Practical suggestions for traditional Catholics

This Blog has the following suggestions for those traditional Catholics who find themselves without access to traditional celebrations of the Tridentine Mass or after its suppression following Pope Francis' Traditionis custodes:

• establish a lay-led community which focuses on the celebration of the traditional chanted Divine Office. Pro Tridentina (Malta) is exploring this possibility.
• If you do not have a sympathetic Bishop or priest, rent or purchase a retail space or church and renovate it, adding iconography and seats for antiphonal singing. Pro Tridentina (Malta) is currently conducting a study to establish which places can be used to further expand the Tridentine Mass in Malta, and especially in Gozo which remains without this Mass.
• Celebrate at least Vespers and Matins on the Lord’s Day, and other services throughout the day or week.
• Offer catechetical teachings for adults, teens and children.
• Then find a parish that offers the most traditional Novus Ordo liturgy you can find and attend the Mass. This is becoming more of a challenge in Malta and Gozo.
• Be sure to engage in the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.
• If possible, affiliate with a tradition-minded Tertiary or Lay Associate group.
• Find a priest or deacon who can help serve as a spiritual director, even from a distance.

10 Reasons to be a Traditional Catholic and 10 Ways to Stay a Traditional Catholic

BY FATHER CAROTA

One of the dangers of being a traditional Catholic is getting stuck on the superficial (exterior) elements of our Catholic faith and worship.  Another danger is getting caught up in the polemic battles with those who are out to destroy us.  For this reason, each one of us needs to have a life centered on God through prayer.  We love and fight for everything traditional because it protects the divine presence of God in our souls, our families and in our Church.

Here are 10 reminders why to be a traditional Catholics, (lest we forget);

1) To adore, love and serve God in the most dignified way possible in this life on earth.  The primary reason we were created was to adore, love and serve God, in this life and in the life to come in heaven.  This is what gives meaning to this life and our eternal life.

2) To defend and preserve the Catholic faith in its Ancient Liturgy and Teachings.  Lex Orandi (How we pray.) protects Lex credendi (What we believe), that leads to Lex Vivendi (How we live our lives).  And this is why we are giving our lives to defend and preserve what was passed on to us from before our time.

3) To obtain a personal union with God through the practice of this ancient Catholic faith.  In living a orthodox life and praying in a manner that pleases God, graces are given to us to obtain our final goal, a loving union with God in this life and in the one to come.

4) To grow in holiness in our ordinary daily lives.  No matter what we may believe and know about our Catholic faith, what is of paramount importance, is that it will effect our daily lives and how we live it in union with God.

5) To obtaining the graces necessary to fight the devil and our daily temptations.  We live in a constant spiritual battle for our own souls, and those around us, against the forces of evil.  God has given us the graces necessary through the traditional Latin Mass, Rites and prayers to avail ourselves with great power against the devil and his minions.  The devil hates Latin and all that is sacred.

6) To defend Catholic Dogma against heresies and false worship.  From the beginning of Christianity there has always been error introduced into the Church.  St. Paul writes about the false apostles and those who are against truth in his epistles.  And this has been part of the Church’s struggle down to today.  We need to realize that heresy will have to be fought up to the last second before Jesus’ return in Glory.

7) To obtain the graces given by God that we need for the salvation of our eternal souls.  At every Holy Mass, every Holy Communion, every confession, every time we go to adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we receive divine graces.   Every time we read the Bible, pray the Holy Rosary, we receive more graces (supernatural help from God) to not fall in sin and loose our souls forever in hell.

8) To avoid separation from God, which means eternal damnation and all of its horror.  The greatest horror is to be eternally separated from our loving union with God.  In living the traditional Catholic life there are many aids to help us on our way to avoid the pits of damnation and to find the spiritual ladders to climb out of the well, if for some terrible reason we may fall into the well of sin.

9) To help as many persons a possible to be saved through Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice.  We love God, and we love our neighbor.  Out of love, we want to share the tools that God has given to His Church, for salvation of souls.  So by preserving and sharing traditional faith, we love our neighbors as ourselves and help them get to heaven.

10) To make it easy to be holy through the natural grandeur and beauty of the Latin Mass, churches, altars and art.  The Holy Latin Mass is the “Most Beautiful Thing This Side of Heaven”.  When the solemn High Mass is offered, in its beauty, it speaks beyond what human words can express.  All over Europe, people from all over the world are awe struck at the grandeur and beauty of the Catholic churches and art. Millions of people wait hours in line just to be able to visit the traditional Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome.  Divine liturgy, art and music speak on their own.

There are many more reasons why to choose to be traditional Catholics. But these are some of the essential ones. So, this being stated, the next question is how do we live this traditional Catholic life every day.

1) Love God and Neighbor.  Love of God helps us avoid what offends Him.  Love of neighbor helps us grow in virtue and is indispensable. Every day we need to work on loving God and asking Him to help us love our family, our friends, strangers and our enemies.

2) Put God first in our personal lives, our family and our work.  Priorities, priorities, priorities.  Great people always know how to prioritize.  We too need to be reminded every day to put God first.  With God in the first place, the rest seems to fit together naturally.

3) Put prayer as the most important activity in your daily routine. Living in this fast pace life, we get caught up in the stream of rushing.  We try to keep up with everything that needs to be done everyday.  Prayer, then gets put off because it takes discipline and does not come naturally. It is much easier to just go along with the flow, than to put prayer first in our day and our lives.  A day that is not started with prayer does not go that well.  We always want to put prayer as the most important activity we can do every day.  Fight the temptation to put it off till later.  Later usually never comes.

4) Be around holy people who support, challenge us and council us on how to be holy.  As we see in the Bible, Jesus gathered the apostles, disciples and friends around Him.  It is wonderful to know that Jesus knows we need Him, and other holy people, to grow spiritually.  We were not meant to be lone rangers.  Let us be humbly open to other’s suggestions and constructive criticism, especially from holy priests and religious.

5) Read the Bible and other spiritual classics written by the saints. We have a great guide to help us on our way to heaven, called the Bible. All we have to do is sit down and open it and read it.  We have thousands of older brothers and sisters (the saints) who have gone before us and cleared the path to heaven for us.  We can walk in their foot prints or try to clear the path on our own.  It is a lot safer and easier to follow their path than to re invent the wheel and highway over again.  But it will take discipline to read their writings.

6) Attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as often as possible during the week.  Graces and encouragement is available at the Holy Mass everyday.  If we can only organize our day so that we can make time for this great help, we will be happier and holier for it.

7) Be attentive to the action of God in our ordinary lives as priests, religious and laity.  Most of us are just ordinary people trying to be good. The daily life of St. Joseph and Mary in Nazareth was ordinary like ours. We learn from them that the ordinary life is the ordinary way to heaven. So we want to be extraordinary saints through the ordinary life God has given us.

8) Ask God for more faith and a deeper love for Him.  Faith and love are supernatural virtues that comes from God that need to be developed. We all need more faith and love.  When we have more faith and love, we are able to put our lives (with all its difficulties) in the hands of Our Loving God.  So to grow in the virtue of faith, we need to exercise blind believing that God is behind everything that is happening to us (other than sinful actions).  To grow in Love we daily ask for the grace to do things out of love and to put love into even the tiniest event and action of our daily routine.

9) Have gratitude for the graces already present in our lives.  “The Attitude of Gratitude” is so important to keep us cheerful and steadfast on the way to holiness.  Taking time to reflect on what God has done, is doing and will continue to do in the future, helps us in the dry times of our spiritual lives.

10) Have a hatred for sin and anything that would in the slightest way offend God. Loving what God loves and hating what God hates, is a help to stay close to Him.  It is very salutary to meditate on the terrible consequences of sin in our past and in the world around us right now.  Sin is poison, a virus that kills the body and the soul.   

God has been so good to help us live holy, happy and healthy lives.  We are so blessed to have these divine treasures in the traditional Catholic Church.  Let us protect them and share them with all those who have good will.

We traditionalists know who is in charge after all; God.  And for that reason we can relax about all that is going on in the Church and in the world.  So, we enjoy each day, loving, adoring, praising and thanking God for His love, protection and goodness.

The original author of this blog passed away in July of 2016. RIP Father Carota.

BREAKING NEWS : Pope Francis unleashes hatred for Benedict XVI

Pope Francis took a significant step toward putting the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgy solidly on the side of modernization on 16 July by cracking down on the use of the Tridentine Mass, essentially reversing a decision by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. This reverses Summorum Pontificum, which acknowledged the right of all priests to say Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962, which is in Latin. The move to restrict the use of the Tridentine rite dealt a blow to traditional Catholics, who have long complained that the current pope is diluting the traditions of the church. Francis placed new restrictions on where and by whom the traditional Latin Mass can be celebrated and required new permissions from local bishops for its use. In the motu proprio, the pope made sweeping changes to his predecessor Benedict XVI’s 2007 apostolic letter The new document is dedicated to “the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the reform of 1970” and contains eight articles that go into immediate effect. Pro Tridentina (Malta) has asked the reaction of 2 priests: Canadian Fr N.E.D. Doublet and Fr Tony. The latter celebrates Tridentine Mass in Malta. Fr Doublet expects that restrictions will be applied to the Canadian priests that currently celebrate Tridentine Mass in his country. There are currently around 45 churches where the Tridentine Mass is held in Canada. Some bishops have already suspended the Latin Mass due on Sunday 18 July. So, worse can be expected. Fr Doublet added that the publication of the motu proprio so soon after Pope Francis left hospital can only be considered as being a vengeful act. One now has to see whether Benedict XVI will react, though it is unlikely. Fr Doublet concluded that the Church now has a suffering Pope - Benedict XVI, victim of hatred unleashed on him by Francis. On the other hand, Fr Tony said that the situation in Malta is likely to remain the same. The Diocese of Gozo will probably do nothing, after all no known Tridentine Masses have been celebrated there since 2007. This was due to the hardline policy adopted by then Bishop (now Cardinal) Mario Grech. There are rumours circulating in the Vatican that the Gozitan Cardinal showed his appreciation of the new mtou proprio Traditionis custodes, especially Articles 3 and 5. The situation in Malta is more complicated. According to Fr Tony, it is hoped that the structure of the Apostolate of St. Paul Malta will remain. Albeit the irony being having a Tridentine Mass held in a Jesuit Church during the Jesuit's Pope hardline attitude, added Fr Tony. Regarding himself personally, Fr Tony stressed that he will continue to celebrate Tridentine Mass regularly, as long as people want it. He concluded by reminding us that Benedict XVI had 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

As a service to its readers, Pro Tridentina (Malta)has added 2 pages on this topic: a) the text of Traditionis custodes https://pro-tridentina-malta.blogspot.com/p/traditionis-custodes.html and b) the letter written by Pope Francis to bishops about this motu proprio https://pro-tridentina-malta.blogspot.com/p/pope-francis-letter-accompamying.html

Vatican Council II Documents: a compass to guide the ship of the Church

We are reproducing parts of the speech by then Pope Benedict XVI, during a general audience dated 10 October 2012. This is important in the context of the current quarrels between different traditional Catholics in Malta. They range from Novus Ordo conservatives, to SSPX symphatisers to sedevacantists and even outright Conclavists. The latter, in particular, are known to be very active lately.

 "We have reached the eve of the day on which we will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican Council II and the beginning of the Year of Faith. And it is about the great ecclesial event of the Council that I wish to speak.

 

The documents of Vatican Council II are, even in our own time, a compass guiding the ship of the Church as she sails on the open seas, amidst tempests or peaceful waves, to reach her destination. ... I was able to witness the living Church ... which places herself at the school of the Holy Spirit, the true driving force behind the Council. Rarely in history has it been possible, as it was then, to touch almost physically the universality of the Church at a moment of peak fulfilment of her mission to carry the Gospel into all ages and unto the ends of the earth.

 

In Church history Vatican II was preceded by many other Councils such as Nicea, Ephesus, Chalcedon and Trent. In general though, they met to define fundamental elements of the faith, and particularly to the correct errors endangering that faith. This was not the case with Vatican Council II, because at that time there were no particular errors of the faith to correct and condemn, nor were there specific questions of doctrine and discipline to be clarified. ... The first question that arose during the preparation of this great event was how to begin, what task to give it. Blessed John XXIII in his opening address of 11 October fifty years ago gave some general guidelines: the faith had to speak with a 'renewed' and more incisive voice, because the world was changing rapidly, but it had to maintain its perennial message intact, without giving way or compromising.

 

The Pope wanted the Church to reflect upon her faith and upon the truths that guide her. But that serious and profound reflection ... had to be the starting point for a new relationship between the Church and the modern age, between Christianity and certain essential elements of modern thought, not in order to seek conformity, but to show our world, which tends to distance itself from God, the requirements of the Gospel in all its greatness and purity.

 

The age in which we live continues to be marked by forgetfulness and deafness towards God. I believe, then, that we must learn the simplest and most fundamental lesson of the Council: that the essence of Christianity consists in faith in God, ... and in the individual and community encounter with Christ Who guides our lives. ... The important thing today, as was the desire of the Council Fathers, is for us to see - clearly and anew - that God is present, that He concerns us and responds to us. And when faith in God is lacking our essential foundations give way because man loses his dignity. ... The Council reminds us that the Church ... has the mandate to transmit God's salvific word of love, so that the divine call which contains our eternal beatitude may be heard and accepted.

 

The four cardinal points of our guiding compass: Sacrosanctum Concilium on the sacred liturgy, which speaks of the centrality of the mystery of Christ's presence in the Church; Lumen Gentium which highlights the Church's fundamental duty to glorify God; Dei Verbum on divine Revelation, which speaks of the living Word of God that unites and animates the Church throughout history, and finally Gaudium et Spes which deals with the way the Church transmits to the world the light it received from God.

 

Vatican Council II is a powerful appeal to us to make a daily rediscovery of the beauty of our faith, to understand it deeply through a more intense relationship with the Lord, and to live out our Christian vocation to the full".

Quotes to reflect upon (18)

"They (the Modernists) exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of Tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority.  But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those “who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind.... or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church”; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: “We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by every one of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.” Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: “I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church” - St. Pius X, Encyclical Pascendi Dominci Gregis, 8 September 1907

 

Count Neri Capponi, R.I.P.

Count Neri Capponi, second from the left, photo dated 2001 (Source: Controrivoluzione)

Count Neri Capponi, a prominent Florentine legal scholar and canonist, and one of the great traditional Catholic personalities, died on 13 December 2018 in Florence, Italy. Count Capponi taught for many decades at the University of Florence. He also served on the marriage tribunal of the Archdiocese of the same city and was recognized as a canon lawyer with the credentials to speak before the Roman Rota. Neri Capponi was also a Vice-President of the FIUV and was also Honorary President of the same Federation for many years. He also corresponded with the former President of Pro Tridentina (Malta).

 

Capponi was known for having defended the right of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to continue his apostolate without being labelled schismatic.

 

“You cannot apply the standards of the new code of canon law and the mentality of the old code. According to the new code, Lefebvre could do what he did with a Catholic intention, and he did what he did in ‘sincerity’ and invoked the ‘state of emergency’ argument, which the new code permits. You might not like the new code, but it’s what governs the Church.” 

Neri Capponi was also very much in favour of Summorum Pontificum. He considered the post-Vatican II period as a time of crisis:

"When asked why I believe the crisis we now face is worse than Arianism, I give these reasons: (a) The principal vehicle of the faith, the liturgy, was untouched by the Arian crisis; (b) whereas the Arian crisis was precipitated and sustained by the intervention of secular power, the post Vatican II crisis comes from within the Church and is therefore more difficult to fight; (c) in the fourth century, Pope Liberius finally signed the excommunication of St. Athanasius under duress—in the twentieth century Pope Paul VI was admittedly taken in and hoodwinked by his misguided optimism, but there was no duress; (d) the present crisis is not only one of faith but of morals as well. In addition, today not only one dogma, albeit a very important one, is denied as with Arianism, but all dogmas, be it even the existence of a personal God!" Times of Crisis, Times for Faith, lecture delivered in 1995.

Quotes to reflect upon (17)

"I don’t like, indeed, those views that would like to reduce the traditionalist ‘phenomenon’ to only the celebration of the ancient rite, as if it were a stubborn and nostalgic attachment to the past. ... In reality, what we frequently find is a Christian view of the life of faith and of devotion—shared by so many Catholic families that frequently are enriched by many children—that has special characteristics, and we can mention as examples: a strong sense of belonging to the Mystical Body of Christ, a desire to maintain strong links with the past—that wishes to be seen, not in contrast with the present, but in a line of continuity with the Church—to present the principal teachings of the Faith, a profound desire for spirituality and the sacred, etc.." Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, interview in ‘The Latin Mass magazine’, May 2004.

Recalling the liturgical changes of the 1960s

The changes in the liturgy began in the 1950s, with the revision of Holy Week and the first simplification of the rubrics in 1955. A further simplification occurred in 1961, leading to the publication of the 1962 Missal. Those changes set the stage for what was to follow, especially after Sacrosanctum Concilium.

 

The imprudence with Sacrosanctum Concilium which called for “noble simplicity” and for the rites to be “simplified”, without specifying what exactly that should entail, in my opinion, ensured that chaos was to follow. The transitional period before the implementation of the so-called Missa Normativa, which became the Novus Ordo Missae, had in fact many revisions.

Mass around 1965.

 

The 1962 Missal, still in use to this day by traditional Catholics, started being changed almost immediately. In 1963, changes eliminated the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, and eliminated the Last Gospel.

Massive changes occurred on Advent Sunday of 1965 in several places around the globe, including:

 

• portable altars were put up in front of high altars.
• Introits, collects, the entire ordinary, and the Lord’s Prayer switched to the vernacular. From the Preface through the Canon, things remained in Latin.
• the Offertory Procession was inserted into the Mass.
• the Prayers of the Faithful were also.
• Sacred music started being supplanted.

In 1967, the Canon, that most untranslatable prayer, which was expected to be retained in Latin was put in the vernacular.

Concurrent with the changes in liturgy came a lessening in discipline. Many priests in many churches told people not to worry if they missed Mass, supposedly because the Spirit of the Vatican Council II was throwing off the past rigidity.

The changes continued as more came into the liturgy. Communion in the hand, standing for Communion and the demolition of sanctuaries followed, along with anticipatory Masses on Saturday. A new set of variations to the order of Mass was issued in May 1967, following those implemented in March 1965. 

Although Sacrosanctum Concilium insisted to “let the use of the Latin language be preserved... Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy ... should be given pride of place in liturgical services” was now de facto almost entirely thrown off.

 

Pro Tridentina (Malta), on the eve of 2018, will anxiously be waiting for the changes aimed at the 1962 Roman Missal, which this Blog had exclusively brought to the attention of the traditional Catholics worldwide some months ago.

A sustained attack in Malta on those in favour of the Tridentine Mass - 4

Original Sunday Times of Malta

Poor translations of the liturgy

 

The essence of the liturgy is the meeting of God’s People with God without barriers, to communicate with Him… and not through a dead language, or tortuous or anachronistic translations of it.

 

On March 28, 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued the fifth instruction “for the right implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council” on the use of vernacular languages in the publication of the books of the Roman liturgy.

 

The document was given the awesome title of Liturgiam Authenticam, that is, authentic liturgy.

 

While the title is awesome, the rest is very disappointing; it smells of an ideology rather the “odour of the sheep”. Rather than spelling out what should be done in the liturgy so that the People of God could fully participate – in mind, heart and soul – in the highest act of adoration, Liturgiam Authenticam gave directives on how liturgical texts should be translated (or transliterated) from the Latin to local languages.

 

‘Mind your language’ would have been a more apt title for the document! In my view, LA has sidelined the express word of Vatican II, that “since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters”. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 36).

 

And this is what happened in the Church in the early decades after Vatican II: the usage of local languages was extended. The anti-pastoral results of the directives given by LA can be clearly seen in the Congregation’s imposition of the English translation of the Mass.

 

Six years had been spent by US bishops to revise the Lectionary, the Scripture readings used in Mass, but a Vatican-appointed committee intervened to short-circuit those efforts.

 

Pope Francis’s correction of Cardinal Sarah shows that Vatican II is his ‘sure compass’.
 

Isn’t it mind-boggling that years before Vatican II, bishops had the authority to approve a translation of the Bible – the inspired Word of God – but did not have the final authority in approving the translation of the liturgical text, which, apart from the quotations from the Scriptures, cannot be called inspired books.

 

In an interview, Pope Francis openly articulated his misgivings about liturgical traditionalists: “I always try to understand what’s behind the people who are too young to have lived the pre-conciliar liturgy but who want it.

 

Sometimes I’ve found myself in front of people who are too strict, who have a rigid attitude. And I wonder: How come such rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something: insecurity, sometimes even more... Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.”

 

The essence of the liturgy is the meeting of God’s People with God without barriers, to communicate with Him “through Him, and with Him, and in Him… in the unity of the Holy Spirit”, and not through a dead (even if classical and perhaps ecclesiastical) language, or tortuous or anachronistic translations of it.

 

In 2014, Georgetown University’s Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate released a study that found 75 per cent of leaders at American churches said that the new translation is “awkward and distracting”, 50 per cent said it “urgently needs to be revised” and the clergy widely rejected the new translations.

 

In keeping with the medieval axiom Sacramenta sunt propter hominess (‘Sacraments are for the people’), logically one ought to stress the supremacy of people over rites, rituals and languages. This is why Pope Francis recently issued the motu proprio Magnum Principium (‘The Great Principle’) giving more control to national bishops’ conferences over the translation of liturgical texts, thus bringing a realignment with Vatican II’s intent.

 

The importance of Magnum Principium can be evidenced by the unprecedented letter by Pope Francis which publicly corrects an article by Cardinal Robert Sarah about the changes the Magnum Principium introduced as to how the Catholic Church’s liturgies are to be translated from the original Latin into local languages.

 

The Pope had, in fact, revised some of the translation norms established by LA. Pope Francis’s correction of Cardinal Sarah shows that Vatican II is his ‘sure compass’. So should it be for all bishops, clergy and faithful.

 

Fr Joe Inguanez, a sociologist, is executive director of Discern.