He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

BENIGNANT PASTORAL CONCERN

The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, given at Rome on 7 July 2007 by our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, will come into effect on 14 September. It rehabilitates, restores the ancient Roman liturgy after thirty-eight years of proscription! « It is, therefore, permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated. » (Art. 1)

One could apply to this authorisation what the Abbé de Nantes had already written concerning the Indult for the use of the Roman Missal of 1962, which the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship published in 1984: it « gives the lie completely to the fifteen years of explanations and justifications for the insane prohibition of the old Roman Mass by Rome herself. All the paraliturgies, all the reformed Masses including the most preposterous, the most scandalous and, I have no hesitation in saying, the most blasphemous, and quite simply the most vulgar, by which I mean common, ugly, insipid and meaningless; including formally invalid Masses – for such there have been of public notoriety and no doubt there still are –, all these were officially allowed, or at least tolerated without their authors experiencing any sanction, barrier or even delay in their pursuit of honours and prebends. All these Masses, or these sacrilegious travesties, were in line with the Conciliar and pontifical reform; they agreed with the reformed doctrine, worship and religion of Vatican II. »

« The only liturgy that was forbidden, earning its “sectaries” (!) its faithful, fierce denunciations, enforced retirement, withdrawal of powers of jurisdiction and sometimes even the power of faculties, was this Mass referred to as that “of St. Pius V” or the “Tridentine rite”, which in its almost unchanged form goes back to more than a thousand years before that holy Pope and before the holy Council of Trent, who, we are led to believe, invented it. That liturgy did not square with the conciliar Reform; to be attached to it was a sufficient avowal of intransigence, of disobedience to the Pope and rebellion against the Church; in short, of a bad spirit bordering on schism and heresy, doubtless the worst, at a time when Rome was rehabilitating all the others. »

« Everything that changed, that disrupted the atmosphere, spirit and religion of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as well as its words and rites, was allowed. In this permanent revolution and this universal reform, however, it was forbidden to hold firmly to the prayers and rites of the ancient Roman liturgy, of the traditional Mass, in order to maintain the atmosphere, spirit and religion of the past. We had it dinned into us, although it was all too clear to us, that to be for the old Mass was to be against the new religion, against the Conciliar Church and therefore against the “Spirit” blowing a storm within it. »

« The Mass of all time, it was well established, wore the cap of disobedience and made the hounding and the outlawing of suspects easy: what Mass does he say? – Ah well, what need have we of further witnesses! He deserves to die... » (“Rome Turns Again” CCR n^o 174, Dec. 1984, p. 4)

The Abbé de Nantes compared this indult of 1984 to the « destalinisation of the 1960s in Moscow » and John Paul II to the tyrant who was reigning there: « When another Father of the peoples, Khrushchev, “as a sign of the concern he had for all his children”, granted to all those who had been banished the freedom, recognised, moreover, as inviolable and sacred by the USSR Constitution. Those who believed it and who, in order to profit by it, made all the necessary acts of allegiance to the regime and all the self-criticism, confessions and retractions desired, then came up against so many obstacles and traps set by the Muscovite administration that they found themselves at last back in the Gulag, or forced into the underground, exile or death. »

Continuing his comparison, the Abbé de Nantes then warned that he had understood very well the « duplicity in this manoeuvre » It consisted, on the part of Pope John Paul II, « in drawing to himself all those innocents who were still resisting his charm, out of love of the Tradition and fidelity to the true religion. He grants them the Mass that they love, in Latin and in Gregorian, on condition that they turn their backs on us and adhere to the heretical, schismatic and apostate Reform of Vatican II. The Mass is worth an apostasy, a rallying round! Thus, we shall be theologians without an audience, priests without a ministry, opponents without a voice. »

« This oblique manoeuvre must lead, without any doctrinal condemnation, without any canonical sentence, to our de facto excommunication, by separating us from the last of those faithful to the Mass and therefore to the religion of all time, with specious promises of freedom. »

In a quarter of a century, we have seen the Abbé de Nantes’ forecast come true to the letter: John Paul II’s pontificate has crushed traditionalism.

The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum is in a totally different spirit, which seems to respond to the Abbé de Nantes’ wishes.

LIKE IT OR NOT, ROME IS TURNING BACK

Under this title, he in fact wrote in 1984: « Now imagine that the Indult had been calmly drawn up by Mgr Mayer [who at that time was Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship] in all holiness and good will. He would have refrained from interposing all those restrictive conditions between the Holy Father’s liberality and its application, still less would he have delivered its execution up to episcopal whim. There is in this text a whiff of secret police, of revenge and of civil war. »

There is nothing of this sort in Benedict XVI’s motu proprio. Faithful to his plan of encouraging a « hermeneutic of continuity », the Holy Father has decided what follows:

« Art 1: The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the Lex orandi of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same Lex orandi, and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s Lex orandi will in no way lead to a division in the Church’s Lex credendi. They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite. »

Thus abolishing all contradictory dispositions, even those taken by his predecessor, Benedict XVI has decided:

« Art 2: In Masses celebrated without the people, each Catholic priest of the Latin rite, whether secular or regular, may use the Roman Missal published by 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. For such celebrations, with either one Missal or the other, the priest has no need for permission from the Apostolic See or from his Ordinary. »

With the people? As well! (Art. 4).

The only requirement is to avoid discord and to favour the unity of the whole Church (Art. 5 § 1).

If the priest is unwilling? Appeal to the bishop! If the bishop is unwilling? Appeal to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (Art. 7-8).

The Abbé de Nantes furthermore wished that any member of the faithful could request « without being refused, except when necessitated by just and serious reasons, the celebration of Masses according to the ancient Roman rite, and in particular for the great events of family life, such as marriages, baptisms, solemn Communions and funerals… »

Benedict XVI consents to it (Art. 5 § 3).

Furthermore: « The pastor, having attentively examined all aspects, may also grant permission to use the ancient ritual for the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick, if the good of souls would seem to require it. » (Art. 9 § 1)

« Ordinaries are given the right to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation using the ancient Roman Pontifical, if the good of souls would seem to require it. »

Finally, « All clerics ordained in sacris constitutis may use the Roman Breviary promulgated by John XXIII in 1962. »

This is precisely what the Abbé de Nantes requested in 1984: « Such would have been a pacifying Indult. We would then have known that the Roman Church was mindful of her “Catholicity” and renounced the “sectarianism” of the reformers. Even if dogmatic disputes and divergencies would not have been thereby abolished, at least charity would once more have shone from Rome over the whole world… »

Benedict XVI reigning and the Immaculate Heart of Mary assisting, it seems that charity is in fact beginning to burn anew in the Roman Catholic Church. If not, to whom will we go? Let us also wish that the difficulties experienced by some in accepting this motu proprio show Benedict XVI that « two religions have been battling within the one Church of Christ » since the Second Vatican Council, because certain affirmations are unquestionably in rupture with « the previous doctrine of the Church ».

New proof of this has just been unwillingly provided by the Holy See.

CATHOLIC

Three days after the motu proprio of Saturday, 7 July, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith felt the need to affirm unequivocally that the Catholic Church, « governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him » is « the one Church of Christ that we confess in the Creed as one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic ».

It does this in response to « errors and ambiguity » that have characterised « theological reflection » since the Second Vatican Council. In five questions – answers, as in the catechism…

« First question: Did the Second Vatican Council change the Catholic doctrine on the Church? »

« Response » No! Then why not say quite simply that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church instead of « subsists in » the Catholic Church as is stated in the “Dogmatic Constitution” Lumen gentium (n^o 8)? Because the « separated churches and communities, though we believe they suffer from deficiencies, are not at all deprived of significance and value in the mystery of salvation. In fact, the Spirit of Christ does not refuse to make use of them as means of salvation, the value of which derives from that fullness of grace and of truth that has been entrusted to the Catholic Church. »

In this case, it is to be feared that this « response » will let « errors and ambiguity » subsist insofar as it still seems to mean, in the first place, that the Spirit of Christ assembles a community larger than the Catholic community, which God alone knows, and which He regards as His own.

Furthermore, it implies that the schismatic, heretical or excommunicated communities are still means of salvation because of the Christian riches that they conserve, notwithstanding their fundamental vice that opposes them to the Church of Jesus Christ.

Now Benedict XVI knows perfectly well that these two consequences are obviously contrary to the « the previous doctrine of the Church », according to which « Jesus only wanted and only founded one Church, on a single Rock, visible and easily identified, unshakable, which is Peter, and this Church is incontestably the Roman Church of which the Pope is the head. She is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. She alone. All those who have decided to leave her, individually or as a group, have separated themselves from Unity, but Unity subsists without them. » (Catholic Ecumenism, Preparatory Schema for the Third Vatican Council CRC n^o 57, p. 12)

Brother Bruno of Jesus.