Abuses in the Novus Ordo Mass - sacrifice needed?

A member of Pro Tridentina (Malta) wanted to share a correspondence he had with Bro. John-Paul Ignatius Mary, OMSM several years ago. Although Brother Ignatius passed away 5 years ago (this Friday), we thought fitting to publish said correspondence to honour his memory. Obviously some information is now outdated.

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Dear Bro. Ignatius Mary, In Malta, in recent years, the Ordinary Rite of Mass is being abused in various ways, such as: priests behaving irreverently during Mass or cracking jokes, indecent attire (both males and females), no respect for Jesus in the Tabernacle, and awful music (a case in point is a parish that uses erotic music from the Eurovision Song Contest).

In the past, I've spoken to the Archbishop and other priests about this situation but the reaction was from lukewarm to outright derision.

I've stopped attending Mass since last year because it's so irreverent and I feel guilty if I attend as I would be an accomplice in all this. At least, that is how I feel.

What can I do to help in having reverent masses (whether Ordinary or eventually Extraordinary Rite if it will available). I feel at a loss and guilty.

Thank you for your patience.

Konrad (surname withheld for privacy)

Answer below

Dear Konrad,

No matter how irreverent the Mass may be said, there is no justification to stop going to Mass. You are risking your soul to hell by avoiding Mass like this.

You need to get to the Sacrament of Confession to confess your sin and return to the Mass this next weekend. There is no excuse.

These things do not invalidate the Mass. As long as the Mass is valid, Jesus is there. Why do you leave Jesus alone with the abusers?

You need to mortify your pride and instead accept the suffering of having to endure priests who abuse the liturgy and offer that suffering up to God for the conversion of those priests and for your Archbishop.

You are not an accomplice to the abuse for attending Mass. You are not the priest, you are not an altar server, you are a man sitting in the pew who has expressed his concern to the authorities. There is no complicity.

But, you disobey God to stop going to Mass over this and it is grave sin.

In terms of what to do about this situation, you need to offer up your suffering, pray, write a letter (not verbal communications) to the bishop, and if no response or inadequate response then you can write the Congregation on the Discipline of the Sacraments. In doing these things your responsibility is finished, There is nothing else you can do except to continue to offer up your suffering and to pray.

You do have a right under Canon Law to address these issues with them (Canon 212.2). In that regard Canon Law 214 says that you have a right to participate in the liturgy in accordance with legitimate norms.

When you write the bishop be business-like and factual. Detail the specific things that you believe are in violation of liturgical law and ask that these things be resolved.

If there is no resolution, if you wish, write (sending a copy of letters to and from the Bishop):

Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Cardinal, Prefect
Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum
Palazzo delle Congregazioni
Piazza Pio XII, 10
00120 CITTÀ DEL VATICANO
(Vatican City)

• Bro. John-Paul Ignatius Mary

Brief biography: Bro. Ignatius Mary, OMSM(r)+ DALC, LTh, DD, CDCP. was born  in October 1955. He was a writer, poet, Deliverance Counselor, Nouthetic Counselor, Catholic Apologist, Theologian, Professor, and Spiritual Director. He held the posts of:

• Dean and Senior Professor, St. Michael Academy for Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance Counseling;
• Provost and Superior, Oblates and Missioners of St. Michael;
• Director, St. Padre Pio Center for Deliverance Counseling;
• Lord Knight of the Cross, Military Fraternity of the Legionnaires of St. Michael.

He lived a monastic life in a hermitage. Brother Ignatius Mary passed peacefully from this life to his eternal reward on 13 December 2019.

Quotes to reflect upon (11)

Venerable Pope Pius XII celebrating Holy Mass

The liturgical movement is thus shown forth as a sign of the providential dispositions of God for the present time, of the movement of the Holy Ghost in the Church, to draw men more closely to the mysteries of the faith and the riches of grace which flow from the active participation of the faithful in the liturgical life.

 ...

As We have said in the encyclical Mediator Dei, the liturgy is a vital function of the Church as a whole, and not of a single group or “movement” only: “The sacred liturgy is the public worship of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ in the entirety of its Head and members.” 

… 

Therefore everything is directed towards God, His service and His glory. The Church, filled with the gifts and the life of God, devotes itself with an interior and spontaneous movement to the adoration and praise of the infinite God, and through the liturgy, renders Him, as from a society, the worship that is due to Him.

… 

The solemn liturgical ceremonies are, besides, a profession of faith in action. They express the great truths of faith concerning the inscrutable designs of God’s generosity and His inexhaustible goodness to men, concerning the love and mercy of the heavenly Father for the world, to save which He sent His Son and delivered Him to death. Thus, the Church in the liturgy abundantly dispenses the treasures of the “deposit of faith,” the truth of Christ.

The care of the hierarchy extends still further to everything which contributes to the greater beauty and dignity of the liturgical ceremonies, whether in the matter of places of worship, of furnishings, of liturgical vestments, of sacred music or sacred art.

...

1) The Action of Christ

What is this principal action of the eucharistic sacrifice? We have spoken of it explicitly in the Allocution of November 2, 1954. We then quoted, first, the teaching of the Council of Trent:

In this divine sacrifice which takes place at Mass, the same Christ is present and is immolated in an unbloody manner who on the cross once and for all offered Himself in a bloody manner . . . . For the victim is one and the same, now offering Himself through the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the Cross; only the manner of offering is different.

We then continued in these terms:

Therefore it is the priest-celebrant, and he alone, who, putting on the person of Christ, sacrifices: not the people, nor clerics, nor even priests who reverently assist. All these, however, can and should take an active part in the sacrifice.

 ...

2) The Presence of Christ

Anyone who adheres sincerely to this doctrine does not think of the formulating objections against the presence of the tabernacle on the altar. In the Instruction of the Holy Office “On Sacred Art” of June 30, 1952, the Holy See insists, among other things, on this point:

This Supreme Sacred Congregation strictly commands that the prescriptions of Canons 1268, par. 2, and 1269, par. 1, be faithfully observed: “The Most Blessed Sacrament should be kept in the most distinguished and honorable place in the church, and hence as a rule at the main altar unless some other be considered more convenient and suitable for the veneration and worship due to so great a Sacrament. . . . The Most Blessed Sacrament must be kept in an immovable tabernacle set in the middle of the altar.”

It is not so much to the material presence of the tabernacle on the altar as to a tendency toward a lesser esteem for the presence and the action of Christ in the tabernacle that We would like to draw your attention. The sacrifice of the altar is considered sufficient, and the importance of Him who accomplished it is diminished. But the person of the Lord must occupy the centre of worship, for it is that which unifies the relations of the altar and the tabernacle and gives to them their meaning.

3) The Infinite and Divine Majesty of Christ

In conclusion we would like to add two observations on “the liturgy and the past” and “the liturgy and the present time.”

The liturgy and the past. In the matter of liturgy, as in many other spheres, one must avoid two extreme attitudes with regard to the past: a blind attachment and a complete contempt. There are found in the liturgy unchangeable elements, a sacred content which transcends time, but also elements which are variable and transitory, and sometimes even imperfect. The present-day attitude of liturgical milieux towards the past seems to Us in general to be entirely sound: there is investigation, serious study, attachment to that which truly deserves it, without, moreover, a falling into excess. Here and there, however, there appear ideas and erring tendencies, oppositions, enthusiasms or condemnations with whose concrete from you are well acquainted and of which We have said a word above.

The liturgy and the present time. the liturgy confers on the life of the Church, and even on the whole religious attitude of today, a characteristic mark. Above all, one notices an active and intelligent participation by the faithful in liturgical actions. On the part of the Church, the liturgy today admits of a preoccupation with progress, but also with conservation and defence. She returns to the past without slavishly copying it, and creates anew in the ceremonies themselves, in the use of the vernacular, in popular chant and in the building of churches. It would be, however, superfluous to recall once again that the Church has serious reasons for retaining steadfastly in the Latin rite the unconditional obligation of the celebrating priest to use the Latin language, and, likewise, for insisting that the Gregorian chant at the holy sacrifice shall be in the language of the Church. The faithful, on their part, are concerned with responding to the measures taken by the Church, but in so doing they adopt profoundly different attitudes. Some will show readiness, enthusiasm, occasionally even a too active desire, which demands interventions of authority. Others will show indifference and even opposition. Thus is manifested the diversity of temperaments, as also preferences for individual piety or for community worship.

Allocution by Pope Pius XII, taken from The Assisi Papers: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Pastoral Liturgy, Assisi-Rome, September 18-22, 1956. Published as a Supplement to Worship, by The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minn, 1957: pp. 223-236.

Tradition? To hell with it! Part Two

Is divorce a sin? No, the Tridentine Mass is...

One could have thought in the previous article that Fr. Martin Cilia's M.S.S.P. 'love' of tradition interview was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Or that the media had manipulated his words. Unfortunately this is not the case. The same priest, when the divorce referendum was such a hot topic in Malta last year, thought that the Lenten preach he delivered on Malta's Radju Marija should target the Tridentine Mass - the cause of all evils in these sunny islands it seems.

Hey, you're not looking at us!

He had said - on that blessed 13 April 2011 - that it is an insult for the people when the priest turns his back to the people as is done in the Latin Mass. Apart from the abysmal lack of knowledge of why the priest faces the tabernacle and not the people in the Latin Mass, Fr. Cilia then said that the Maltese have difficulty in understanding Mass in Maltese, let alone the one in Latin!

So, this priest considers the Maltese as being an ignorant people and therefore we have to believe all that he says. And obviously he is not an idiot... but my logic says that if the Maltese are ignorant and the priest shouting from the microphone on Radju Marija is Maltese then .... he must be an idiot too!

I was a Russian Altar boy not a Santa Claus.

In fact, thanks to Fr. Cilia I learnt that Karl Marx was a Russian who was an altar boy and afterwards he turned against the Catholic Church. I must throw away all the books that say that Marx was a German.

It is not usual of me to be sarcastic but today I cannot help it. The worst part is yet to come though.

As President of Pro Tridentina (Malta) at the time, I had written to the Director of Radju Marija, the M.S.S.P. Motherhouse and the Maltese Curia seeking an explanation for this.

It goes without saying that no one bothered to answer, chi tace acconsente as the Italian saying goes.

Thankfully, the Holy See's Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (PCED) takes things more seriously as the Maltese Curia's postman surely knows...