In the May 16th edition of L’Osservatore Romano, there is an article on the personal parish in Rome, staffed by the FSSP at Ss. Trinita dei Pelegrini.

The bottom line of the entire article:

Cardinal Hoyos says, “the achievement of a personal parish also has value as an example to other dioceses, both in Italy and elsewhere.”

Father John T. Zuhlsdorf comments on the article: “Rome is taking the lead! Let personal parishes be set up everywhere… Brick by brick, if necessary!”

 Catch Fr Z’s translation of the article:

Vatican, May. 14, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) resumed his series of talks on the early Church Fathers at his weekly public audience on May 14, introducing the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, explaining how that 6th-century scholar anticipated the demands of inter-faith dialogue today.

The actual author of the works written by the Pseudo-Dionysius (also sometimes known as Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) is unknown. He took his pseudonym from the Athenian named Dionysius, a prominent figure at the Areopagus, whose conversion by St. Paul is described in the Acts of the Apostles. The goal of the Pseudo-Dionysius, Pope Benedict explained to his Wednesday audience, was “to place Greek wisdom at the service of the Gospel.”

The Pseudo-Dionysius firmly believed that truth “eradicates error and brings the good to shine forth,” the Holy Father said. Since the truth is found in God, the scholar’s work provided the Church with the first “great mystical theology,” in which he “expresses the soul’s journey toward God.” With that mystical theology, the Pseudo-Dionysius acted as a bridge between Christian thought and the mystical faiths of Asia, Pope Benedict said. Today that work “assumes fresh relevance,” the Pontiff continued, as the Church seeks broader dialogue with the Asian world.

At the same time, Pope Benedict observed, the Pseudo-Dionysius provides a model for effective dialogue because he “does not accept superficiality.” He insisted, in his work, on proclaiming the truth as he knew it, confident that light of truth will illuminate everyone. In that light, the Pope said, “disputes disappear and it becomes possible to understand one another– or at least to speak to and approach one another.”

Minneapolis, May 15, 2008 (CNA). - Archbishop of Minneapolis and St. Paul Harry Flynn has ordered an end to lay preaching at parishes in the archdiocese, saying the practice was more widespread than he had realized.

The Catholic Spirit reports that over the past 25 years as many as 29 parishes in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul have used lay preachers at Mass.

In a letter to pastors in January, Archbishop Flynn ordered them to end the practice. He cited the 2004 Vatican instruction “Redemptionis Sacramentum,” which called lay preaching a liturgical abuse. In lay preaching, a non-ordained person reflects on the Gospel reading at the place in Mass reserved for a homily delivered by a priest or a deacon.

Archbishop Flynn said only an ordained man should preach after the Gospel at Mass. He had set his retirement date, May 2, as a deadline for parishes to develop a “pastoral plan” to end lay preaching at Mass.

Patricia Hughes Baumer, who co-founded the lay preaching training organization Partners in Preaching with her husband Fred in 1997, said many lay preachers have expressed “grief and anger” over the archbishop’s directive to stop the practice.

Proponents of lay preaching, The Catholic Spirit says, claim that the practice is allowed by canon law and argue both the congregation and the pastors benefit from hearing Gospel reflections from diverse voices.

Some have speculated that Archbishop Flynn wanted to “clean house” before Archbishop John Nienstedt assumed leadership of the archdiocese, though Archbishop Flynn said that was not the case.

Archbishop Flynn told the Catholic Spirit that local leaders in the lay preaching movement were aware of his disapproval. Though he knew that a few parishes used lay preachers, he wrote his January letter only after realizing a larger number of parishes were engaged in the practice.

The archbishop said he had told Baumer on two occasions why the practice cannot be promoted. He said that canon law forbids the practice and insisted that the education, formation, and ordination of priests and deacons make them uniquely suited to preach during Mass.

“There has to be that kind of training and theological background that even a person with a master’s degree in theology would not have,” he said, according to The Catholic Spirit. “The church does not want people just standing up there and giving opinions or even things they’ve read in books, but [rather]: What is the clear teaching about this mystery of our faith?”

He said that allowing a non-ordained person to preach would interrupt the action of the Mass. The Scriptures, he said, make it clear that it was the role of presbyters to preach.

“To preach the Gospel is an extremely important part of the mission of any priest - I cannot overemphasize its importance,” Archbishop Flynn said. If he did not preach, he said, “I would feel deprived, because this is my vocation to preach the Gospel.”

He said that priests should pray and spend more time preparing their homilies because that is their work.

If a layperson must speak or preach at Mass, the archbishop said, it would be appropriate to do so after the prayer after Communion.

Interesting article by Jeffrey Tucker over at NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT on the comeback of chant.  In fact, concerning that subject, our very own Michael Hughes has picked up the ball of organizing our schola.  If you have an interest in helping to develop our schola and live in the Indy metro area please contact Michael.    

by Jeffrey Tucker, NLM 

I just gave a phone interview to a reporter who was asking about Gregorian Chant and the inroads it is making into American Catholic liturgical life. The documentary evidence includes the numbers of scholas in this country, which my estimate puts at about 200, up tremendously from three years ago. Chant books are now being sold by all major Catholic publishers, which is something that is new in the last three years. The circulation of Sacred Music magazine has gone up four-fold in a period in which similar periodicals are going under. Five years ago there were perhaps two or three workshops on chant in the course of a year, whereas now the number approach 20 or more.

Anecdotally, the evidence is even stronger. The typical Catholic gathering now includes an archetype known as the “chant jock,” the young twenty-something guy who carries a Graduale Romanum with him in hopes of finding someone else to join him in burning through some propers just for practice. They live for chant news, post on blogs and forums, spend hours a week in rehearsals, and hang out with other aspiring singers who hope to play a big role in the future of Catholic music. As for the “contemporary” music their parents were raised with, don’t even go there: it’s material for in-the-know jokes and that’s just about it.

The larger question the reporter asked is is why chant and why now? I think we might be able to approach an answer here, so I’m going to list some factors without attempting to weight the influence of each.

Grooviness burnout. Maybe that generation that came of age after the Vatican Council enjoyed singing music that was completely different from that of their parents. Was there was a certain thrill associated with importing styles from the popular music of the time into the liturgical setting-sort of like the thrill of tearing up the pea patch? Maybe. You can only tear up the pea patch so many times and for so long before you realize that you are just digging around in the dirt. Or grant good intentions: the new styles reflected the spiritual fashions of the day. But that was then and this is now. Soft rock in liturgy does not wear well, and the two don’t mix well as either art or theology.

Battle Weariness. The other side of the coin here are the forces within parishes that prefer what is called “traditional Catholic music,” a phrase that can mean anything but usually means something in the vernacular to accompany the Mass at the critical points. This type of music is off-putting to many people, and hence a battle ensues and never stops. What chant represents here is a third way, one that is intrinsic to the Mass itself and suggests not something either modern or “traditional” but timeless and identifiably holy and liturgical. People are tired from decades of struggle and chant offers a way out.

Catholic identity. It’s not easy being Catholic in our society and times. It is dawning on a new generation that making concessions in our worship pop culture doesn’t make it easier; it only ends up making worship less Catholic. If we are going to take the implausible intellectual leap of believing the claims of the Church, we might as well go all the way and get the real thing. No one can take away from the fact that chant is always and everywhere identified with Catholicism. It is the music that sounds like, and beautifully expresses, what we believe.

Chant lives in the culture. It is a great irony that popular culture never lost sight of the relationship between chant and prayerful solemnity. We have been through several waves of popular-selling chant CDs. We hear it at the movies. It even makes an appearance in the video games that kids play. If this music can have a live outside of liturgy, how much more so within its proper context at the Catholic Mass?

The rise of seriousness. The ethos of popular music at Mass is rather thin. It conveys a sort of contentment but does not capture more difficult human emotions associated with deep sadness, suffering, longing for eternity, transcendent joy, the expectation of miracles, the profundity of salvation through death, or most other themes that are at the core of our faith. Chant is stunningly varied in its musical expression. From Advent to Lent to Easter to Pentecost, the chant expresses and meaning and sensibility of the life of Christ and his Church throughout the liturgical year, and with all that emotional complexity that implies.

Multiculturalism. The other day I met a priest from Uganda who was visiting the United States for the first time, and the topic quickly turned to music. He sang a Kyrie and I picked up on it, then I sang a Sanctus and he knew that one too. We then turned to propers and sang some of those. It was an instant connection of two completely different worlds. There is no other music that is capable of engendering that type of total global unity. The Catholic Church is a universal Church and we need universal liturgical forms that reflect that.

It is easy to tell the difference between fake multiculturalism and the real thing. The fake kind ends up being patronizing of other cultures, a disguised form of elitist imperialism in which we conjure up what we imagine what the foreign peoples of the world-aggregating their class interests-might desire. The real form deals with reality, and the reality in Catholic music for the world is that chant is the great unifying force. And by the way, this applies to issues of age as well. It is the music that unites the generations.

Musicians want a challenge. Catholic parishes have long suffered in terms of the presence of musical talent. But it has never been worse than today. Each parish has only a few people who can read music or play a keyboard or sing anything. It is pathetic, and a major contributing factor is that in the postconciliar practice there hasn’t been much to challenge musicians at all. If there is no real job to do beyond singing the melody of a pop ditty, there is nothing to inspire serious musical accomplishment.

But the chant is completely different. Here we have a massive and daunting repertoire that requires all artistic and intellectual energy. Frankly, if you are not willing to work hard and not willing to spend the time on the task, there is no use in even bothering with it at all. But if you are willing to try, there is a great result and a sense of accomplishment that comes with it. Your individual talents are going to be used for the highest possible purpose. That prospect alone attracts.

Pope Benedict XVI. Here is the most obvious factor at work. The Pope himself has been a champion on sacred music for many decades, and we find in his own books and essays a great love of Catholic music. He hasn’t issued binding directives yet, and truly there is no need to, since the directives are already place and his speeches and homilies are serving to call everyone to a higher musical standard. Yes, there are issues of obedience here, and the Pope is inspiring that. But there is also an issue of education. Musicians themselves have been inspired to undertake the hard work that comes with achieving a certain ideal. Benedict XVI has made it very clear that this ideal is worth achieving.

The Motu Proprio. Summorum Pontificum, the motu proprio that liberalized the preconciliar Roman Rite, provides an impetus to re-embrace our chant tradition. But let us not put too much emphasis here. It is not the case that the Tridentine Mass uses chant whereas the Novus Ordo does not, though one can easily gain that impression. The music, in fact, provides a strong linkage between the two forms. They both have the Graduale Romanum as the normative form of music that is woven into the liturgical fabric itself. The introits, the communions, the ordinary chants - these are all the same in both forms. A great contribution of Summorum is the gravitational pull it creates that links the ordinary form more closely to its predecessor.

Forty Years. Someone said to me a few years back that Catholics were about to leave the liturgical desert, and that he knew this because of the significance of the year forty in holy scripture. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it is generally true that it was forty years ago when we Catholics lost their way in liturgical music and wandered off to the point of being lost. We are finding our way out, and making our way to the musical land of milk and honey, the name of which is the Graduale Romanum. Or to extend the analogy to the Gospels, we are making our way to the true cross, the very source of our salvation.

Carmel, Indiana May 11, 2008 - The St John Bosco Latin Mass Community at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Carmel, Indiana crowned the Mother of God in a traditional crowning ceremony on Mother’s Day.  Father Roberto Cano, FSSP offered the Traditional Latin Mass prior to the crowning ceremony.  Mr. Robert M. Hofmeister and his son Nicholas were the altar servers. 

Father Cano is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Augusto Cano of Lafayette, Indiana.  Father Cano studied at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Denton, Nebraska and in Rome before becoming a priest of the FSSP. 

The next Traditional Latin Mass will be on May 18th at 5:00 pm at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Carmel, Indiana. 

This is the introduction from the long awaited training video by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter and EWTN on the Traditional Latin Mass.

Six high school boys stayed after Thursday’s daily Mass at St Joseph’s Catholic School:

“Father, why didn’t you celebrate Mass facing East today?”

“I’m doing so on two days of the week, and on the other two the usual way. Do you like the Mass when I celebrate facing East?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It feels more holy. It’s older right? But you’re not really facing East here.”

“There’s something called ‘liturgical East.’ It’s when the priest faces what used to be the East ’cause all the churches were built to face the rising sun, which was a symbol of the resurrection and also because Jesus would return to Jerusalem, which was in the East.”

“Like Muslims facing Mecca.”

“Sort of, but I’m not going to start wearing a turban”

“You could wear your biretta more often.”

“Shall I?”

“I like Mass when you face East because it feels like you are offering the Mass for us more.”

“I just like stuff that’s more traditional.”

“I think it feels more, well, manly. Do you know what I mean. Is that dumb?”

“That’s interesting. No, I don’t think it’s dumb, but I have to think about why it might be true.”

“I think it’s good because I was thinking more about God and not you, and when you elevated the host it was like Jesus floating there. It was more mysterious. It was cool.”

“Would you like me to continue saying Mass facing with you to the Lord?”

“Yes please.”

“You don’t feel slighted because I have turned my back to you? You sure I haven’t hurt your feelings?”

Laughter all around. “You’re not that good looking anyway Father.”

“OK, why don’t you all go to lunch now?”

 by Father Dwight Longenecker

  Brought up in an American Evangelical home, I went to Bob Jones University–the jewel on the buckle of the Bible Belt. While there I came down with a severe case of Anglophilia from reading too much C.S.Lewis and Tolkien and T.S.Eliot. I went to study theology at Oxford, was ordained as an Anglican priest and stayed in England for twenty five years. After ten years wearing a dog collar I was received into the Catholic Church. I spent ten years as a layman writing articles and books no one reads. Then the call came to return to the United States. In December 2006 I was ordained as a Catholic priest. I am now chaplain at St Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville, South Carolina, and I am on the staff of St Mary’s Greenville.

HOLY SMOKE

by Damian Thompsom

Find Damian’s excellent blog here

At least one Church of England “flying bishop” is ready to convert to Catholicism, and so are thousands of Anglicans. What is stopping them? According to a highly placed source, they simply cannot face the hostility of the current bishops of England and Wales.

There are four provincial episcopal visitors, to give them their proper name, and my information is that one or perhaps two of them want to be Roman Catholics, sacrificing their status as bishops in the process.

There is tremendous enthusiasm for Pope Benedict among Anglo-Catholics, who love his theological emphasis on beauty in the liturgy. He, in turn, is anxious to welcome them into the Roman fold.

Not so the current bishops of England and Wales, who are almost uniformly liberal. In the early 1990s, the bishops forced Basil Hume to place as many obstacles as possible in the path of Catholic-minded Anglicans wanting to convert together. For many observers (including me) that was a profoundly disillusioning moment.

Some tremendously talented Anglican priests did cross the Tiber. Of those that remained, I think we can identify four broad groups:

1. Anglo-Catholics who now accept women priests - I would never have believed, 15 years ago, that so many “bells and smells” types would become reconciled to this innovation, but they have.

2. Anglo-Catholic clergy who, despite their extreme Roman ritualism, are in irregular relationships that would not be tolerated by the Catholic authorities, so they pull up the drawbridge.

3. Anglo-Catholics who still believe, against all the evidence, that they will be able to preserve their male-only priesthood until their fellow Anglicans see the error of their ways.

4. Anglo-Catholics who know the game is up, that there will never be corporate reunion with Rome, and that their future lies in submitting to the Holy See.

It is these last people who are enduring the worst pain. They want to seize the hour while the chair of Peter is occupied by a brilliant theologian who recognises the special qualities of Anglo-Catholicism. They admire Benedict’s boldness in removing the power of diocesan bishops to block the traditional Latin Mass and encouraging the setting up of congregations using only the 1962 Missal. Could he make similar arrangements for ex-Anglicans?

The answer, at the moment, is depressing. The Bishops of England and Wales have fought a surreptitious campaign of resistance against the Pope’s liturgical reforms. So far, it has succeeded: the total number of traditional Sunday Masses has barely increased since the Pope changed the rules last year.

The current hierarchy feels no more warmly towards conservative Anglo-Catholics than it does towards the Latin Mass Society. It will do the bare minimum to accommodate converts. The paradox is that many Anglo-Catholic parishes celebrate the liturgy in a manner that corresponds far more closely to Benedict’s aesthetic of worship than the makeshift, sloppy services found in ordinary Catholic parishes.

No wonder the flying bishops are unhappy and confused. If they submit to Rome, they would like to do so under a truly sympathetic papacy, but who knows how long it will last? The best solution would be for the Pope to appoint a successor to Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor who is in his own image - the Dominican writer Fr Aidan Nichols, say. But the chances of that happening are slim. We are heading towards another missed opportunity

by Vittoria Prisciandaro, JESUS

Found and translated by by Gregor Kollmorgen of  the NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

His Eminence is contented. The telephone of the ground floor office in the palace of the former Holy Office lives a new life. And on the desks correspondence from the entire world is piling up. After the promulgation of the Motu proprio, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has in fact become an important part in the Vatican organization chart. “Now I have twice the work I had at the Congregation for the Clergy”, confides Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, a Colombian of 79 years, a fervent supporter of the return home of the Lefebvrians, and since 2000 President of the Commission. Born to maintain the relations with the Fraternity of St. Pius X and the groups gravitating in the traditionalist galaxy, “Ecclesia Dei” is today become an inevitable interlocutor of dioceses and parishes for the controversies concerning the application of the extraordinary rite.

Eminence, a few months after the promulgation of the Motu proprio, how do you take stock?

“With the Motu proprio the Pope wanted to give everyone a renewed opportunity to benefit from the enormous spiritual, religious and cultural richness present in the liturgy of the Gregorian rite [it appears the Cardinal is coining a term; he has used this repeatedly]. The Motu proprio emerges as a treasure offered to all, not in the first place to accommodate grievances and requests of anyone. Not a few of those who first were not involved in this extraordinary form of the Roman rite now manifest a great esteem for it. Among the faithful I would distinguish three groups: those who are linked in quasi organic form to the Fraternity of St. Pius X; those of the Fraternity of Saint Peter; and lastly the most important and numerous group, consisting of persons attached to the religious culture of all times, who today discover the spiritual intensity of the ancient rite, and among whom many young people. In these months have come into being new associations of persons belonging to this last group.”

Speaking of richness, some liturgists stress the fact that the extraordinary rite does not offer the biblical richness introduced by the novus ordo

“Those have not read the Motu proprio, because the Pope affirms that the two forms shall enrich each other. And it is evident that such a liturgical treasure is not being squandered. In the novus ordo with the years practically the entire Bible is read, and this is a richness which is not opposed to, but complementing the extraordinary rite.”

Another objection is about the danger that seperate and different celebrations can create seperate communities…

“It is a multiplicity which enriches, it is a wider cultural liberty which the Pope introduces in a bold form. Incidentally, in the parishes there are many differences in the celebrations, and I do not want to talk about the abuses, because the abuses are not the main reason of the Motu proprio.”

Your secretary, Monsignor Camille Perl, announced that shortly there will be a document clarifying the Motu proprio. When will it be released?

“It was Cardinal Bertone who announced it, and he has the right to do so. But I, who am a servant of the Pope, will only announce it when the Pope will say so. Our Commission has reported to the Pontiff that from all over the world so many questions come, very many justified, others due to lack of knowledge. The Holy Father, and he alone, will say whether it is convenient to issue such a document and when.”

What are the questions that have arrived and would deserve an answer?

“The first regards Latin, because - they say - to celebrate in a language which you do not know is not convenient. Unfortunately, the seminarians, but also some priests, have not studied it and therefore it is difficult for them to celebrate in the extraordinary form. To do so one should at least know the canon of the Mass, the part of the consecration. We in “Ecclesia Dei” are equipping ourselves and we are preparing meetings, courses and means of electronic communication for a deep knowledge of the earlier liturgy. Some courses are already being held in France, Germany, Brazil, Central America and the United States. At Toledo, Spain, for example, it is being evaluated whether it is convenient to erect a seminary specifically for the preparation for the extraordinary rite or to give special courses in the seminary of the diocese. In general we see an interest for the return of Latin in the academia. It was sad in these years to see the abandonment not only of the language, but also of certain theological content connected to the semantic precision of the Latin language.

Another problem is the shortage of priests …

“If in a diocese priests are lacking and only three or four faithful request the extraordinary rite, it is a thing of common sense to think that it is difficult to meet this demand. However, since it is the intention, the “mens”, of the Pope to grant this treasure for the good of the Church, where there are no priests the best thing would be to offer a celebration according to the extraordinary rite in one of the parish Sunday Masses. It would be a Mass for everyone, and everyone, including the younger generations would benefit from the richness of the extraordinary rite, for example, from those moments of contemplation that in the novus ordo have disappeared.

So you maintain that, even if there is no consistent and stable group, in the future it is intended to offer one of the Sunday Masses in the extraordinary rite?

“I think so. On the other hand, this possibility had already been approved unanimously in 1986 by a commission of cardinals in which was also present Cardinal Ratzinger, but then it did not become operative. Now I would be sure that it could be done.”

Another point to clarify is the definition of a “stable and consistent group”. What does it mean exactly?

“It is a matter of common sense: why make an issue if the people who ask for the rite come from different parishes? If they come together and request a Mass, they become a stable group, although they did not know each other before. Also the number is a question of goodwill. In some parishes, especially in the country, on weekdays the persons who come to the ordinary Mass are three or four, and the same happens in not a few religious houses. Why, if those same three people request the old Mass would it be pastorally necessary to reject it?”.

So the future document should be more welcoming of requests from few?

“Yes, but it has to be understood not as something that should be at the expense of others, of the majority, but for their enrichment and always avoiding any even minimal form of antagonism.”

Then there is the problem of the sacraments: I think of the rite of Ordination or the one of Confirmation, which refers to a different code of canon law and uses different formulas…

“Certainly at first sight there are some problems with regard to the sacred Orders, to Confirmation and also concerning the difference of the calendar. With regard to sacred Orders, in the ancient form there were the tonsure, the minor orders and the subdiaconate. This form is still in use and will continue to be so in the Institutes permanently attached to the ancient rite, as the Fraternity of Saint Peter, the Fraternity of Saint Pius X and other institutes. On Confirmation, even before the Motu proprio, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had already made it clear that there is no conflict between the two formulas, given that both the new formula and the old enjoy validity and the same is to be said for the other sacraments where the formula is different. With regard to the calendars that do not always coincide, there are actually problems as in the case of feasts of the patrons of a parish, of shrines, religious congregations and institutes, etc. With prudence and common sense the necessary arrangements will be made and with this also the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” will deal.”

What time do you foresee for the reconciliation with the Fraternity of Saint Pius X?

“There are positive signs, there is an uninterrupted dialogue. A few days ago I wrote a new letter to Msgr Fellay, superior of the Fraternity, as a response to an earlier one of his. In addition to meetings and correspondence, we also hear each other on the telephone. I regard as viable the reconciliation with the fraternity Fraternity of Saint Pius X because, as we have often said at “Ecclesia Dei”, this is not a real schism but an anomalous situation which arose after the “schismatic action” of Msgr Lefebvre in conferring the episcopate without papal mandate, even against the express will of the Pope. In my heart I have great confidence that the Holy Father will be able to mend the fabric of the Church with the arrival of these brothers to full communion. Some differences will still remain, as we always had in the history of the Church”.

But with the Lefevbrians there is also a problem of acceptance of ecumenical dialogue…

“Yes, indeed there are difficulties with the interpretation of texts of the Council on this issue and with some concrete ecumenical practices, but no bishop of the Fraternity of St. Pius X will say that there is no need to seek the unity of the Christians.”

After the Motu proprio have some of the Fraternity St. Pius X come back to communion with the Church of Rome?

“Yes, and others have the will to do so. But I have the hope that the whole group comes, I would not want them to divide themselves. However, if an individual comes and says he wants to enter now into unity with the Pope, one must accept him. The Motu proprio did also draw other people near. For example, on March 28, I received a letter from a non-Catholic bishop, who has decided to enter the Catholic Church with other bishops and priests who celebrate the Tridentine Mass”.

Do the new powers of “Ecclesia Dei” not conflict with the ministry of the bishops?

“The Pope, who has the authority over the whole Church, over each of the faithful and the bishops, has set new norms in the Motu proprio, and the Pontifical Commission is only an instrument at the service of the Vicar of Christ, so that his decisions are being implemented. “Ecclesia Dei” takes care to apply the Motu proprio in fraternal harmony, understanding and collaboration with the bishops. Attitudes of antagonism with the shepherds must be avoided by persons, groups or institutions because of the Motu proprio. Certainly the shepherds, in obedience to the Pope, will have understanding for those faithful who have a special love for the liturgical tradition. With bishops who have contacted us, I always found understanding.”

In the introduction to the reprinting of the “Compendium of practical Liturgy” by Trimeloni [the Italian Fortescue], you write that the Pope avails himself of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” because in the diversity of the forms of cult there can shine the richness of the treasures of faith and spirituality of the Bride of Christ. In what consists the difference between the liturgy of John XXIII and the one reformed by Paul VI?

“Pope John has incorporated also the liturgy in his desire for dialogue of the Church with contemporary culture. Paul VI gave organicity to the reforms born of this desire. The Holy Spirit, which always accompanies the Church, inspires the necessary changes in every moment of history, without violent rupture of the process of perfection which He Himself has inspired in the course of history. Benedict XVI, with this motu proprio, makes common the riches of the two phases of the process, healing even so, the anxiety of those who believed that in matters liturgical there had been an unacceptable rupture.”

After the reformulation of the Good Friday prayer it was said that it was a returning 40 years back in Christian-Jewish dialogue. Had these criticisms been expected?

“Is it not a good thing to pray for our brothers the sons of Abraham? Abraham is the father of faith, but in a chain of salvation in which the Messiah is expected. And the Messiah has arrived. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that, in one day, five thousand Jews have converted. I am not contesting the prayer of the novus ordo, but I consider perfect the present one of the extraordinary rite. And I pray gladly for the conversion of my many Jewish friends, because I believe truly that Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour of all”.

Happy Birthday Father Sid!

May 8, 2008 Indianapolis, Indiana - In the Indianapolis metropolitan area, many know Father Sidney A. Sidor at St. Athanasius Byzantine Catholic Church for his nail spitting sermons, his orthodox approach to the Catholic faith, Patristic academics and his Jungian scholarship.  Yet many are unaware that Father Sid answered the call to serve the Holy Trinity only after a successful career in industry and the military.   

Father Sid studied at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wisconsin, a seminary that specializes in delayed vocations.

We have all watched him turn around a dimming parish and develop it into a bright light for many people who desire Eastern Christianity in Central Indiana.   And, one of his greatest accomplishment has been bringing direction by way of the Gospels to those who seemed to have lost their way in life.  So many people who are sick in mind, body or soul, dying or imprisoned have found comfort in his words of hope of something much better. 

Una Voce Carmel wishes you a Happy Birthday!  Thank you for your service to God and country!  May God grant you many more serving years in Central Indiana!