For those with eyes to see, the suppression of the Cistercian abbey at the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, one of the traditional seven major pilgrimage sites in Rome, rates far more than placement in a "news of the weird" column. Instead, it's the latest chapter in what might be called a "Quiet Revolution" under Pope Benedict XVI, referring to a reform in clerical culture beginning in Rome and radiating beyond...
The consensus was that a renaissance was unfolding under Cistercian Abbot Simone Maria Fioraso, an ecclesiastical mover and shaker if ever there was one. Vocations were growing, and the basilica had become a crossroads for Italian nobility, political VIPs and pop culture icons...
Headlines proclaimed, "Holy Cross in Jerusalem becomes a superstar."
Yet around the same time, rumors began to swirl that something wasn't quite right. Some critics charged that Fioraso seemed more interested in cozying up to social elites than in the traditional disciplines of the monastic life, while others raised questions about money management, especially given that the monks ran a successful boutique and hotel, apparently without clear accounting of the revenue flows. More darkly, there were rumors of "inappropriate relationships" carried on by some of the monks, understood to be code for some sort of sexual misconduct...
Also part of the picture are Benedict's policy moves to expedite procedures for weeding abusers out of the priesthood, including a recent set of revisions to canon law, as well as his decision earlier this year to create a new financial watchdog authority with the power to ride herd over once-untouchable entities such as the Vatican Bank or Propaganda Fide. The overall impression is that this is a pope weary of scandal, doing what he can to clean house.
If you're interested in catching a glimpse of the floozy dances, Mary Ann Kreitzer posted a doozy.
Terry the troublemaker posted another, and as usual at Terry's cyberspace, it solicited some interesting comments.
For instance, Henry Karlson said the Pope's sanctions reminded him of this theological metaphor he recently wrote: The Purity of Faith Must Be Preserved, Even When Found Mixed with Error.
Is it me, or is this an oxymoron?
Preserving people in their errors is preserving the purity of faith?
One of these things is the antithesis of the other: error and purity of faith.
Even if you could make sense out of this caricature of the Christ's Apostolic Mission, wouldn't you think the lucid message from the Pope's actions validate that suppressing errors is what actually preserves the purity of faith?
It is true, that sister twinkle toes may have been misled to believe that as a nun, shedding her clothes and dancing provocatively at the monk's den of inequity was "dancing for our Lord".
Suffice it to say, the Pope has now relieved her of this misconception. Hopefully, she'll put her clothes back on and be a model for modesty & celibacy. If she wants to don that outfit and dance for Our Lord, she can do it in the privacy of her own room. There really isn't a need for an audience.
What is going awry in Henry Karlson's gig is that he pursues the errors of other religions and produces long dissertations on how to incorporate the veneration of false idols and ideas into Catholicism. He is on quest to 'purify' Christ Jesus' faith by embracing his own errors (like "Saint Buddha") , encouraging others in theirs and spreading it around the internet as some avant-garde breed of Catholicism.
He believes Christ and Christendom is a violent intellectual assault to the uncatechized. Instead of 'go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit', the mantra of Catholic theologians should be to embrace ideas of false gods and pagan worship as they undoubtedly contain some element of truth in them.
I guess this is why people are clapping at Charlie Sheen?
Winning!
It is such a pity, isn't it, that Christ didn't have this savvy advice in His three year Apostolate. The Passion and Crucifixion could have been avoided. Two-thousand years worth of martyrs had it all wrong.
Poor Henry has been robbed.
My favorite example of resources the de facto schism has used to debride Catholicism of the Cross comes from two translations from the Book of Revelation.
"Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb: that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city."
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates."
Keep your clothes clean kiddies, you never know when Christ is coming to inspect our laundry.
Whoops, there goes the bell on my dryer...so let me cut to the chase. Here's my dime's worth of advice, for what its worth:
When it comes to the Catholic faith, you are what you read. I would avoid this stuff like the Kadashians.
When you are teaching the faith, the resources you immerse your audience in will make all the difference in the world to their spiritual life - perhaps for the rest of their lives. In a world where the overwhelming majority of Catholics are ignorant of Transubstantiation and the Sacraments, Catholic prayers, sacramentals - why would you bother scrounging up this tripe to feed the flock?
Dust off the Catechism and teach it. It has preserved our faith without errors for 2000 years.
p.s. If this is really a crackdown starting in Rome and will be spreading beyond:
+
IHS
Dear Beloved Pope Benedict XVI,
"Yoo-Hoo" from Boston.
16 comments:
Carol,
This dance actually seems tame compared with the liturgical dances put on out in LA under Cardinal Mahoney. I seem to remember teams of lovely young things wearing Star Trek like outfits at some conference (maybe a religious ed conference).
And yes, it is wonderful that the Holy Father is cracking the whip. I think you and your readers could come up with a list of local names...
M
I hope it is a harbinger of things to come.
"...The Purity of Faith Must Be Preserved, Even When Found Mixed with Error.
Is it me, or is this an oxymoron?..."
No, it is not an oxymoron; it must be looked at in a Catholic perspective.
For your consideration:
APPLES ROTTING
In two ways a rotten apple may cast a little light in the darkness of today's eclipsed Church.
Firstly, we do not wait for every part of an apple to be rotten before we call it rotten as a whole, yet parts of it are still not rotten.
In answer then to the question whether the apple is rotten, we must make a double distinction : as a whole, yes; in these parts, yes; in those parts, no.
And secondly, while apple is not rot and rot is not apple, yet the rot is inseparable from its apple and cannot exist without it.
Let us apply the first part of this common sense to the Novus Ordo Mass and the "Conciliar church", the second part to the "Conciliar church" and the Papacy.
As for the New Mass, it is rotten as a whole by its Conciliar man-centredness, but while some parts are clearly not Catholic (e.g. the Offertory), other parts are Catholic (e.g. the Kyrie Eleison).
Because it is rotten as a whole and slowly makes Catholics into Protestants, it is not fit to be attended, but that part which is the Consecration may be Catholic and valid. So one can say of the Novus Ordo Mass neither that it is valid so it can be attended, nor that it cannot be attended so it is invalid.
In truth it may be valid in its essential part, but that is not a sufficient reason to expose one's faith to the danger of attending it as a whole.
Similarly, today's Church is rotten as a whole insofar as Conciliarism is widespread throughout it, but that does not mean that every single part of the Church is rotten with Conciliarism. So it is as wrong to condemn any part still Catholic because of the Conciliar whole, as it is wrong to excuse the Conciliar whole because of those parts still Catholic.
To fit one's mind to the reality, one must distinguish both between the different parts, and between the whole and the parts.
And if we apply to today's Church also the second part of the comparison with a rotten apple, we can say that it is genuinely useful to speak of two churches, the "Conciliar church" and the Catholic Church, because Conciliarism is to be found in real life all through the Church, although in their pure state Conciliarism and Catholicism exclude one another like apple and rot.
But they are not in real life separable any more than are the rot from its apple or any parasite from its host.
In real life there is only one Church, the Catholic Church, suffering today all over from the Conciliar rot.
Therefore as to a Conciliar Pope, it is a genuinely useful way of speaking to say that he is one head of two churches, because by his words and actions, sometimes Catholic, sometimes Conciliar, he places himself all the time at the head of both the Catholic Church and its Conciliar rot.
But that is not to say that he is the head of two churches separate in reality.
It is to say that he is head of both the Catholicism and the Conciliarism in the one real Catholic Church presently disfigured all over by the Conciliar rot.
And why in Heaven's name are our Church leaders so enamoured of the Conciliar rot ?
Because of the modern longing for liberty.
That is another story.
But meanwhile we must pray with might and main for Benedict XVI that he may see once more the difference between apple and rot!
*
The new Mass is rotten as a whole? Further evidence of fringe ideology here. The rest of the Church doesn't agree with you. Rotten as a whole? Unreal!
Zippy,
Put a sock in it. Even if you cannot read, that picture of the Pope should mean something to you. Reading St. Michael's comments should drive you to your knees. These are people who witness the unfaithfulness, immorality and cowardice of our priests and Bishops and were unable to realize that this is coming from the fall of the men, not Christ's Church or His Sacraments. Instead of attempting to malign and misrepresent the people pushing for reforms of the internal licentiousness, say a Divine Mercy Chaplet for them.
Folks - sorry about the poor soul who was driven to post porn. I've said a Hail Mary for all and removed the post.
Fringe rejection of the Mass. More Catholicthan the Pope, all the Bishops and the entire Church. If anyone needs to put a sock in it, it is you!
Have your Priest and Confessor read my Apples Rotting post.
Come back with his decision.
Don't embellish.
*
Zip,
I can see you are not one to let facts obscure your delusions.
Is that the best you've got?
The ten years worth of faithful blogging about Christ's One Holy Apostolic Church, Sacraments and teachings makes you look like a jackass.
With all my real character flaws, surely you can do better than scandalizing Christ's Sacraments unnecessarily.
Hey Zip, can I still be a Catholic if I take the advice of Cardinal Ottaviani and avoid the Novus Ordo?
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Letter from Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci to His Holiness Pope Paul VI, September 25th, 1969
1. The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The "canons" of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
Never argue with an idiot.
He will drag you down to his level, and beat you through experience.
*
You're the only one making a jackass out of herself. Your rejection of the liturgy approved by the Church only serves to highlight what you are: a deluded fringe "Catholic" who is not in communion with the Church. Next time you wish to criticize the liturgy that the Vicar of Christ celebrates, remind yourself that you're a jackass.
Right Zip, Carol is part of a cult within Massachusetts which believes itself to be a substitute "Magisterium."
"In a recent column, Dr. Jeff Mirus criticizes those who he believes go to the extreme in opposing and denigrating the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, claiming that they are simply following the lead and writings of Cardinal Ratzinger (“The Mind of the Church on the Novus Ordo ” Catholic Culture. August 13, 2010):
I want to emphasize that he expressed these concerns in scholarly work, and that, taken in context, it is always clear that Ratzinger as a cardinal was not ill-disposed toward the Novus Ordo. Rather, he was interested in improvements which might be made (no liturgy is perfect) and, in particular, he was opposed to the free-wheeling manner in which some ignored the rubrics when saying Mass.
Dr. Mirus reminds us that “it is absolutely critical to note that the mind of the Church or even of the Pope himself cannot be determined by looking at the writings of a future pope before he became pope,” and that “while in office, Pope Benedict XVI has made his approval of the Novus Ordo clear”:
[Pope Benedict XVI] has also made clear that his serious criticisms do not apply to the rite itself but to the false interpretation of the Missal of Paul VI as something that requires constant experimentation and innovation, as if priests are to superimpose their own improvisations on the official liturgy and, in so doing, frequently substitute the banal for the sublime."
To say that the Novus Ordo Mass is rotten to the core is the work of the demon. This blog is not Catholic.
Mirus? He's a good defender of novelty. I've enjoyed the times when Chris Ferrara has taken the trouble to undo Mirus. It's so easy because Mirus empties Tradition of any objectively knowable content. Whatever exists now is tradition, despite what your lying eyes see.
Zip, anon, Paul, or whoever you are: Did you realize that Carol attends the Novus Ordo? This is not a fringe blog just because some fringies like me show up. Carol's just too cordial to send us away.
And back to Pope Benedict. He's an evolutionist! More than that, he dismisses St. Thomas, the magisterium under Popes Leo XIII (the Rosmini affair) and St. Pius X, especally the latter's biblical commission. Proof? See War Against Being.
Is it evil to discuss the problems that are plaguing us today?
Jerry, you have blown my cover.
Zippy, you see what I mean by jackass?
The Novus Ordo is the price of my salvation. Where my Beloved gives His Life's Blood. I have been blogging for a decade about my loyalty to these Sacraments and our Pope.
The moral of the story is before you open your piehole, make sure you have done your homework.
Zippy, are you the same Zippy that Mark Shea uses as an example of "orthodox" Catholicism?
Given your comments, I can see why.
Fair disclosure: I have no dog in this liturgical fight. The Church needs far more than liturgical reform to right itself.
What I won't tolerate, Zippy, is your asinine efforts to impune the character of a woman who not only loves God but who has done one Hell of a lot more than either you or your satanic commander, Shea, have ever done in confronting ecclesiastical corruption, especially in your respective midsts!
You and Shea can chat all you want about "torture" but you are nothing more than a couple of posers (like Tom Kreuzenberg of the "Disputations" blog). If the three of you actually put yourselves on the line to confront the clerical and ecclesiastical corruption that has permeated the Church for centuries, it would rank as a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself!
People on the "fringe," like Carol, are what the Church needs today, not self-satisfied propagandists for a lazy, inert status quo, like your ideological comrades at National Catholic Register.
Joe, this isn't the same Zippy. The Zippy you are talking about is rational and sane.
There are a lot of fabulous writers at the Register. It's important to remember that we want talented writers at our Catholic newspapers while also remembering that because it depends upon donors, they will never be able to expose the corruption.
While they can't do exposes, our expectation is that they refuse to get involved with any kind of cover up. I think for the most part, they don't. Occasionally, They do and when that happens we hold their feet to the fire. It's been a long process but we are making progress.
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