from the post-conciliar reforms, the cardinal continued, "there are groups who are still sticking to the Tridentine Mass."

According to the Indian prelate, "the Holy Father is telling us, 'Let us for the sake of unity allow this group to worship the way it wants and encourage it to preserve the treasures of the Church we had in the past.'"

The cardinal does not see the motu proprio creating a problem in India, where it might even help in "forestalling or preventing certain problems."

He cited the example of opposing groups in the Syro-Malabar Church. One group "is traditional or conservative - the original grouping -- and one is like the post-Vatican II Latin rite."

With the pope's decree, he said, "you can see how to accommodate both, since both are authentic ways of worshipping." Nothing is lost this way, he continued. "It is one rite, not two rites. It is one rite with two ways of expression."

Nonetheless, the cardinal does not see much interest for the Tridentine Mass among Catholics in India except in Mumbai, "where there is a small group that has such an interest." But he pointed out they "were already allowed to celebrate, so it never created a problem."

He also does not foresee any great push for a return to the pre-Vatican II liturgy in the rest of the continent. "In Asia we have been living in diversity, with so many religions and cultures and ethnic groups. Consequently, this kind of issue would not create a problem. It is not a question of uniformity; it is a question of unity in diversity," he added.

"Most of Asia has moved with Vatican II, so we look ahead, Cardinal Toppo said. "Wherever we have these groups who appreciate and like the Tridentine Mass and that way of worship, they will be accommodated. That is what the Holy Father is asking. I see no problem here."



Pope's Letter Begins New Phase
in China Church History

LEUVEN, Belgium, July 6 (UCAN) -- An expert on the Catholic Church in China says the letter that Pope Benedict XVI recently issued to Chinese Catholics has opened a new page of Church history in the mainland.

Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, a member of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and director of Ferdinand Verbiest Institute at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, applauds the letter for clearly answering important pastoral questions that have long perplexed mainland Catholics.

The priest, who often visits China, says in a UCA News commentary that China's Catholics and government have awaited the letter anxiously, and many Church people now find its pastoral guidelines even more concrete than they had anticipated.

The commentary Father Heyndrickx wrote for UCA News follows:


The Beginning of a New Phase
in the History of the Church in China:
Reflections on Letter of Pope Benedict XVI
to the Church in China



The pastoral letter of Pope Benedict XVI to the Catholic Church in China, published on June 30, is remarkable and historic for its content and style.

The pope speaks like a father to the Chinese Catholics and with respect to Chinese authorities, and he puts forward clear principles to both of them.

In carefully chosen words, he expresses his understanding of the sufferings of the "underground community," which refuses to cooperate with the government, but also for the "official community" and for its decision to cooperate.

He expresses some fundamental theological principles asking both communities to reconcile, and he calls on civil authorities to enter into dialogue beyond the misunderstandings of the past.

The letter is remarkable for its content because it gives a clear answer to the burning pastoral questions that have divided the Chinese Church internally for 20 years. Only Rome can clarify the confusing discussions of the past.

I understand the meaning of the pope's letter as follows:

There is only one Chinese Catholic Church and it is faithful to the Holy See. Bishops and priests of both communities may concelebrate, but the pope encourages them first to express among themselves their unity by a profession of faith. For the Church to live underground is not a normal situation. There is at present no longer any reason to keep an underground Church community going in China. The pope, therefore, revokes all privileges that were conferred to China's underground community in the past. Chinese faithful may also take part in the Eucharist of priests of the official Church community.

The pope expresses these pastoral guidelines after he, in the first part of his 26-page text (English version), exposes at length some basic theological principles on the communion of particular Churches with the universal Church, reconciliation, and the need for dialogue and cooperation in charity and truth between Church and state, while giving to God and to Caesar respectively what belongs to each.

The pope promised in January that he would write a letter to the Catholic Church in China. Since then, they awaited this letter impatiently, and so did civil authorities. There was even some tension. All planned ordinations and other important Church activities were postponed "until after the letter of the pope," even if it was not said in just those words.

The causes of this uncertainty in China were calls expressed outside the mainland for confrontation with Chinese authorities, as well as last year's illicit episcopal ordinations in China at which Chinese bishops recognized by Rome had been forced to participate.

Everybody wondered: will the pope's letter threaten to apply canonical sanctions for illicit ordinations that may happen in the future? Or will the letter instead be a friendly though urgent call for unity and dialogue?

The large majority of Catholics in remote places in China's countryside had other concerns. The vital question for them has existed for decades: yes or no, may we participate in the Eucharistic celebration of the "open" (official) Church communities? Do we commit a mortal sin if we do, as we were taught?

So much confusion has been caused by what was said, preached and written about these questions that only the highest Church authority could give a clear answer. This is what happened in the pastoral letter. The pope says there: only one Catholic Church exists in China. Let Chinese Catholics peacefully celebrate the Eucharist together.

But there is more in the letter. The pope admonishes the official bishops appointed by the Holy See to make their appointment public. They apparently did not make that sufficiently clear in the past. The pope does not speak a warning language to bishops ordained without papal appointment, but he does ask them to clarify their relation to Successor of Peter now. Underground bishops are encouraged to apply for recognition by civil authorities.

An underground Church "is not a normal feature of the Church's life" for the Catholic Church, says the pope. All bishops should now unite so that Rome can finally recognize officially the already existing Chinese Bishops' Conference. This could not be done until now because the underground bishops are not members, while some other members of the conference are not appointed by Rome.

The pastoral letter touches here upon an extremely delicate point related to Church-state relations. It suggests that the present statutes of the Chinese Bishops' Conference still need to be amended.

In the present situation, one entity "desired by the State" -- apparently referring to the Patriotic Association -- stands above the bishops and makes important pastoral decisions, some even related to the appointment of bishops. Doing so, it in fact directs the Church. This situation takes the pastoral authority away from the bishops, which is against Catholic teaching: "Only a legitimate Episcopal Conference can formulate pastoral guidelines, valid for the entire Catholic community of the country concerned."

The pastoral letter contains more concrete pastoral guidelines than many of us may have anticipated. But they are all important, useful guidelines urgently needed in the Chinese local Church and they are included in Canon Law.

Priests are reminded that they should be incardinated in one clearly defined diocese. Dioceses that have a limited number of priests and experience difficulty in finding a suitable candidate-bishop are encouraged to ask neighboring bishops to help find alternative candidates. Bishops are reminded to set up structures required in their dioceses to promote cooperation and dialogue in pastoral work, such as: diocesan curia, presbyteral council, college of consultors, diocesan pastoral council and financial commission.

The letter even refers to the importance of registering Church properties in the name of the Church, not of individuals. It all shows how well the Holy See is informed about and concerned with the concrete needs of the Church in China.

The pope pleads for the principle of separation between Church and state, a relation in charity and truth to be realized through open dialogue. However, he introduces some points that, from the side of the Church, are not discussable.

The proposal to set up a Church independent from the Holy See is incompatible with Catholic doctrine. The principle that bishops must be appointed by the successor of Peter is crucial for the Church, since only appointments by the pope assure the unity of the Church and the apostolic succession of bishops. These appointments have no political character at all. The pope refers to internationally accepted documents that state the appointment of Catholic bishops by the pope is part of true freedom of religion.

For some readers, the letter may create the impression of being "too clear" and "too explicit," leaving nothing to be discussed and clarified in the dialogue with diplomats. This is the opinion of some friends in China who stress that in China one should leave some things to be cleared up by private bargaining. But here, too, the problem is that years of discussion have created confusion around matters of principle that are crucial for the Church.

Just as pastoral guidelines were urgently needed for the Chinese Church, so too is there need to make clear what is and is not discussable with regard to relations of the Church with the state.

Some people would have criticized the pope if he did not clarify these points. But he repeatedly expresses his hope and trust that, through dialogue, all these questions can be clarified and agreed upon.

As a concrete example, the pope cites the new division of dioceses that civil authorities introduced over the past 50 years but never previously agreed upon with Rome. The pope says this can be discussed whenever opportune and helpful.

This is the beginning of a new phase in the history of the Chinese Catholic Church. Together with the letter in which Pope John Paul II offered excuses for what happened in the 19th century, this pastoral letter is undoubtedly the most important and historical document ever written by Rome to the Chinese Church.

The key words are: reconciliation, unity and dialogue. Nowhere in this letter does the pope call for confrontation. Marked by reconciliation and unity inside the Church and dialogue with civil authorities on the basis of equality and mutual respect, it initiates a new phase in Chinese Catholic Church history.