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Report on St. Adelaides Solemn High Mass(continued)
Una VoceNH- Sunday's Solemn High Mass was different than any Mass I have experienced...and I was lucky enough to have served the TLM as a boy for 2 years before it converted to the Novus Ordu.
Interestingly, in "the old days" we did have a High Mass, but it was always with one priest...not three.
I now understand that this is the difference between a High Mass or Missa Cantata vs. the Solemn High Mass.
While the Liturgy and Schola's music were beautiful, St. Adelaides even made very wonderful accomodations for the celebration of the TLM without a High Altar or Altar rail. It appeared that at one time there may have been a high altar that had been removed years ago. However, the lower part of the Novus Ordu Altar table was wrapped in a beautiful tapestry and then covered with beautiful altar linens. On the altar were 6 large gold candles, tabernacle and traditional altar cards.
Currently, also absent an altar rail(like most churches today), instead of kneeling on the altar step or using a kneeler, communicants were directed into the first row pew where they kneeled to receive Holy Communion. It was a clever accomodation and worked well.
This article would not be complete without acknowleging Fr. Raymond and his fellow priests for certainly preparing so carefully to learn the rubrics and latin for this Mass.
It's a blessing to have such holy, dedicated men as our priests.
Thank you Fathers!!!!
Sacred Heart Church's restoration begins
Work on Sacred Heart expected to last 2 months
Article Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Richard Tucker, left, and Joe Sorenson, right, of P.M. MacKay Group from Nashua remove pews at the sacred Heart Church in Laconia to repair fire and smoke damage.
(Ray Mongeau/For The Citizen)
Restoration work began in Sacred Heart Church three weeks to the day after an arson fire caused around $250,000 worth of damage to the historic house of worship.
Sacred Heart's pastor, the Rev. Adrien Longchamps said a crew from P.M. MacKay Group of Nashua reached an agreement with the Diocese of Manchester and arrived early Tuesday morning to begin the extensive renovations that will be needed before the church can reopen.
Longchamps, buoyed by the support he has received from his congregation, the city and the surrounding Catholic community, said the mission of his church still continues and he will use the various rooms in the next door parish hall until the church can reopen.
He said he took some furniture from the old convent and recreated as much of the church as he could in one half of the gymnasium.
"It looks as much like a chapel as it can," said Longchamps, noting that the gymnasium is air-conditioned and, during the recent heat wave, he has had many grateful parishioners.
While this is not the way Longchamps would have preferred, he is excited about the renovations and painting made necessary by the smoky blaze.
"From one end to the other, it will be refreshed and renewed," said Longchamps, adding that the MacKay Group estimates it will take the better part of eight weeks to complete the work.
MacKay estimator Joe Cronin said
refurbishing the church is a huge project and presents serious challenges because of its 100-year-old architectural style and especially the original gold leaf stencil work which adorns the walls.
Cronin said other challenges are removing the 100-year-old oak pews so the carpet can be replaced and cleaning and painting the 42-foot high cathedral ceiling.
"We'll use a combination of scaffolding and portable lifts to reach that," said Cronin.
He said the first thing his crews did was remove the two altars and bring them to their shop in Nashua, where craftsmen will recreate them for reinstallation. The company will also recreate the parquet flooring damaged by flames.
"When I first looked at this job I
was very saddened," said Cronin, who is a Catholic. Although he works on a lot of churches and has done restoration work before for the Catholic diocese in the state, he said this was no way to get a job.
"We're very lucky the back of the altar didn't catch fire," said Cronin, noting that the flames scorched the area. "It came close to being a real tragedy."
Police Chief Michael Moyer said the investigation is continuing and it is a priority for the department.
"We've put up posters, interviewed dozens of people and sent evidence to the lab," said Moyer, who admitted he wasn't as confident about solving the case as he was three weeks ago. "Usually we get something within 48 hours in cases like these."
"Anything we hear we look into," he continued. "We've eliminated some people and others we haven't."
There is a $1,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction in this arson. Anyone with any information is asked to call the crime line 524-1717 or the police department at 524-5257.
Losing a space to soar
Yvonne Abraham Globe Columnist / June 11, 2008 It's not what you expect to see when you step into a Catholic church these days.
But here it all is at Holy Trinity German Church, on Shawmut Avenue in the South End, at the start of a sweltering Sunday.
About 100 people from Bourne and West Roxbury and all over come for the 9 a.m. Latin Mass. They are men and women of all ages, Catholics convinced that their church made a big mistake when it did away with the Latin Mass.
"I don't get anything out of the [English] Mass," says Kathleen Stone, 59, of Hull. "There is a lack of reverence. This is my time alone with God."
This grand church is the perfect setting for a Latin Mass.
Incongruous in one of the few unprettified parts of the South End, its puddingstone and granite exterior is impressive enough.
But walking through Holy Trinity's doors will take your breath away. Light filters through huge, deeply hued, stained, etched, and painted glass windows. Enormous, hand-carved statues of the Twelve Apostles look down from the walls. Immense pillars hold up impossibly high, sky-blue gothic arches.
Parishioners say it was mostly working people who scraped together the money to turn the church, which opened in 1877 to serve thousands of German immigrants, into a place resembling the ornate cathedrals they left behind, by cramming it with paintings and statues.
But Stone and the others have just three Sundays left at Holy Trinity. The Archdiocese of Boston is closing the church June 30, partly because its congregation is too small to sustain it, officials say.
Parishioners at Holy Trinity, like those in many of the churches that have been closed, are mighty angry. They are probably going to appeal the archdiocese's decision. But the church closing isn't the end of the Latin Mass in these parts. In fact, the Latin Mass is having a resurgence.
The parish of Mary Immaculate of Lourdes in Newton offers Latin Masses now, and that is where some of Holy Trinity's worshipers have already gone, reluctantly.
Last year, Pope Benedict XVI loosened the rules, allowing any church with enough support to offer Masses in Latin. Four other local churches now have them, too, so the Latin Mass will survive this closing.
Less certain is the future of that lovely church itself, designed and built to outlast all of the transformations within it.
The Archdiocese has closed about 60 parishes since it began its consolidation four years ago. A few churches have been sold to other denominations. Some have been turned into housing, including condominiums. In the happiest cases, their windows have been pulled out and sent to other parishes, their statues and pulpits and stations of the cross scattered across the country. It's too soon to know what will happen here.
Susan Long saw her old church, the parish of Saints Peter and Paul on Broadway in South Boston, turned into condos, and she can't bear the thought of the same thing happening at Holy Trinity, where she says the Latin Mass gave her a spiritual reawakening.
"I was baptized there," she says. "Now there are people sitting at a holy place smoking cigarettes."
We have paid a lot of attention to the communities like this one, broken apart by church closings, and rightly so.
But sitting in Holy Trinity for an hour, imagining this beautiful place sectioned off for granite countertops and walk-in closets, you realize there are other casualties in this whole painful process.
Like so many other churches representing the highest aspirations of long-gone Catholics, this grand, transcendent place may ultimately not transcend at all.
Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at abraham@globe.com.
Latin LoversLiturgical Trend As the Church Awaits Missal Translation VALERIE SCHMALZ
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
June 8-14, 2008 Issue | Posted 6/3/08 at 10:14 AM
SAN FRANCISCO — When Gloria Gazave started as a cantor at St. Thomas More Church in San Francisco, she turned her classical training as a singer to good use.
The 5 p.m. Saturday Mass now features the Kyrie sung in Greek, with the Sanctus, Gloria, Agnus Dei and sometimes the Creed and Memorial Acclamation sung in Latin.
“It was real slow at first, but now people sing along. It is not that hard,” said the mother of five. The church prints song sheets that include the Latin chants.
“I was kind of nervous about how it was going to be accepted,” Gazave said. “But everyone has commented on how beautiful it is.”
St. Thomas More is part of a quiet trend to incorporate traditional Latin Church music, particularly the chants, into the body of the vernacular Novus Ordo Mass. This is not the beginning of a return to the Mass in Latin, several experts said, but a recognition that a part of the Church’s heritage needs to reclaim its position within the liturgy.
The trend is accelerating at the same time as a new English translation of the Roman Missal, expected to reincorporate more traditional language, is in the works, several liturgy experts noted.
“There is a renewed interest in the Latin texts, the Latin chants,” said Patrick Vallez-Kelly, director of the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Office of Worship. “I think some people are going back to the instructions that came out of the Second Vatican Council that have always exhorted us to maintain a basic repertoire of Latin. That has largely been ignored in the American church. There is a generation of music directors and liturgists who are coming back to that — this is something of value.”
Vatican II encouraged the use of Gregorian chant and recommended it to have “pride of place” in the liturgy.
“There may be a natural call that this kind of natural chanting has on the human heart, and that’s why for so many years of being absent from the churches it is now being welcomed by so many,” said Helen Hull Hitchcock, editor of the Adoremus Bulletin. “As St. Augustine said, ‘Singing is praying twice.’”
Pope Benedict XVI’s love of traditional church music is also sparking the movement toward more Latin and Gregorian music, Vallez-Kelly said. The Holy Father wrote extensively on the liturgy as a professor and then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, particularly in The Spirit of the Liturgy. Now that he is Pope, his thoughts have become more familiar.
“I think in some ways he’s a voice for what other people have been feeling,” Vallez-Kelly said. “There are certain aspects to the liturgical renewal that weren’t done well. There has been a lot of disregard for the norms — and a lot of free experimentation done poorly.”
‘Our Heritage’
In fact, the Church Music Association of America’s sacred music seminars that once drew 40 to 50 people now lure hundreds of Catholic musical directors, organists and singers, Religion News Service reported. And St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke this spring announced the creation of Institute of Sacred Music in the Office of Sacred Worship and the appointment as director of noted music scholar and Benedictine Father Samuel Weber.
In San Francisco, a city of immigrants, the number of foreign language Masses is high. At Sts. Peter and Paul Church near Fisherman’s Wharf, the Chinese Mass includes the Our Father in Latin, said Salesian Father Harold Danielson. The church’s Italian Mass includes some Latin chants as do some of the regular English Masses, the priest said.
While some might hope the renewed interest in the Latin chants is a movement back toward the days when the Mass was entirely in Latin, Church liturgy scholar Father Giles Dimock said the Mass in the language of the people is here to stay.
“My own opinion is that most people are happy to be able to understand the Mass, particularly the readings, but they miss the great Church music of the past,” said the Dominican priest, who taught liturgy for 40 years in Rome and Washington, D.C., and is now at Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio.
Pope Benedict’s relaxing of restrictions on celebration of the Extraordinary Rite of the Mass in Latin will mean greater celebration of the Mass in Latin both in the extraordinary form and the ordinary form, Father Dimock said.
But Mass in Latin will remain just one form of the Mass celebrated in the Church. Father Dimock noted that during his recent visit Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in English, “but they used a great deal of Latin music” in Yankee Stadium and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the Masses were “very beautiful. I don’t think it has to be all or nothing.”
The papal Masses in New York had an evangelical aspect, Hitchcock said. “Uniting this kind of beauty with the texts in the Mass creates an appeal that is beyond mere words or intellect. This is one of the functions of music in the liturgy that Pope Benedict has fostered throughout his career.”
“Personally I think it’s a bit odd that for years the only place you could hear some of the great Catholic music was in the high Anglican churches,” said Father Dimock.
“It is our heritage.”
Valerie Schmalz is based in San Francisco
Bishop surveys damage to church
RAY MONGEAU/For The Citizen
Bishop John McCormack visits Sacred Heart Church in Laconia to consult with Father Adrien Longchamps and view the damage done by the arson fire earlier this week.
By GEOFF CUNNINGHAM Jr.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The head of New Hampshire's Catholic Church expressed sadness and confusion on Friday when he traveled to Sacred Heart Church to support those impacted by a Tuesday arson fire that damaged its altar.
Bishop John B. McCormack of the Diocese of Manchester stood with Vicar of the Clergy Rev. Richard Thompson and Sacred Heart Pastor Rev. Adrien Longchamps in the darkened church as the group surveyed the damage from an intentionally set fire that filled the house of worship with smoke on Tuesday.
McCormack, dressed in all black with a large silver cross hanging from his neck, spoke calmly as he looked over the charred alter and burned carpets.
"When something like this happens, it's more than someone just doing something ... it's like a space has been violated," said Bishop McCormack.
The leader of the Catholic Church in New Hampshire said he traveled to Laconia primarily to support Rev. Longchamps whom, along with parishioners, he praised for beginning to move forward while holding mass in the adjacent parish gymnasium.
Bishop McCormack noted that Longchamps was "right on top of it" in responding to an event that has shaken community members, whether they are Catholics or not.
The church leader said diocesan staff members have been assisting in assessing damage so that they can proceed with their insurance provider.
As police continue to investigate the fire, McCormack made it clear that he is among the many who remain saddened at an event in which "everybody feels affected".
"This was intentional [and] it's pretty upsetting and sad that somebody sees God in such a way that they would desecrate his altar," said McCormack.
Bishop McCormack said he cannot recall anything coming close to the arson event in Laconia during his time as church leader, besides a tragic event in 2000 that saw the St. Joan of Arc Church in Alton burned to the ground.
However ,he noted that the Alton fire was not set intentionally.
Rev. Thompson echoed Bishop McCormack's sentiment that they were glad the fire was out before it did more significant damage and they expressed hope that Mass will be able to be held in the church sooner rather than later."The big blessing is that nobody is hurt. The people are the church as sacred as the building is," said Rev. Thompson.
Rev. Longchamps said it meant a lot to him and parishioners that Bishop McCormack traveled to Laconia to lend his support and he said the incident has struck the hearts of those who worship there.
"They are sad and they are perplexed. They ask, 'How could you do this?' and it doesn't make sense to them," said Rev. Longchamps.
The parish leader said portions of the wooden floor and carpet will need to be replaced but the fire fortunately did not spread into the large ornamented statue of Jesus Christ and painted woodwork that adorns the "reredos" — the decorative and elaborate wall at the back of the altar, featuring the Sacred Heart symbol.
Rev. Longchamps said that has been an element in the church for some 45 to 50 years.
Meanwhile, police are continuing to investigate the fire.
On Thursday and Friday police distributed flyers offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the fire. The poster directs calls to the Greater Laconia Crimeline at 524-1717.
Laconia Police Chief Mike Moyer said his department is committed to making an arrest in the case but he said information is coming in slower than they expected.
"Quite often when someone does something like this they tend to talk about it, but I thought we would get a little more information [than we have]," said Moyer.
The chief said police put out more flyers from Lakeport up to Busy Corner on Friday and will continue to follow any and all leads.
"We are working on solving it," said Moyer.
Church hit by arson
In what some authorities are not ruling out as a hate crime, local and state officials are investigating arson at the Sacred Heart Church on Union Avenue Tuesday afternoon.
The arsonist or arsonists used votive candles to set fire to the altar linen and frontal cloth at both the main altar where the priest says Mass and a smaller altar nearby where the Blessed Sacrament (consecrated Communion wafers) is kept. Pages were ripped from the missal containing prayers used during services and a third, smaller fire was set in the middle of the center aisle.
Candles were strewn about the front of the church and a small crucifix was thrown on the floor.
"This is a nightmare. It seems like it's unreal," said Father Adrien Longchamps, who was in the rectory next door when a parishioner who came to pray before the 5 p.m. Mass ran to the door to tell him about the fire.
"To have it actually happen, I just don't know what to say," the priest said
Longchamps said after learning of the fire he ran into the church to find it smoke-filled but not actually burning.
"If it was still burning I would have saved the Blessed Sacrament," he said, noting it was intact and unharmed.
"It came real close," said Fire Chief Kenneth Erickson. "Behind the altar the fire was still burning in the floor and in the wall. Clearly someone really wanted to do this. I consider this an attack on the whole community. A church is a safe haven."
Mayor Matthew Lahey expressed similar pain and outrage.
"It just doesn't get much worse than this," said Lahey after conferring with Police Chief Michael Moyer. "[Sacred Heart] is a long-standing institution in our community."
According to Longchamps, Sacred Heart Church was built from 1891 to 1893 — the year Laconia was incorporated as a city. Its tall spires and long, granite steps are one of the more familiar landmarks in the city. For most of its history it has been the church which served the city's Franco-American community, though in recent years its membership has become more diverse.
"We're doing a lot right now," said Moyer, who authorized an extra detective to begin the investigation and called in the N.H. Fire Marshal and an arson dog. He said police immediately canvassed the area, interviewing everybody within a two-block radius.
Moyer said there are surveillance cameras at TD Banknorth next door, the Rite Aid drugstore across the street and the Quick Trip Sunoco at the corner of Gilford Avenue and Union Avenue that he hopes will give them some information.
"Personally I find this outrageous. We are doing everything we can to solve this and I am confident we will," said Moyer, who said it was too early to identify any "viable suspects."
Longchamps said the important thing is nobody was injured and the church is still standing.
He said when he began saying one Mass monthly in Latin he redid the Blessed Sacrament altar and it was just finished a month ago. Built of oak, the priest said that had it been of different wood, Erickson told him it could have been a lot worse.
"We just restored the Sacred Heart statue and it was unharmed," said Longchamps, referring to the original statue that towers over the sanctuary. Until recently, a large crucifix adorned the altar.
Until Tuesday, Longchamps said the church was unlocked during the day but this was a policy he would have to rethink.
"This is very sad. We won't be able to offer people a place to come and pray," he said.
The priest canceled Tuesday's Mass which was due to get under way at 5 p.m. and said this morning's 7:30 Mass would be held in the parish gymnasium. After that he believed the Mass schedule will go on as usual but said Father Gary Kosmowski of St. Joseph's Parish offered him his church should he need it.
"The damage is not as bad as it could have been. The church is still standing and the work of the church will go on," said Longchamps, who finished with police and stood outside the church to comfort the many parishioners who heard of the fire and came by to speak to him.
"I just hope this isn't a hate crime," he said.
Laconia church's altars burned
By CAROL ROBIDOUX
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
Report on St. Adelaides Solemn High Mass(continued)
Una VoceNH- Sunday's Solemn High Mass was different than any Mass I have experienced...and I was lucky enough to have served the TLM as a boy for 2 years before it converted to the Novus Ordu.
Interestingly, in "the old days" we did have a High Mass, but it was always with one priest...not three.
I now understand that this is the difference between a High Mass or Missa Cantata vs. the Solemn High Mass.
While the Liturgy and Schola's music were beautiful, St. Adelaides even made very wonderful accomodations for the celebration of the TLM without a High Altar or Altar rail. It appeared that at one time there may have been a high altar that had been removed years ago. However, the lower part of the Novus Ordu Altar table was wrapped in a beautiful tapestry and then covered with beautiful altar linens. On the altar were 6 large gold candles, tabernacle and traditional altar cards.
Currently, also absent an altar rail(like most churches today), instead of kneeling on the altar step or using a kneeler, communicants were directed into the first row pew where they kneeled to receive Holy Communion. It was a clever accomodation and worked well.
This article would not be complete without acknowleging Fr. Raymond and his fellow priests for certainly preparing so carefully to learn the rubrics and latin for this Mass.
It's a blessing to have such holy, dedicated men as our priests.
Thank you Fathers!!!!
Sacred Heart Church's restoration begins
Work on Sacred Heart expected to last 2 months
Article Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Richard Tucker, left, and Joe Sorenson, right, of P.M. MacKay Group from Nashua remove pews at the sacred Heart Church in Laconia to repair fire and smoke damage.
(Ray Mongeau/For The Citizen)
Restoration work began in Sacred Heart Church three weeks to the day after an arson fire caused around $250,000 worth of damage to the historic house of worship.
Sacred Heart's pastor, the Rev. Adrien Longchamps said a crew from P.M. MacKay Group of Nashua reached an agreement with the Diocese of Manchester and arrived early Tuesday morning to begin the extensive renovations that will be needed before the church can reopen.
Longchamps, buoyed by the support he has received from his congregation, the city and the surrounding Catholic community, said the mission of his church still continues and he will use the various rooms in the next door parish hall until the church can reopen.
He said he took some furniture from the old convent and recreated as much of the church as he could in one half of the gymnasium.
"It looks as much like a chapel as it can," said Longchamps, noting that the gymnasium is air-conditioned and, during the recent heat wave, he has had many grateful parishioners.
While this is not the way Longchamps would have preferred, he is excited about the renovations and painting made necessary by the smoky blaze.
"From one end to the other, it will be refreshed and renewed," said Longchamps, adding that the MacKay Group estimates it will take the better part of eight weeks to complete the work.
MacKay estimator Joe Cronin said
refurbishing the church is a huge project and presents serious challenges because of its 100-year-old architectural style and especially the original gold leaf stencil work which adorns the walls.
Cronin said other challenges are removing the 100-year-old oak pews so the carpet can be replaced and cleaning and painting the 42-foot high cathedral ceiling.
"We'll use a combination of scaffolding and portable lifts to reach that," said Cronin.
He said the first thing his crews did was remove the two altars and bring them to their shop in Nashua, where craftsmen will recreate them for reinstallation. The company will also recreate the parquet flooring damaged by flames.
"When I first looked at this job I
was very saddened," said Cronin, who is a Catholic. Although he works on a lot of churches and has done restoration work before for the Catholic diocese in the state, he said this was no way to get a job.
"We're very lucky the back of the altar didn't catch fire," said Cronin, noting that the flames scorched the area. "It came close to being a real tragedy."
Police Chief Michael Moyer said the investigation is continuing and it is a priority for the department.
"We've put up posters, interviewed dozens of people and sent evidence to the lab," said Moyer, who admitted he wasn't as confident about solving the case as he was three weeks ago. "Usually we get something within 48 hours in cases like these."
"Anything we hear we look into," he continued. "We've eliminated some people and others we haven't."
There is a $1,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction in this arson. Anyone with any information is asked to call the crime line 524-1717 or the police department at 524-5257.
Losing a space to soar
Una VoceNH- Sunday's Solemn High Mass was different than any Mass I have experienced...and I was lucky enough to have served the TLM as a boy for 2 years before it converted to the Novus Ordu.
Interestingly, in "the old days" we did have a High Mass, but it was always with one priest...not three.
I now understand that this is the difference between a High Mass or Missa Cantata vs. the Solemn High Mass.
While the Liturgy and Schola's music were beautiful, St. Adelaides even made very wonderful accomodations for the celebration of the TLM without a High Altar or Altar rail. It appeared that at one time there may have been a high altar that had been removed years ago. However, the lower part of the Novus Ordu Altar table was wrapped in a beautiful tapestry and then covered with beautiful altar linens. On the altar were 6 large gold candles, tabernacle and traditional altar cards.
Currently, also absent an altar rail(like most churches today), instead of kneeling on the altar step or using a kneeler, communicants were directed into the first row pew where they kneeled to receive Holy Communion. It was a clever accomodation and worked well.
This article would not be complete without acknowleging Fr. Raymond and his fellow priests for certainly preparing so carefully to learn the rubrics and latin for this Mass.
It's a blessing to have such holy, dedicated men as our priests.
Thank you Fathers!!!!
Sacred Heart Church's restoration begins
Work on Sacred Heart expected to last 2 months
|
Restoration work began in Sacred Heart Church three weeks to the day after an arson fire caused around $250,000 worth of damage to the historic house of worship.
Sacred Heart's pastor, the Rev. Adrien Longchamps said a crew from P.M. MacKay Group of Nashua reached an agreement with the Diocese of Manchester and arrived early Tuesday morning to begin the extensive renovations that will be needed before the church can reopen.
Longchamps, buoyed by the support he has received from his congregation, the city and the surrounding Catholic community, said the mission of his church still continues and he will use the various rooms in the next door parish hall until the church can reopen.
He said he took some furniture from the old convent and recreated as much of the church as he could in one half of the gymnasium.
"It looks as much like a chapel as it can," said Longchamps, noting that the gymnasium is air-conditioned and, during the recent heat wave, he has had many grateful parishioners.
While this is not the way Longchamps would have preferred, he is excited about the renovations and painting made necessary by the smoky blaze.
"From one end to the other, it will be refreshed and renewed," said Longchamps, adding that the MacKay Group estimates it will take the better part of eight weeks to complete the work.
MacKay estimator Joe Cronin said
refurbishing the church is a huge project and presents serious challenges because of its 100-year-old architectural style and especially the original gold leaf stencil work which adorns the walls.
Cronin said other challenges are removing the 100-year-old oak pews so the carpet can be replaced and cleaning and painting the 42-foot high cathedral ceiling.
"We'll use a combination of scaffolding and portable lifts to reach that," said Cronin.
He said the first thing his crews did was remove the two altars and bring them to their shop in Nashua, where craftsmen will recreate them for reinstallation. The company will also recreate the parquet flooring damaged by flames.
"When I first looked at this job I
was very saddened," said Cronin, who is a Catholic. Although he works on a lot of churches and has done restoration work before for the Catholic diocese in the state, he said this was no way to get a job.
"We're very lucky the back of the altar didn't catch fire," said Cronin, noting that the flames scorched the area. "It came close to being a real tragedy."
Police Chief Michael Moyer said the investigation is continuing and it is a priority for the department.
"We've put up posters, interviewed dozens of people and sent evidence to the lab," said Moyer, who admitted he wasn't as confident about solving the case as he was three weeks ago. "Usually we get something within 48 hours in cases like these."
"Anything we hear we look into," he continued. "We've eliminated some people and others we haven't."
There is a $1,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction in this arson. Anyone with any information is asked to call the crime line 524-1717 or the police department at 524-5257.
It's not what you expect to see when you step into a Catholic church these days.
But here it all is at Holy Trinity German Church, on Shawmut Avenue in the South End, at the start of a sweltering Sunday.
About 100 people from Bourne and West Roxbury and all over come for the 9 a.m. Latin Mass. They are men and women of all ages, Catholics convinced that their church made a big mistake when it did away with the Latin Mass.
"I don't get anything out of the [English] Mass," says Kathleen Stone, 59, of Hull. "There is a lack of reverence. This is my time alone with God."
This grand church is the perfect setting for a Latin Mass.
Incongruous in one of the few unprettified parts of the South End, its puddingstone and granite exterior is impressive enough.
But walking through Holy Trinity's doors will take your breath away. Light filters through huge, deeply hued, stained, etched, and painted glass windows. Enormous, hand-carved statues of the Twelve Apostles look down from the walls. Immense pillars hold up impossibly high, sky-blue gothic arches.
Parishioners say it was mostly working people who scraped together the money to turn the church, which opened in 1877 to serve thousands of German immigrants, into a place resembling the ornate cathedrals they left behind, by cramming it with paintings and statues.
But Stone and the others have just three Sundays left at Holy Trinity. The Archdiocese of Boston is closing the church June 30, partly because its congregation is too small to sustain it, officials say.
Parishioners at Holy Trinity, like those in many of the churches that have been closed, are mighty angry. They are probably going to appeal the archdiocese's decision. But the church closing isn't the end of the Latin Mass in these parts. In fact, the Latin Mass is having a resurgence.
The parish of Mary Immaculate of Lourdes in Newton offers Latin Masses now, and that is where some of Holy Trinity's worshipers have already gone, reluctantly.
Last year, Pope Benedict XVI loosened the rules, allowing any church with enough support to offer Masses in Latin. Four other local churches now have them, too, so the Latin Mass will survive this closing.
Less certain is the future of that lovely church itself, designed and built to outlast all of the transformations within it.
The Archdiocese has closed about 60 parishes since it began its consolidation four years ago. A few churches have been sold to other denominations. Some have been turned into housing, including condominiums. In the happiest cases, their windows have been pulled out and sent to other parishes, their statues and pulpits and stations of the cross scattered across the country. It's too soon to know what will happen here.
Susan Long saw her old church, the parish of Saints Peter and Paul on Broadway in South Boston, turned into condos, and she can't bear the thought of the same thing happening at Holy Trinity, where she says the Latin Mass gave her a spiritual reawakening.
"I was baptized there," she says. "Now there are people sitting at a holy place smoking cigarettes."
We have paid a lot of attention to the communities like this one, broken apart by church closings, and rightly so.
But sitting in Holy Trinity for an hour, imagining this beautiful place sectioned off for granite countertops and walk-in closets, you realize there are other casualties in this whole painful process.
Like so many other churches representing the highest aspirations of long-gone Catholics, this grand, transcendent place may ultimately not transcend at all.
Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at abraham@globe.com.
Liturgical Trend As the Church Awaits Missal Translation VALERIE SCHMALZ
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
June 8-14, 2008 Issue | Posted 6/3/08 at 10:14 AM
SAN FRANCISCO — When Gloria Gazave started as a cantor at St. Thomas More Church in San Francisco, she turned her classical training as a singer to good use.
The 5 p.m. Saturday Mass now features the Kyrie sung in Greek, with the Sanctus, Gloria, Agnus Dei and sometimes the Creed and Memorial Acclamation sung in Latin.
“It was real slow at first, but now people sing along. It is not that hard,” said the mother of five. The church prints song sheets that include the Latin chants.
“I was kind of nervous about how it was going to be accepted,” Gazave said. “But everyone has commented on how beautiful it is.”
St. Thomas More is part of a quiet trend to incorporate traditional Latin Church music, particularly the chants, into the body of the vernacular Novus Ordo Mass. This is not the beginning of a return to the Mass in Latin, several experts said, but a recognition that a part of the Church’s heritage needs to reclaim its position within the liturgy.
The trend is accelerating at the same time as a new English translation of the Roman Missal, expected to reincorporate more traditional language, is in the works, several liturgy experts noted.
“There is a renewed interest in the Latin texts, the Latin chants,” said Patrick Vallez-Kelly, director of the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Office of Worship. “I think some people are going back to the instructions that came out of the Second Vatican Council that have always exhorted us to maintain a basic repertoire of Latin. That has largely been ignored in the American church. There is a generation of music directors and liturgists who are coming back to that — this is something of value.”
Vatican II encouraged the use of Gregorian chant and recommended it to have “pride of place” in the liturgy.
“There may be a natural call that this kind of natural chanting has on the human heart, and that’s why for so many years of being absent from the churches it is now being welcomed by so many,” said Helen Hull Hitchcock, editor of the Adoremus Bulletin. “As St. Augustine said, ‘Singing is praying twice.’”
Pope Benedict XVI’s love of traditional church music is also sparking the movement toward more Latin and Gregorian music, Vallez-Kelly said. The Holy Father wrote extensively on the liturgy as a professor and then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, particularly in The Spirit of the Liturgy. Now that he is Pope, his thoughts have become more familiar.
“I think in some ways he’s a voice for what other people have been feeling,” Vallez-Kelly said. “There are certain aspects to the liturgical renewal that weren’t done well. There has been a lot of disregard for the norms — and a lot of free experimentation done poorly.” ‘Our Heritage’ In fact, the Church Music Association of America’s sacred music seminars that once drew 40 to 50 people now lure hundreds of Catholic musical directors, organists and singers, Religion News Service reported. And St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke this spring announced the creation of Institute of Sacred Music in the Office of Sacred Worship and the appointment as director of noted music scholar and Benedictine Father Samuel Weber. In San Francisco, a city of immigrants, the number of foreign language Masses is high. At Sts. Peter and Paul Church near Fisherman’s Wharf, the Chinese Mass includes the Our Father in Latin, said Salesian Father Harold Danielson. The church’s Italian Mass includes some Latin chants as do some of the regular English Masses, the priest said.
While some might hope the renewed interest in the Latin chants is a movement back toward the days when the Mass was entirely in Latin, Church liturgy scholar Father Giles Dimock said the Mass in the language of the people is here to stay.
“My own opinion is that most people are happy to be able to understand the Mass, particularly the readings, but they miss the great Church music of the past,” said the Dominican priest, who taught liturgy for 40 years in Rome and Washington, D.C., and is now at Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio.
Pope Benedict’s relaxing of restrictions on celebration of the Extraordinary Rite of the Mass in Latin will mean greater celebration of the Mass in Latin both in the extraordinary form and the ordinary form, Father Dimock said.
But Mass in Latin will remain just one form of the Mass celebrated in the Church. Father Dimock noted that during his recent visit Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in English, “but they used a great deal of Latin music” in Yankee Stadium and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the Masses were “very beautiful. I don’t think it has to be all or nothing.”
The papal Masses in New York had an evangelical aspect, Hitchcock said. “Uniting this kind of beauty with the texts in the Mass creates an appeal that is beyond mere words or intellect. This is one of the functions of music in the liturgy that Pope Benedict has fostered throughout his career.”
“Personally I think it’s a bit odd that for years the only place you could hear some of the great Catholic music was in the high Anglican churches,” said Father Dimock.
“It is our heritage.”
Valerie Schmalz is based in San Francisco
Bishop surveys damage to church
RAY MONGEAU/For The Citizen
Bishop John McCormack visits Sacred Heart Church in Laconia to consult with Father Adrien Longchamps and view the damage done by the arson fire earlier this week.
By GEOFF CUNNINGHAM Jr. |
The head of New Hampshire's Catholic Church expressed sadness and confusion on Friday when he traveled to Sacred Heart Church to support those impacted by a Tuesday arson fire that damaged its altar.
Bishop John B. McCormack of the Diocese of Manchester stood with Vicar of the Clergy Rev. Richard Thompson and Sacred Heart Pastor Rev. Adrien Longchamps in the darkened church as the group surveyed the damage from an intentionally set fire that filled the house of worship with smoke on Tuesday.
McCormack, dressed in all black with a large silver cross hanging from his neck, spoke calmly as he looked over the charred alter and burned carpets.
"When something like this happens, it's more than someone just doing something ... it's like a space has been violated," said Bishop McCormack.
The leader of the Catholic Church in New Hampshire said he traveled to Laconia primarily to support Rev. Longchamps whom, along with parishioners, he praised for beginning to move forward while holding mass in the adjacent parish gymnasium.
Bishop McCormack noted that Longchamps was "right on top of it" in responding to an event that has shaken community members, whether they are Catholics or not.
The church leader said diocesan staff members have been assisting in assessing damage so that they can proceed with their insurance provider.
As police continue to investigate the fire, McCormack made it clear that he is among the many who remain saddened at an event in which "everybody feels affected".
"This was intentional [and] it's pretty upsetting and sad that somebody sees God in such a way that they would desecrate his altar," said McCormack.
Bishop McCormack said he cannot recall anything coming close to the arson event in Laconia during his time as church leader, besides a tragic event in 2000 that saw the St. Joan of Arc Church in Alton burned to the ground.
However ,he noted that the Alton fire was not set intentionally.
Rev. Thompson echoed Bishop McCormack's sentiment that they were glad the fire was out before it did more significant damage and they expressed hope that Mass will be able to be held in the church sooner rather than later."The big blessing is that nobody is hurt. The people are the church as sacred as the building is," said Rev. Thompson.
Rev. Longchamps said it meant a lot to him and parishioners that Bishop McCormack traveled to Laconia to lend his support and he said the incident has struck the hearts of those who worship there.
"They are sad and they are perplexed. They ask, 'How could you do this?' and it doesn't make sense to them," said Rev. Longchamps.
The parish leader said portions of the wooden floor and carpet will need to be replaced but the fire fortunately did not spread into the large ornamented statue of Jesus Christ and painted woodwork that adorns the "reredos" — the decorative and elaborate wall at the back of the altar, featuring the Sacred Heart symbol.
Rev. Longchamps said that has been an element in the church for some 45 to 50 years.
Meanwhile, police are continuing to investigate the fire.
On Thursday and Friday police distributed flyers offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the fire. The poster directs calls to the Greater Laconia Crimeline at 524-1717.
Laconia Police Chief Mike Moyer said his department is committed to making an arrest in the case but he said information is coming in slower than they expected.
"Quite often when someone does something like this they tend to talk about it, but I thought we would get a little more information [than we have]," said Moyer.
The chief said police put out more flyers from Lakeport up to Busy Corner on Friday and will continue to follow any and all leads.
"We are working on solving it," said Moyer.
Church hit by arson
In what some authorities are not ruling out as a hate crime, local and state officials are investigating arson at the Sacred Heart Church on Union Avenue Tuesday afternoon.
The arsonist or arsonists used votive candles to set fire to the altar linen and frontal cloth at both the main altar where the priest says Mass and a smaller altar nearby where the Blessed Sacrament (consecrated Communion wafers) is kept. Pages were ripped from the missal containing prayers used during services and a third, smaller fire was set in the middle of the center aisle.
Candles were strewn about the front of the church and a small crucifix was thrown on the floor.
"This is a nightmare. It seems like it's unreal," said Father Adrien Longchamps, who was in the rectory next door when a parishioner who came to pray before the 5 p.m. Mass ran to the door to tell him about the fire.
"To have it actually happen, I just don't know what to say," the priest said
Longchamps said after learning of the fire he ran into the church to find it smoke-filled but not actually burning.
"If it was still burning I would have saved the Blessed Sacrament," he said, noting it was intact and unharmed.
"It came real close," said Fire Chief Kenneth Erickson. "Behind the altar the fire was still burning in the floor and in the wall. Clearly someone really wanted to do this. I consider this an attack on the whole community. A church is a safe haven."
Mayor Matthew Lahey expressed similar pain and outrage.
"It just doesn't get much worse than this," said Lahey after conferring with Police Chief Michael Moyer. "[Sacred Heart] is a long-standing institution in our community."
According to Longchamps, Sacred Heart Church was built from 1891 to 1893 — the year Laconia was incorporated as a city. Its tall spires and long, granite steps are one of the more familiar landmarks in the city. For most of its history it has been the church which served the city's Franco-American community, though in recent years its membership has become more diverse.
"We're doing a lot right now," said Moyer, who authorized an extra detective to begin the investigation and called in the N.H. Fire Marshal and an arson dog. He said police immediately canvassed the area, interviewing everybody within a two-block radius.
Moyer said there are surveillance cameras at TD Banknorth next door, the Rite Aid drugstore across the street and the Quick Trip Sunoco at the corner of Gilford Avenue and Union Avenue that he hopes will give them some information.
"Personally I find this outrageous. We are doing everything we can to solve this and I am confident we will," said Moyer, who said it was too early to identify any "viable suspects."
Longchamps said the important thing is nobody was injured and the church is still standing.
He said when he began saying one Mass monthly in Latin he redid the Blessed Sacrament altar and it was just finished a month ago. Built of oak, the priest said that had it been of different wood, Erickson told him it could have been a lot worse.
"We just restored the Sacred Heart statue and it was unharmed," said Longchamps, referring to the original statue that towers over the sanctuary. Until recently, a large crucifix adorned the altar.
Until Tuesday, Longchamps said the church was unlocked during the day but this was a policy he would have to rethink.
"This is very sad. We won't be able to offer people a place to come and pray," he said.
The priest canceled Tuesday's Mass which was due to get under way at 5 p.m. and said this morning's 7:30 Mass would be held in the parish gymnasium. After that he believed the Mass schedule will go on as usual but said Father Gary Kosmowski of St. Joseph's Parish offered him his church should he need it.
"The damage is not as bad as it could have been. The church is still standing and the work of the church will go on," said Longchamps, who finished with police and stood outside the church to comfort the many parishioners who heard of the fire and came by to speak to him.
"I just hope this isn't a hate crime," he said.
Laconia church's altars burned
By CAROL ROBIDOUX
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
"It seemed to be very specific damage. It's significant. We're taking this very seriously," Laconia Fire Lt. Chris Shipp said last night.
Police arrived first after getting a 911 call just before 5 p.m. for smoke in the building at Sacred Heart Church, 291 Union Ave. Although the fire had mostly burned out by the time fire crews arrived, Shipp said it could have been much worse.
"There was absolute potential for a major fire. It certainly could have been a much different outcome," Shipp said.
Laconia fire and police departments, along with the State Fire Marshal's Office, are investigating an arson fire that damaged the altar and other areas of the Sacred Heart Church in Laconia yesterday. (ALAN MACRAE/LACONIA FIRE DEPARTMENT)
Two altars -- the high altar and altar of sacrifice -- were burned, pages torn from a Bible and a sermon book were burned and strewn around the sanctuary, and several candles were tipped over.
Because the church door is normally open, Shipp said there was no sign of forced entry.
"Unfortunately, I don't know what will happen to their open-door policy in light of this," Shipp said.
Sacred Heart is one of four churches within the Diocese of Manchester that have reinstated Latin Mass in the past year. Martin Cameron of Portsmouth, who is active with that movement, Una Voce or One Voice, last night said the vandalism is "tragic."
"Not all the churches in the diocese have the altar and all that goes with the Latin Mass. To have an arsonist go in there is tragic," Cameron said.
"My gut reaction? What's the purpose? Something like this is a deliberate type of action against the church. Whatever prompted that would be interesting to find out," Cameron said.
" For somebody to go into a church -- whether it's Jewish or Protestant or Greek -- whatever drove them to go ahead and do something like that, well, it must have been laying in the back of their mind for quite some time."
Shipp said the state fire marshal had already been to the site to launch an arson investigation last night.
Anyone with information or who may have noticed suspicious activity near the church between 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. yesterday should call either Laconia Police at 524-5252 or Laconia Fire Department, 524-6881.
Pope tells young people to trust in Mary
.- At a meeting with young people in the northern Italian city of Savona, Pope Benedict XVI recited the Angelus prayer with the young people and invited them to trust in Mary. He recalled the words the Virgin Mary spoke to shepherd Benedict Pareto in the year 1400 urging him to build a shrine on
Benedict Pareto, according to tradition, was worried because he did not know how to respond to Mary’s invitation to build a church in a place so remote from the city. The Pope repeated the Virgin Mary’s words: “trust in me! With me in your midst you will not fail. With my help everything will be easy. Only keep your will firm. Trust in me!”
“This, Mary repeats to us today,” Pope Benedict said. “An ancient prayer, very dear in popular tradition, makes us turn in confidence to You with these confident words, that today we make our own: ‘Remember, O Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, sought your help or implored your intercession was left abandoned.’
“It is with this certainty that we invoke the motherly care of Our Lady of the Guard on your diocesan community, its pastors, consecrated persons, the lay faithful: young people, families, the elderly. To Mary we entrust the entire city, with its diverse population, its cultural, social and economic problems and challenges of our times, and commitment of those who cooperate for the common good.”
Turning to the unique heritage of the region the Pope said, "Together with you, I thank God for the strong and tenacious faith of past generations that, during the centuries have written memorable pages of holiness and human civilization.
After the Marian prayer, the Pope directed his attention to Monday’s Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions, a meeting in
"I hope that, thanks to the responsibility of all participants, we can reach an international instrument that is strong and credible: it is indeed necessary to remedy past mistakes and prevent recurrence in the future," Pope Benedict said.
Archbishop orders end to lay preachers at Mass
.- Archbishop of
The Catholic Spirit reports that over the past 25 years as many as 29 parishes in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and
In a letter to pastors in January, Archbishop Flynn ordered them to end the practice. He cited the 2004
Archbishop Flynn said only an ordained man should preach after the Gospel at
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
"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
“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.
Vatican launches Latin section on its website
.- The Vatican website has opened a Latin section for papal texts and religious resources translated into Latin.
The main site at vatican.va links to the section under the Latin title “Sancta Sedes,” which means “Holy See.” The section includes the Catechism, the Code of Canon Law, and the documents of the Second Vatican Council in the ancient tongue.
The New Vulgate Latin translation of the Bible, which had been published elsewhere on the Vatican website, is also included in the new section.
Pope Benedict XVI has long advocated the Latin language. According to the BBC, Pope Benedict addressed cardinals of the Church in Latin shortly after he was elected to the papacy.
Last year he granted blanket permission for all priests to celebrate the Mass in Latin from the 1962 Missal, which had been largely abandoned after the Second Vatican Council.
He has also encouraged the use of the language in seminaries.
The Pope’s official Latinist, American priest Father Reginald Foster, has long advocated the language.
“It's not like French and some of these philosophical languages where you can write a whole page and say nothing - in Latin you can't do that!” he said, according to BBC News.
Father Foster hosts Vatican Radio’s weekly program “The Latin Lover,” in which he explains the historical and contemporary uses of the language. He also holds an internationally renowned tuition-free Latin program in Rome for several weeks each summer.
Pope says trip to U.S. was opportunity to give, receive hope, faith
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI said his April 15-20 visit to the United Nations and the United States was an opportunity to give -- and to receive -- a witness to the power of hope and faith.
Reflecting on his trip during his April 30 weekly general audience, the pope said the hope that flows from faith in Christ can vanquish even the darkness cast by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Christian hope, "stronger than sin and death, animated a moment filled with emotion, which I passed in silence in the abyss of ground zero, where I lighted a candle, praying for all the victims of that terrible tragedy," the pope said.
The pope began his general audience by publicly thanking the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and President George W. Bush for inviting him, and all those who greeted him with affection and offered prayers for the success of his visit.
Particularly when celebrating his third anniversary as pope with an April 19 Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral in
Addressing the 20,000 people who had gathered in St. Peter's Square for the audience, the pope said he set out on the trip "to confirm Catholics in the faith, to renew and increase brotherhood with all Christians and to proclaim to all the message of Christ our hope."
Speaking in German without his prepared text, the pope said that everywhere he went in the
The pope told the German speakers that God gave him an opportunity to try to strengthen the faith of others, "but at the same time, I was strengthened and came back strengthened."
In his main audience talk, Pope Benedict said that the
The
Modern life and global realities continue to challenge the country, he said, and the Catholic Church has an obligation to offer its voice in order to help citizens build a society worthy of the human person and one that uses its resources to help others.
The timing of the trip, he said, was chosen to help celebrate the bicentennials of four archdioceses in the
"The original small flock has developed enormously, enriching itself with the faith and traditions of the successive influx of immigrants. To that church which now faces the challenges of the present, I had the joy of proclaiming again Christ, our hope, yesterday, today and forever," he said.
Praising the zeal of the bishops and priests who have led U.S. Catholics over the years and "the fervor and generosity of its faithful," Pope Benedict said the Gospel and Christian values -- particularly the value of human life and the centrality of the traditional family -- must be strengthened in order to face new moral, ethical and political challenges.
As he did throughout his trip, the pope also spoke at his audience about the clergy sex abuse scandal that rocked the
"Thinking of the painful affair of the abuse of minors committed by ordained ministers, I wanted to express my closeness to the bishops, encouraging them in their commitment to bind up the wounds and to reinforce relations with their priests," he said.
Pope Benedict said the "multicultural vocation" of the
At the United Nations, he said, he wanted to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and confirm its enduring value precisely because it is based on "the dignity of the human person, created by God in his image and likeness, in order to cooperate with him in his plan for life and for peace."
Respect for human rights and peace can flourish only where there is justice, "an ethical order valid for all times and all peoples," which can be summarized with Jesus' phrase, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Pope Leaves U.S. With A Plea For Peace
(CBS/AP)
Pope Benedict's first trip to the United States since he was elected three years ago is over.
The pope's plane, nicknamed "Shepherd One," has departed from New York's Kennedy Airport. Vice President Dick Cheney hosted a farewell ceremony for the pope at the end of his six-day visit. Former President Clinton and presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton also attended.
Before leaving, the pope declared: "May God bless America!"
Earlier in the day, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church arrived in storied Yankee Stadium to celebrate Mass for 57,000 worshippers after making a solemn stop at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The crowd roared when the pope was welcomed to the Mass by New York's Cardinal Edward Egan.
Tens of thousands of Roman Catholics filled the stadium, chanting, clapping and waving white and yellow handkerchiefs in the Vatican's colors as the white popemobile pulled in.
Outside the stadium, two yellow dump trucks filled with sand blockaded 161st Street before the Mass, an extra level of security along with the heavy police presence. Pilgrims without tickets pushed up against metal police barricades, hoping to get a glimpse of the arriving pope.
Inside the stadium, ad-splashed outfield walls were draped in white with purple and yellow bunting. A white altar perched over second base, and the papal seal covered the pitcher's mound, suspended by white and yellow ribbons.
"I have never seen Yankee Stadium so beautiful, and I have season's tickets," said Philip Giordano, 49, a tax attorney from Greenwich, Connecticut, who won seats in the loge section behind home plate through a parish lottery. "It sure beats sitting in my local church."
Added his wife, Suzanne: "I'm hoping to feel something from (Benedict). Everyone who has seen him says they crumple, their knees buckle. You come away just feeling different."
The New Orleans crooner Harry Connick Jr., on the pre-Mass concert program, remarked that he is often asked if he's a practicing Catholic.
"Practicing?" he said. "I'm playing for the pope today."
A Prayer At The Site Of Tragedy
Pope Benedict XVI began the final day of his American journey by blessing the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and pleading with God to bring "peace to our violent world."
The visit by Benedict to ground zero was a poignant moment in a trip marked by unexpectedly festive crowds anxious to see the former academic who for three years has led the world's Roman Catholics.
Benedict was driven in the popemobile part-way down a ramp now used mostly by construction trucks to a spot by the north tower's footprint. He walked the final steps, knelt in silent prayer for a few moments, then rose to light a memorial candle.
Addressing a group that including survivors, clergy and public officials, he acknowledged the many faiths of the victims at the "scene of incredible violence and pain."
The pope also prayed for "those who suffered death, injury and loss" in the attacks at the Pentagon and in the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. More than 2,900 people were killed in the four crashes of the airliners hijacked by al Qaeda.
"God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world," the pope prayed on a chilly, overcast morning. "Turn to your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred."
Benedict invited 24 people with ties to ground zero to join him: survivors, relatives of victims and four rescue workers. He greeted each member of the group individually as a string quartet played in the background. In his prayer, he also remembered those who, "because of their presence here that day, suffer from injuries and illness."
"We said 'Where was God?' on 9/11, but he's come back here today and they've restored our faith," said deputy fire chief James Riches.
Hundreds of people stood just outside the site, behind police barricades, hoping for a glimpse of the pope.
The site where the World Trade Center was destroyed is normally filled with hundreds of workers building a 102-story skyscraper, a memorial and transit hub. It bears little resemblance to the debris-filled pit where crews toiled to remove twisted steel and victims' remains.
The remains of more than 1,100 people have never been identified.
Benedict was joined by New York Cardinal Edward Egan, along Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Gov. David Paterson and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. The land is owned and managed by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
Pope speaks on academic freedom, Catholic identity
Washington, Apr. 18, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) asked American Catholic educators to "reflect on what is particular to our Catholic institutions," during an April 17 address to the leaders of Catholic colleges and universities.
About 600 educators attended the papal address, which he delivered at Catholic University. Also on hand were 195 directors of diocesan education programs.
The speech to Catholic university leaders was generally regarded as one of the more delicate tasks on the Holy Father's schedule during his American visit. With a few noteworthy exceptions-- mostly young Catholic schools that proudly proclaim their loyalty to the teaching magisterium of the Church-- most Catholic institutions of higher education in the US have adamantly resisted compliance with the standards set by Ex Corde (doc) Ecclesiae (doc), the apostolic constitution promulgated by Pope John Paul II (bio - news) in 1990 governing Catholic universities. (Ex Corde Ecclesiae calls for theology instructors to receive a mandatum, indicating approval from the local bishop. Few theologians at American Catholic colleges have applied for a mandatum, and many US bishops have indicated that they would be uncomfortable judging a scholar's academic credentials.)
Rather than confronting the dispute over Ex Corde Ecclesiae directly, Pope Benedict centered his talk on the need to create a distinctively Catholic identity. That identity, he explained, would be determined not merely by counting the number of Catholic students and professors, but by asking a few key questions about the school's allegiances: "Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools?" A Catholic university exists to spread the truths of the faith, the Pope told his academic audience. Because the purpose of academic freedom is to serve the cause of truth, and because some truths have been defined by the teaching magisterium, "any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission."
The preservation of a distinctly Catholic intellectual tradition is essential, the Pope argued, in an age dominated by uncertainty. "The contemporary crisis of truth is rooted in a crisis of faith," he said. While many students and scholars see freedom in the pursuit of novelties, the Church reminds us that genuine freedom comes only through union with God's will, he explained. "Hence authentic freedom can never be attained by turning away from God."
Catholic schools also serve to proclaim the existence of absolute truth, the Pope continued. Again, he emphasized that this mission is particularly vital in an age marked by relativism. "When nothing beyond the individual is recognized as definitive," he said, Pope "the ultimate criterion of judgment becomes the self and the satisfaction of the individual's immediate wishes."
To preserve their Catholic identity, academic leaders should ensure not only that their students receive orthodox instruction, but also that they are encouraged to set high standards for personal behavior. The Pontiff said:
This requires that public witness to the way of Christ, as found in the Gospel and upheld by the Church's magisterium, shapes all aspects of an institution's life, both inside and outside the classroom. Divergence from this vision weakens Catholic identity and, far from advancing freedom, inevitably leads to confusion, whether moral, intellectual or spiritual.The Pope's speech drew little public comment from the leaders of America's most influential Catholic universities. But the address provided ample encouragement to defenders of Catholic orthodoxy. “Pope Benedict called Catholic colleges to educate the whole person, heart, mind and soul, by seeking truth in the light of faith and reason,” remarked Patrick Reilly, the president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a group committed to the preservation of a distinctively Catholic identity in higher education.
Pope to bishops: fight "privatization" of faith
Washington, Apr. 17, 2008 (CWNews.com) - "People today need to be reminded of the ultimate purpose of their lives," Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) told the bishops of the US on April 16.
In their coverage of the Holy Father's address, delivered at a Vespers service held in the national shrine of the Immaculate Conception, American media outlets concentrated almost entirely on the Pope's reference to the "deep shame" of the sex-abuse scandal, which he conceded had been "sometimes very badly handled." But that frank admission was only one part of a talk in which Pope Benedict spoke about the challenges involved in bringing an ardent faith to a secular culture.
Repeating a theme that he had introduced earlier in the day in his remarks to a welcoming crowd at the White House, the Pope praised the American people for their religious spirit. Americans, he noted with approval, "do not hesitate to bring mroal arguments rooted in Biblical faith into their public discourse.
However, America's attitude toward faith has its limitations, the Pope observed. He remarked later in his presentation:
America's brand of secularism poses a particular problem: it allows for professing belief in God, and respects the public role of religion and the Churches, but at the same time it can subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator. Faith becomes a passive acceptance that certain things "out there" are true, but without practical relevance for everyday life. The result is a growing separation of faith from life.
The task of American Church leaders is to close that separation, the Pope continued. He listed a number of public issues to which the principles of Catholic social teaching should be applied: placing proper moral restraints on medical research, preserving the family, and promoting a culture of life. In his discussion of family life, the Pope went on to observe that even Catholic couples need a stronger understanding of sacramental marriage; he noted the "alarming decrease in the number of Catholic marriages in the United States together with an increase in cohabitation." "It is your task to proclaim boldly the arguments from faith and reason in favor of the institution of marriage," the Pontiff reminded the American hierarchy. It was in this context-- in discussing the need for a full loving commitment-- that the Pope said the sex-abuse scandal had been a "countersign to the Gospel of life." Citing the words of Cardinal Francis George, the president of the US bishops' conference, he added that the scandal had been "sometimes very badly handled."
To preserve young people from such abuse in the future, the Pope said, Church leaders should promote a healthy approach to human sexuality. Children, he said, "should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today." Later in his address, in answer to questions posed to him by several bishops, the Pope mentioned another limitation of American secularism, in which-- "far from a Catholic approach to 'thinking with the Church,' each person believes he or she has a right to pick and choose." Building the case against the approach taken by "cafeteria Catholics," he said:
Is it consistent to profess our beliefs in church on Sunday, and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs? Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contradict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death? Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted.Ecclesia Dei president offers clarification on motu proprio
(Continued from page 1)
Vatican, Mar. 28, 2008 (CWNews.com) - In an interview with the Vatican newspaper, the head of the Ecclesia Dei commission has indicated that priests do not require permission from their bishops in order to celebrate the extraordinary form of the Latin liturgy.
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos (bio - news) told L'Osservatore Romano that "all can celebrate" the traditional Latin Mass. While the "ordinary form"-- the Novus Ordo-- remains "the Mass that normally all priests say," the cardinal said that Pope Benedict, in his motu proprio broadening access to the traditional liturgy, authorized all priests to use the older liturgy.
"Some ask permission, as if this were some sort of concession or exception," Cardinal Castrillon said. "But there is no need for that."
The Colombian cardinal, whose Ecclesia Dei commission supervises the implementation of the motu proprio, said that "some practical difficulties" have delayed the worldwide acceptance of the motu proprio. But when questioned about the criticisms of that document expressed by some bishops, the cardinal said that it was "a controversy born from a lack of understanding." He said that the Ecclesia Dei commission plans new efforts to educate the clergy about the liturgical norms in order to eliminate those misunderstandings.
When asked how the wider use of the older liturgy might affect relations with the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), Cardinal Castrillon said that Summorum Pontificum could help to pave the way for a restoration of the traditionalist group to full communion with the Church.
However, the cardinal took pains to say that members of the SSPX are not separated from the Catholic Church. "The excommunication applied only to the four bishops," he said. While the Mass celebrated at SSPX chapels is not licit, he said, it is unquestionably valid. "Certainly neither the priests nor the faithful are excommunicated," he added.
Vatican official suggests reconsidering Communion in the handVatican, Feb. 1, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship has called for reconsideration of the practice of Communion in the hand.
In the preface to a new Italian-language book on the Eucharist, written by a bishop from Kazakhstan and released in January by the Vatican's official publishing house, Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don suggests that the reception of Communion in the hand has contributed to a general sense of "carelessness" about the Eucharist, as well as some flagrant abuses. The archbishop makes his remarks in the preface to Dominus Est, by Bishop Athanasisus Schneider.
The practice of receiving Communion in the hand was not mandated by Vatican II, nor was it introduced in response to calls from the laity, Archbishop Ranjith writes. Instead, he argues, an established practice of piety-- receiving the Eucharist kneeling, on the tongue-- was changed "improperly and hurriedly," and became widespread even before it was formally approved by the Vatican.
In light of a widespread lack of reverence for the Eucharist, the archbishop suggests that it is "high time to review" the policy. While he does not condemn the practice of Communion in the hand, the Vatican official praises Bishop Schneider for arguing in favor of the older practice, saying that it helps to foster a proper sense of reverence and piety.
Officials note some resistance to pope's ruling
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press January 4, 2008
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has begun drafting a document to elaborate on Pope Benedict XVI's recent liberalization of the old Latin Mass because some bishops are either ignoring his move or misinterpreting it, officials said.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the church's second-ranking official, said in comments published yesterday that the Vatican would be issuing an "instruction" on how to put the pope's document into practice, since there had been what he called some "uneven" reactions to it since it went into effect last summer.
The document Benedict issued in July removed restrictions on celebrating the so-called Tridentine Mass, the rite celebrated in Latin before the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s paved the way for the new Mass used widely today in local languages.
Following the 1960s reform, the Tridentine rite could only be celebrated with permission from local bishops - an obstacle that supporters of the old rite said had greatly reduced its availability.
In a gesture to such traditional Catholics, Benedict removed that requirement in his document, saying parish priests could celebrate the Tridentine Mass if a "stable group of faithful" requested it.
Implementation, however, has been uneven, with some bishops issuing rules that "practically annul or twist the intention of the pope," Monsignor Albert Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Divine Cult and Discipline of Sacraments, said recently, according to the Vatican's missionary news agency, FIDES.
Such reactions amounted to a "crisis of obedience" toward the pontiff, he was quoted as saying, although he stressed that most prelates had accepted the pope's will "with the required sense of reverence and obedience."
While giving no date for its publication, Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, said the upcoming instruction would lay out criteria for the pope's document to be correctly applied, according to the interview in an Italian religious affairs weekly, Famiglia Cristiana. He complained that reactions to the pontiff's document had been uneven.
"Some have even gone so far as to accuse the pope of having reneged on Council teaching," Bertone was quoted as saying. "On the other hand, there are those who have interpreted" the document "as authorization to return exclusively to the pre-Council rite. Both positions are wrong, and are exaggerated episodes that don't correspond to the pope's intention."
Despite such incidents, the Rev. John T. Zuhlsdorf, who runs a blog that has charted implementation of the pope's document, said he had seen increased interest in the older form of the Mass.
"In some dioceses in the United States, bishops have been stepping up to the plate and not only learning the older form, but celebrating it themselves," he said in an e-mail. "Younger priests are attending workshops. Several seminaries are offering training for their priesthood candidates."
Even before the pope's document was released, liberal-minded Catholics had complained that Benedict's move amounted to a negation of Vatican II, and some bishops and cardinals warned that its implementation would create a rupture in the church.
Also, Jewish groups criticized the old rite's Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of Jews. Bertone has said the issue could be resolved and that the church in no way intended to go against its spirit of reconciling with Jews.
Benedict's document was also a bid to reach out to the followers of an excommunicated traditionalist, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who split with the Vatican over Council reforms, notably the introduction of the new Mass.
Vatican official decries opposition to Summorum Pontificum
Rome, Nov. 5, 2007 (CWNews.com) - In an interview with the Italian Petrus web site, Archbishop Albert Ranjith Patabendige, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, acknowledged that the papal document, Summorum Pontificum, has been met in some dioceses with criticism and resistance. In some cases, the Sri Lankan prelate said, the hostility amounts to "rebellion against the Pope."
Reminding the interviewer, Bruno Volpe, that every bishop swears allegiance to the Roman Pontiff, Archbishop Ranjith said that "everyone, and particular every pastor, is called to obey the Pope, who is the successor to Peter." He called bishops to follow the papal directive faithfully, "setting aside all pride and prejudice."
Archbishop Ranjith complained that in some dioceses, bishops and their representatives have set out policies "inexplicably" limiting the scope of the Pope's motu proprio. He charged that the resistance to the Pope's policy has been driven by "on the one hand, ideological prejudices, and on the other hand pride-- one of the deadliest sins."
Early in October, in an address to the Latin Liturgy Association in the Netherlands, Archbishop Ranjith had delivered an equally blunt assessment of the response to Summorum Pontificum, saying that bishops were being "disobedient" to the Pope, and stifling the impact of the motu proprio by their policies. Diocesan bishops "do not have this right," he said, and bishops who defy the Pope's authority are allowing themselves "to be used as instruments of the devil." Nov. 2, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) has completed a draft of its English translation of the Roman Missal. The ICEL draft, which was unveiled on November 1, will now be submitted to the bishops' conferences of the English-speaking world. Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds, England, explained that ICEL will solicit comments on the draft, make appropriate changes, and hopes to complete the English translation by the end of 2008. The ICEL draft is a translation of the Latin that appears in the 3rd edition of the Roman Missal. That official Latin version was released in 2002. The process of translating the Roman Missal into English has been complicated by lively debates about the principles of liturgical language-- a debate that prompted the Vatican to set up a new committee to join in the consultations. The Vox Clara committee, chaired by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney Australia. In March 2004, the Vox Clara committee welcomed a new translation, which provided a more accurate rendering of the Latin original. Among the most notable changes proposed in the new translation are: The latest draft is being submitted by ICEL for comments by the Vatican and by the 11 episcopal conferences represented in ICEL, which includes the bishops of Australia, Canada, England and Wales, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Scotland, South Africa, and the US.
New English translation of Missal is complete
Baltimore, Nov. 9, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Baltimore's Archbishop Edwin O'Brien has removed a pastor who invited a female Episcopalian priest to join him in celebrating a funeral Mass, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Father Martin was removed from his parish assignment at a meeting with archdiocesan officials on November 8. The priest, whose unorthodox liturgical practices had prompted several prior complaints, said that the Episcopalian priest had not participated in the Consecration during the October funeral liturgy, although he had invited her to read the Gospel. There were conflicting reports on whether or not the Episcopalian cleric had received Communion; Father Martin said that he could not recall administering the Eucharist to her.
On the orders of the archbishop, Father Martin resigned his parish assignment and issued an apology for "bringing scandal to the Church," the Sun reports. A spokesman for the Baltimore archdiocese explained that the pastor's removal was called for because "he has repeatedly violated Church teaching."
Father Martin was serving as pastor of three different parishes in south Baltimore, where he had worked for 5 years. His removal comes just 6 weeks after Archbishop O'Brien was installed as head of the Baltimore archdiocese.
St. Louis, Nov. 8, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis has warned two local women that they face excommunication if they go through with plans for a Sunday ceremony at which they will claim to be ordained as priests.
The archbishop sent personal letters by courier to Rose Marie Dunn Hudson and Elsie Hainz McGrath, reminding them that they would incur the "censure of excommunication" if they participated in the ceremony, which is being held at a Jewish synagogue under the auspices of the "Womenpriests" organization.
Archbishop Burke noted that the fraudulent "ordination" ceremony, held in direct violation of Church teaching and authority, would constitute an "act of schism." He warned the women that additional penalties could be used against them, along with the excommunication that would be automatically imposed.
McGrath told an AP reporter that she would ignore the archbishop's warning, which she characterized as a "form of intimidation . Vatican, Oct. 12, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The Ecclesia Dei commission is preparing a new document on the application of the motu proprio allowing wider use of the traditional Latin Mass, according to a report on the Italian Petrus web site. Msgr. Camille Perl, the secretary of the Ecclesia Dei commission, told Petrus that the office is preparing a document on "the proper interpretation of Summorum Pontificum" The document will provide authoritative guidance on questions that have been raised frequently about the papal directive, such as how many parishioners would constitute a group sufficient to call for the use of the older liturgy. The Vatican official acknowledged that the Ecclesia Dei commission is preparing the new document as a response to widespread limitations on the use of the 1962 Roman Missal. Msgr. Perl expressed some impatience with bishops who have set conditions that go beyond the framework of Summorum Pontificum, complaining that a "sense of obedience and respect for authority has been lost." The Ecclesia Dei commission was created in 1988 to coordinate pastoral programs aimed at traditionalist Catholics. Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) has given the commission jurisdiction over the implementation of his motu proprio.
Vatican Preparing follow-up document on motu proprio 
Pope’s ancient ornaments and vestments underscore continuity in the liturgy
Msgr. Guido Marini.- The Vatican’s Master of Papal Liturgical Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini explained that the distinct ancient liturgical ornaments and vestments being used by Pope Benedict XVI underscore “the continuity of the current liturgical celebration with that which has characterized the life of the Church in the past. The hermeneutic of continuity is always an exact criterion for reading the course of the Church in time. This also applies to the liturgy.”
In an interview with the L’Osservatore Romano, Msgr. Marini said that “just as a Pope cites the Pontiffs that preceded him in his documents in order to indicate the continuity of the Magisterium of the Church, so in the area of liturgy, a Pope also uses liturgical vestments and sacred accessories of the Popes that preceded him to indicate the same continuity in the lex orandi (law of prayer).”
“I would like to note that the Pope does not always use ancient liturgical vestments. He often uses modern ones. The important thing is not that they are ancient or modern but that they are beautiful and dignified, aspects that are important for all liturgical celebrations,” he added.
Asked about accusations that Pope Benedict XVI is trying to impose “pre-conciliar models,” Msgr. Marini said, that terms such as “pre-conciliar” or “post-conciliar” are used by some “with the intent of indicating a discontinuity in the Church’s journey, I consider [the terms] to be erroneous and typical of very narrow ideological visions.”
“There are ancient things and there are new things that belong to the treasure of the Church of the ages and as such they are taken into consideration,” he continued, adding that “not everything that is new is true, and neither is everything that is ancient. The truth transcends the old and the new and we must tend towards it without prejudice.”
Asked about the gold staff that is in the form of a Greek cross which the Holy Father has been using lately, Msgr. Marini said this choice “does not mean simply a return to the ancient, but rather it is a testimony to development in continuity, a rooting in tradition that allows for moving forward in history in an orderly fashion,” and in addition it is “lightweight and easily manageable,” and as such is a practical choice.
Regarding the changes in the pallium which Pope Benedict will give to 41 new archbishops on June 29, Msgr. Marini said they were developments to the design used up until the time of Pope John Paul II and that they will be slightly wider and longer.
Pope prefers Communion on the tongue, Msgr. Marini says
.- In interview published in the Wednesday edition of L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict’s new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, Monsignor Guido Marini, says he believes that people receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue will become common practice at the Vatican.
Msgr. Marini’s comments were made during an interview with Gianluca Biccini on some of Pope Benedict XVI’s recent liturgical decisions and their meaning.
Biccini noted in the exchange that Pope Benedict distributed Holy Communion to people who knelt and received the host on their tongues during his visit to Brindisi (Southern Italy) last week.
When he was asked if this would become a common practice at the Vatican, Marini responded, "I believe so."
"In this regard it is necessary not to forget the fact that the distribution of Communion on the hand remains, up to now, from the juridical standpoint, an exception (indult) to the universal law, conceded by the Holy See to those bishops' conferences who requested it,” the liturgical master of ceremonies reminded.
Canada, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States are all countries that have been granted an exception from the universal practice of receiving Communion on the tongue.
It seems though that the Pope wants to provide an example for the Church, according to Msgr. Marini, “The form adopted by Benedict XVI is meant to highlight the force of this valid norm for the whole Church."
"It could also be noted that the (Pope's) preference for such form of distribution which, without taking anything away from the other one, better highlights the truth of the real presence in the Eucharist, helps the devotion of the faithful, and introduces more easily to the sense of mystery. Aspects which, in our times, pastorally speaking, it is urgent to highlight and recover."
Pope would like Tridentine Mass in each parish, Vatican official says
By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service
LONDON (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI would like every Catholic parish in the world to celebrate a regular Tridentine-rite Mass, a Vatican cardinal has said.
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also told a June 14 press conference in London that the Vatican was writing to all seminaries to ask that candidates to the priesthood are trained to celebrate Mass according to the extraordinary form of the Latin rite, also known as the Tridentine Mass, restricted from the 1970s until July 2007 when Pope Benedict lifted some of those limits.
The cardinal, who was visiting London at the invitation of the Latin Mass Society, a British Catholic group committed to promoting Mass in the Tridentine rite of the 1962 Roman Missal, said it was "absolute ignorance" to think that the pope was trying to reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council by encouraging use of the rite.
"The Holy Father, who is a theologian and who was (involved) in the preparation for the council, is acting exactly in the way of the council, offering with freedom the different kinds of celebration," he said.
"The Holy Father is not returning to the past; he is taking a treasure from the past to offer it alongside the rich celebration of the new rite," the cardinal added.
When asked by a journalist if the pope wanted to see "many ordinary parishes" making provision for the Tridentine Mass, Cardinal Castrillon, a Colombian, said: "All the parishes. Not many, all the parishes, because this is a gift of God.
"He (Pope Benedict) offers these riches, and it is very important for new generations to know the past of the church," said Cardinal Castrillon, president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which works to help separated traditionalist Catholics return to the church.
"This kind of worship is so noble, so beautiful," he said. "The worship, the music, the architecture, the painting, makes a whole that is a treasure. The Holy Father is willing to offer to all the people this possibility, not only for the few groups who demand it but so that everybody knows this way of celebrating the Eucharist in the Catholic Church."
He also said his commission, which also is responsible for overseeing the application of "Summorum Pontificum," the 2007 papal decree authorizing the universal use of the Tridentine rite, was in the process of writing to seminaries not only to equip seminarians to celebrate Mass in Latin but to understand the theology, the philosophy and the language of such Masses.
The cardinal said parishes could use catechism classes to prepare Catholics to celebrate such Masses every Sunday so they could "appreciate the power of the silence, the power of the sacred way in front of God, the deep theology, to discover how and why the priest represents the person of Christ and to pray with the priest."
In "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict indicated that Tridentine Masses should be made available in every parish where groups of the faithful desire it and where a priest has been trained to celebrate it. He also said the Mass from the Roman Missal in use since 1970 remains the ordinary form of the Mass, while the celebration of the Tridentine Mass is the extraordinary form.
The document did not require all parishes to automatically establish a Tridentine Mass schedule, but it said that where "a group of faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably," the pastor should "willingly accede" to their request to make the Mass available.
Cardinal Castrillon told the press conference, however, that a stable group could mean just three or four people who were not necessarily drawn from the same parish.
Later in the day, Cardinal Castrillon celebrated the first pontifical high Mass in the Tridentine rite in London's Westminster Cathedral in 39 years. The event drew a congregation of more than 1,500 people, including young families. None of the English or Welsh bishops attended.
END
Extra cordiality as Pope greets President Bush
Vatican, Jun. 13, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) hosted US President George W. Bush at the Vatican on June 13 for an extraordinarily cordial private talk. The warmth of the Holy Father's reception for the American leader, and the enthusiasm that Bush showed during the meeting, prompted several Italian journalists to question whether the American president might be considering a personal commitment to the Catholic faith.
Breaking with the usual Vatican protocol, the Pope met President Bush in the Tower of St. John, rather than in the apostolic palace. After their private conversation, the two men walked together through the Vatican gardens, visiting the Lourdes grotto there.
The Vatican announced that the unusual reception was arranged "to respond to the cordiality of the welcome received by the Supreme Pontiff during his recent visit to the United States of America." In April the Pope had been clearly surprised and delighted by the warmth of his reception at the White House.
An official statement released by the Vatican after the Friday meeting indicated that the Pope's conversation with President Bush touched upon their shared "commitment in defense of fundamental moral values." They also spoke about international concerns including the tensions in the Middle East, the food crisis, and global poverty.
For reporters covering the presidential visit, however, the main focus of attention was not the policy discussion between the Pope and the President, but their personal relationship. President Bush-- who was probably meeting the Pope for the last time before leaving office in January 2009-- has spoken openly about his admiration for Pope Benedict. Reporters in Rome have openly questioned whether the American leader will follow the example of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was received into the Catholic Church shortly after he left office.
Neither the Vatican nor the White House has encouraged this speculation. President Bush is a committed Evangelical Protestant, for whom a move toward Catholicism would be a dramatic step. On the other hand his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is convert to the Catholic faith.
President Bush clearly appreciated the special treatment that he was receiving at the Vatican. "Such an honor, such an honor," he repeated as he met Pope Benedict.
The President addressed the Pontiff as "your eminence"-- improper protocol, since that title is used for cardinals, while the Pope is properly addressed as "your holiness." But in an earlier meeting with Pope Benedict just over one year ago, President Bush had addressed the Pontiff simply as "sir."
Some Vatican officials had suggested that Bush might join Pope Benedict in prayer at the Vatican's Lourdes grotto, just as the two men had prayed together at the White House in April. But if they prayed together again during this meeting, they did so privately. At the grotto the Pope and the President sat together for a short performance by the Sistine Chapel Choir.
Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling may not be permanent change
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The four dozen people who received Communion from Pope Benedict XVI on the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ received the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling.
Vatican officials said the gesture at the May 22 Mass outside the Basilica of St. John Lateran does not mark a permanent change in papal liturgies, but highlighted the solemnity of the feast and a connection to Mass practices in the past.
As the pope prepared to distribute Communion, two ushers placed a kneeler in front of the altar on the basilica steps. The chosen communicants -- laypeople, nuns, seminarians, priests and boys and girls who had received their first Communion in their parishes in May -- all knelt and received on the tongue.
Generally at papal Masses, those receiving Communion from the pope stand. The majority choose to receive on the tongue, but some reverently extend cradled hands to receive the Eucharist.
In a brief e-mail to Catholic News Service May 23, Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, said the decision "was a solution adopted for (the feast of) Corpus Domini," but as for the future, "we'll see."
Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, told CNS "there is no discussion" in the Vatican about insisting that those who receive Communion from the pope do so kneeling or that they receive it on the tongue rather than in their hands.
In addition, he said, "there are no new norms coming" that would change the Vatican's 1969 decision that local bishops could allow their faithful to receive the Eucharist in their hands while standing.
"But the gesture of the Holy Father" at the May 22 Mass "is to be appreciated. It brings out in a better way the fact that we adore the Lord whom we receive" in the Eucharist, Archbishop Ranjith said.
"It was a special occasion" because the feast focuses on Jesus truly present in the Eucharist, he said. "I hope this practice spreads."
In a preface to a January book about the beauty of receiving the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling, Archbishop Ranjith had said he thought it was time for the Catholic Church to reconsider its decision to allow the faithful to receive Communion in the hand.
Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, assistant director of the Vatican press office, said he did not think the May 22 Mass marked a permanent change; "according to current norms the faithful may receive in the hand while standing," he said.
However, he said, the practice chosen for the special feast day was another example of what Msgr. Marini has said would be the practice at papal Masses, "alternating the old and new to indicate continuity with the past."
In his homily at the Mass, Pope Benedict spoke about the importance of "kneeling before the Lord, adoration that begins at the Mass itself and accompanies the entire (Corpus Christi) procession" through the streets of Rome.
"To adore the body of Christ means to believe that there, in that piece of bread, there really is Christ who gives meaning to our lives," the pope said in his homily.
Paul VI saw liturgical abuse as "smoke of Satan" Rome, May. 16, 2008 (CWNews.com) - When Pope Paul VI spoke about the "smoke of Satan" entering the Catholic Church, he was referring to liturgical abuses, according to the prelate who served as his master of ceremonies.
Cardinal Virgilio Noe, the chief Vatican liturgist during the pontificate of Paul VI, spoke candidly about the late Pope's concerns in an interview with the Roman Petrus web site. The Italian prelate-- who was also the Vatican's top liturgist under Pope John Paul I and the early years of the pontificate of John Paul II-- is now retired, and at the age of 86 his health is failing. In his interview with Petrus he concentrated primarily on his years serving Pope Paul VI.
Pope Paul accepted the liturgical reforms after Vatican II "with pleasure," Cardinal Noe said. He added that Paul VI was not be nature a sad man, but "he was saddened by the fact of having been left alone by the Roman Curia." Regarding the late Pope's famous remark about the "smoke of Satan," Cardinal Noe said that he knew what Paul VI intended by that statement. In that denunciation, he said, the Pope "meant to include all those priests or bishops and cardinals who didn't render worship to the Lord by celebrating badly Holy Mass because of an errant interpretation of the implementation of the Second Vatican Council. He spoke of the smoke of Satan because he maintained that those priests who turned Holy Mass into dross in the name of creativity, in reality were possessed of the vainglory and the pride of the Evil One. So, the smoke of Satan was nothing other than the mentality which wanted to distort the traditional and liturgical canons of the Eucharistic ceremony."
For Pope Paul VI, the cardinal continued, the worst outcome of the post-conciliar liturgical reform was the "craving to be in the limelight" that caused many priests to ignore liturgical guidelines. Cardinal Noe recalled that the Pope himself believed in careful adherence to the rubrics of the Mass, firmly believing that "no one is lord of the Mass."
Speaking for himself, the former top Vatican liturgist said that the liturgy must always be celebrated with reverence and careful respect for the rubrics. He said with regret that in the wake of Vatican II "it was believed that everything, or nearly, was permitted." Cardinal Noe said: "Now it is necessary to recover-- and in a hurry-- the sense of the sacred in the ars celebrandi, before the smoke of Satan completely pervades the whole Church."
Australian archbishop seeks recovery of sacred in liturgy Canberra, May. 14, 2008 (CWNews.com) - An Australian archbishop has called for a greater sense of reverence in the liturgy, urging a frank appraisal of problems that have arisen since the Second Vatican Council.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra issued a letter on the liturgy for Pentecost Sunday, as the Australian bishops began full implementation of the new General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM).
As he laid out the changes required by the GIRM, Archbishop Coleridge commented that "the Church is moving into a new phase of the ongoing journey of liturgical renewal." That process is necessary, he said, in order to prune out undesirable elements that have become commonplace. He explained that since the reforms after Vatican II, "liturgical habits have taken hold, some of which have been beneficial, others detrimental to the celebration of the liturgy."
"Our worship generally has become very chatty, to the point where one of the challenges now is to allow silence to play its part in the liturgy," the archbishop said. He reported, too, that many of the faithful find "a loss of the sense of the sacred in the Mass-- a weakened sense of the presence of God and the deeper resonances of the liturgical words and actions that comes with silence."
Archbishop Coleridge said that special attention should be paid to translations of liturgical texts, noting that "the language of the liturgy was never everyday language." He added that the sense of reverence is undermined when celebrants use informal language and when they offer mundane greetings, such as beginning a liturgical ceremony by wishing the congregation a "Good morning." [The full text of the archbishop's letter is available on the web site of the Canberra archdiocese.]
Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling may not be permanent change Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling may not be permanent change Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling may not be permanent change Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling may not be permanent change Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling may not be permanent change Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (John Baptist de La Salle)(Born in ; died in Saint-Yon, ) was a , educational reformer, and founder of an international educational movement, the who dedicated more than forty years of his life to the education of the children of the poor. In the process, he standardized educational practices throughout France, wrote inspirational meditations on the ministry of teaching (along with catechisms, politeness texts, and other resources for teachers and students), and became the catalyst and resource for many other religious congregations dedicated to education that were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (also known as the Christian Brothers, the Lasallian Brothers, the French Christian Brothers, or the De La Salle Brothers; Latin: Fratres Scholarum Christianarum) is a
.- The Vatican’s Master of Papal Liturgical Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini explained that the distinct ancient liturgical ornaments and vestments being used by Pope Benedict XVI underscore “the continuity of the current liturgical celebration with that which has characterized the life of the Church in the past. The hermeneutic of continuity is always an exact criterion for reading the course of the Church in time. This also applies to the liturgy.”
In an interview with the L’Osservatore Romano, Msgr. Marini said that “just as a Pope cites the Pontiffs that preceded him in his documents in order to indicate the continuity of the Magisterium of the Church, so in the area of liturgy, a Pope also uses liturgical vestments and sacred accessories of the Popes that preceded him to indicate the same continuity in the lex orandi (law of prayer).”
“I would like to note that the Pope does not always use ancient liturgical vestments. He often uses modern ones. The important thing is not that they are ancient or modern but that they are beautiful and dignified, aspects that are important for all liturgical celebrations,” he added.
Asked about accusations that Pope Benedict XVI is trying to impose “pre-conciliar models,” Msgr. Marini said, that terms such as “pre-conciliar” or “post-conciliar” are used by some “with the intent of indicating a discontinuity in the Church’s journey, I consider [the terms] to be erroneous and typical of very narrow ideological visions.”
“There are ancient things and there are new things that belong to the treasure of the Church of the ages and as such they are taken into consideration,” he continued, adding that “not everything that is new is true, and neither is everything that is ancient. The truth transcends the old and the new and we must tend towards it without prejudice.”
Asked about the gold staff that is in the form of a Greek cross which the Holy Father has been using lately, Msgr. Marini said this choice “does not mean simply a return to the ancient, but rather it is a testimony to development in continuity, a rooting in tradition that allows for moving forward in history in an orderly fashion,” and in addition it is “lightweight and easily manageable,” and as such is a practical choice.
Regarding the changes in the pallium which Pope Benedict will give to 41 new archbishops on June 29, Msgr. Marini said they were developments to the design used up until the time of Pope John Paul II and that they will be slightly wider and longer.
Pope prefers Communion on the tongue, Msgr. Marini says
.- In interview published in the Wednesday edition of L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict’s new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, Monsignor Guido Marini, says he believes that people receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue will become common practice at the Vatican.
Msgr. Marini’s comments were made during an interview with Gianluca Biccini on some of Pope Benedict XVI’s recent liturgical decisions and their meaning.
Biccini noted in the exchange that Pope Benedict distributed Holy Communion to people who knelt and received the host on their tongues during his visit to Brindisi (Southern Italy) last week.
When he was asked if this would become a common practice at the Vatican, Marini responded, "I believe so."
"In this regard it is necessary not to forget the fact that the distribution of Communion on the hand remains, up to now, from the juridical standpoint, an exception (indult) to the universal law, conceded by the Holy See to those bishops' conferences who requested it,” the liturgical master of ceremonies reminded.
Canada, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States are all countries that have been granted an exception from the universal practice of receiving Communion on the tongue.
It seems though that the Pope wants to provide an example for the Church, according to Msgr. Marini, “The form adopted by Benedict XVI is meant to highlight the force of this valid norm for the whole Church."
"It could also be noted that the (Pope's) preference for such form of distribution which, without taking anything away from the other one, better highlights the truth of the real presence in the Eucharist, helps the devotion of the faithful, and introduces more easily to the sense of mystery. Aspects which, in our times, pastorally speaking, it is urgent to highlight and recover."
Pope would like Tridentine Mass in each parish, Vatican official says The warmth of the Holy Father's reception for the American leader, and the enthusiasm that Bush showed during the meeting, prompted several Italian journalists to question whether the American president might be considering a personal commitment to the Catholic faith. Breaking with the usual Vatican protocol, the Pope met President Bush in the Tower of St. John, rather than in the apostolic palace. After their private conversation, the two men walked together through the Vatican gardens, visiting the Lourdes grotto there. The Vatican announced that the unusual reception was arranged "to respond to the cordiality of the welcome received by the Supreme Pontiff during his recent visit to the United States of America." In April the Pope had been clearly surprised and delighted by the warmth of his reception at the White House. An official statement released by the Vatican after the Friday meeting indicated that the Pope's conversation with President Bush touched upon their shared "commitment in defense of fundamental moral values." They also spoke about international concerns including the tensions in the Middle East, the food crisis, and global poverty. For reporters covering the presidential visit, however, the main focus of attention was not the policy discussion between the Pope and the President, but their personal relationship. President Bush-- who was probably meeting the Pope for the last time before leaving office in January 2009-- has spoken openly about his admiration for Pope Benedict. Reporters in Rome have openly questioned whether the American leader will follow the example of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was received into the Catholic Church shortly after he left office. Neither the Vatican nor the White House has encouraged this speculation. President Bush is a committed Evangelical Protestant, for whom a move toward Catholicism would be a dramatic step. On the other hand his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is convert to the Catholic faith. President Bush clearly appreciated the special treatment that he was receiving at the Vatican. "Such an honor, such an honor," he repeated as he met Pope Benedict. The President addressed the Pontiff as "your eminence"-- improper protocol, since that title is used for cardinals, while the Pope is properly addressed as "your holiness." But in an earlier meeting with Pope Benedict just over one year ago, President Bush had addressed the Pontiff simply as "sir." Some Vatican officials had suggested that Bush might join Pope Benedict in prayer at the Vatican's Lourdes grotto, just as the two men had prayed together at the White House in April. But if they prayed together again during this meeting, they did so privately. At the grotto the Pope and the President sat together for a short performance by the Sistine Chapel Choir. Rome, May. 16, 2008 (CWNews.com) - When Pope Paul VI spoke about the "smoke of Satan" entering the Catholic Church, he was referring to liturgical abuses, according to the prelate who served as his master of ceremonies. Cardinal Virgilio Noe, the chief Vatican liturgist during the pontificate of Paul VI, spoke candidly about the late Pope's concerns in an interview with the Roman Petrus web site. The Italian prelate-- who was also the Vatican's top liturgist under Pope John Paul I and the early years of the pontificate of John Paul II-- is now retired, and at the age of 86 his health is failing. In his interview with Petrus he concentrated primarily on his years serving Pope Paul VI. For Pope Paul VI, the cardinal continued, the worst outcome of the post-conciliar liturgical reform was the "craving to be in the limelight" that caused many priests to ignore liturgical guidelines. Cardinal Noe recalled that the Pope himself believed in careful adherence to the rubrics of the Mass, firmly believing that "no one is lord of the Mass." Speaking for himself, the former top Vatican liturgist said that the liturgy must always be celebrated with reverence and careful respect for the rubrics. He said with regret that in the wake of Vatican II "it was believed that everything, or nearly, was permitted." Cardinal Noe said: "Now it is necessary to recover-- and in a hurry-- the sense of the sacred in the ars celebrandi, before the smoke of Satan completely pervades the whole Church." Australian archbishop seeks recovery of sacred in liturgy Canberra, May. 14, 2008 (CWNews.com) - An Australian archbishop has called for a greater sense of reverence in the liturgy, urging a frank appraisal of problems that have arisen since the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra issued a letter on the liturgy for Pentecost Sunday, as the Australian bishops began full implementation of the new General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM). As he laid out the changes required by the GIRM, Archbishop Coleridge commented that "the Church is moving into a new phase of the ongoing journey of liturgical renewal." That process is necessary, he said, in order to prune out undesirable elements that have become commonplace. He explained that since the reforms after Vatican II, "liturgical habits have taken hold, some of which have been beneficial, others detrimental to the celebration of the liturgy." "Our worship generally has become very chatty, to the point where one of the challenges now is to allow silence to play its part in the liturgy," the archbishop said. He reported, too, that many of the faithful find "a loss of the sense of the sacred in the Mass-- a weakened sense of the presence of God and the deeper resonances of the liturgical words and actions that comes with silence." Archbishop Coleridge said that special attention should be paid to translations of liturgical texts, noting that "the language of the liturgy was never everyday language." He added that the sense of reverence is undermined when celebrants use informal language and when they offer mundane greetings, such as beginning a liturgical ceremony by wishing the congregation a "Good morning." [The full text of the archbishop's letter is available on the web site of the Canberra archdiocese.]
By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service
LONDON (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI would like every Catholic parish in the world to celebrate a regular Tridentine-rite Mass, a Vatican cardinal has said.
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also told a June 14 press conference in London that the Vatican was writing to all seminaries to ask that candidates to the priesthood are trained to celebrate Mass according to the extraordinary form of the Latin rite, also known as the Tridentine Mass, restricted from the 1970s until July 2007 when Pope Benedict lifted some of those limits.
The cardinal, who was visiting London at the invitation of the Latin Mass Society, a British Catholic group committed to promoting Mass in the Tridentine rite of the 1962 Roman Missal, said it was "absolute ignorance" to think that the pope was trying to reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council by encouraging use of the rite.
"The Holy Father, who is a theologian and who was (involved) in the preparation for the council, is acting exactly in the way of the council, offering with freedom the different kinds of celebration," he said.
"The Holy Father is not returning to the past; he is taking a treasure from the past to offer it alongside the rich celebration of the new rite," the cardinal added.
When asked by a journalist if the pope wanted to see "many ordinary parishes" making provision for the Tridentine Mass, Cardinal Castrillon, a Colombian, said: "All the parishes. Not many, all the parishes, because this is a gift of God.
"He (Pope Benedict) offers these riches, and it is very important for new generations to know the past of the church," said Cardinal Castrillon, president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which works to help separated traditionalist Catholics return to the church.
"This kind of worship is so noble, so beautiful," he said. "The worship, the music, the architecture, the painting, makes a whole that is a treasure. The Holy Father is willing to offer to all the people this possibility, not only for the few groups who demand it but so that everybody knows this way of celebrating the Eucharist in the Catholic Church."
He also said his commission, which also is responsible for overseeing the application of "Summorum Pontificum," the 2007 papal decree authorizing the universal use of the Tridentine rite, was in the process of writing to seminaries not only to equip seminarians to celebrate Mass in Latin but to understand the theology, the philosophy and the language of such Masses.
The cardinal said parishes could use catechism classes to prepare Catholics to celebrate such Masses every Sunday so they could "appreciate the power of the silence, the power of the sacred way in front of God, the deep theology, to discover how and why the priest represents the person of Christ and to pray with the priest."
In "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict indicated that Tridentine Masses should be made available in every parish where groups of the faithful desire it and where a priest has been trained to celebrate it. He also said the Mass from the Roman Missal in use since 1970 remains the ordinary form of the Mass, while the celebration of the Tridentine Mass is the extraordinary form.
The document did not require all parishes to automatically establish a Tridentine Mass schedule, but it said that where "a group of faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably," the pastor should "willingly accede" to their request to make the Mass available.
Cardinal Castrillon told the press conference, however, that a stable group could mean just three or four people who were not necessarily drawn from the same parish.
Later in the day, Cardinal Castrillon celebrated the first pontifical high Mass in the Tridentine rite in London's Westminster Cathedral in 39 years. The event drew a congregation of more than 1,500 people, including young families. None of the English or Welsh bishops attended.
END
Extra cordiality as Pope greets President Bush
Vatican, Jun. 13, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) hosted US President George W. Bush at the Vatican on June 13 for an extraordinarily cordial private talk.
Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling may not be permanent change
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The four dozen people who received Communion from Pope Benedict XVI on the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ received the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling.
Vatican officials said the gesture at the May 22 Mass outside the Basilica of St. John Lateran does not mark a permanent change in papal liturgies, but highlighted the solemnity of the feast and a connection to Mass practices in the past.
As the pope prepared to distribute Communion, two ushers placed a kneeler in front of the altar on the basilica steps. The chosen communicants -- laypeople, nuns, seminarians, priests and boys and girls who had received their first Communion in their parishes in May -- all knelt and received on the tongue.
Generally at papal Masses, those receiving Communion from the pope stand. The majority choose to receive on the tongue, but some reverently extend cradled hands to receive the Eucharist.
In a brief e-mail to Catholic News Service May 23, Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, said the decision "was a solution adopted for (the feast of) Corpus Domini," but as for the future, "we'll see."
Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, told CNS "there is no discussion" in the Vatican about insisting that those who receive Communion from the pope do so kneeling or that they receive it on the tongue rather than in their hands.
In addition, he said, "there are no new norms coming" that would change the Vatican's 1969 decision that local bishops could allow their faithful to receive the Eucharist in their hands while standing.
"But the gesture of the Holy Father" at the May 22 Mass "is to be appreciated. It brings out in a better way the fact that we adore the Lord whom we receive" in the Eucharist, Archbishop Ranjith said.
"It was a special occasion" because the feast focuses on Jesus truly present in the Eucharist, he said. "I hope this practice spreads."
In a preface to a January book about the beauty of receiving the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling, Archbishop Ranjith had said he thought it was time for the Catholic Church to reconsider its decision to allow the faithful to receive Communion in the hand.
Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, assistant director of the Vatican press office, said he did not think the May 22 Mass marked a permanent change; "according to current norms the faithful may receive in the hand while standing," he said.
However, he said, the practice chosen for the special feast day was another example of what Msgr. Marini has said would be the practice at papal Masses, "alternating the old and new to indicate continuity with the past."
In his homily at the Mass, Pope Benedict spoke about the importance of "kneeling before the Lord, adoration that begins at the Mass itself and accompanies the entire (Corpus Christi) procession" through the streets of Rome.
"To adore the body of Christ means to believe that there, in that piece of bread, there really is Christ who gives meaning to our lives," the pope said in his homily.
Paul VI saw liturgical abuse as "smoke of Satan"
Pope Paul accepted the liturgical reforms after Vatican II "with pleasure," Cardinal Noe said. He added that Paul VI was not be nature a sad man, but "he was saddened by the fact of having been left alone by the Roman Curia." Regarding the late Pope's famous remark about the "smoke of Satan," Cardinal Noe said that he knew what Paul VI intended by that statement. In that denunciation, he said, the Pope "meant to include all those priests or bishops and cardinals who didn't render worship to the Lord by celebrating badly Holy Mass because of an errant interpretation of the implementation of the Second Vatican Council. He spoke of the smoke of Satan because he maintained that those priests who turned Holy Mass into dross in the name of creativity, in reality were possessed of the vainglory and the pride of the Evil One. So, the smoke of Satan was nothing other than the mentality which wanted to distort the traditional and liturgical canons of the Eucharistic ceremony."
The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (also known as the Christian Brothers, the Lasallian Brothers, the French Christian Brothers, or the De La Salle Brothers; Latin: Fratres Scholarum Christianarum) is a