Um, no, Nathan, nor does the St Sabina Faith Community claim to be Catholic in the first place. Above that post is a link to a Maskers-aren't-Catholics screed of dubious holiness making the scurrilous claim that the bishop is "in service to the mafia". This is why I only recommend CMAA to people who already know me well.

Just when you were hoping I had given up on this thread!!!! . . .

I don't think that clericalism is entirely a 'Novus Problem'. There can be a problem of ‘passive’ clericalism as well as ‘active’ clericalism - by this, I mean the tendency of a lot of traditional parishioners to think “Well, the priest/altar boys/choir are doing that, so I don’t have to.” On the one hand, I think it's very dubious to try to take over positions that belong to the priest (EMHCs who don't understand what 'extraordinary' means, self-aggrandizing parish councils), but on the other hand, it seems too often at trad parishes that worshippers take a "less is more" attitude when it comes to interpreting Pius X's concept of "actual participation". As in, do the bare minimum. Because, doing what the servers/choir are doing is just one step from replacing the priests with laity!

Biggest example to me: there seems to me to be an almost irrational fear amongst a lot of trads regarding the Dialogue Mass, insofar as many interpret it as seminal to the corruption which occurred post Vatican II. I remember visiting some friends one Sunday at a Sedevacantist chapel (observing, as I do not hold the position) where afterwards the father of one of my friends began prying me with questions about how I felt about attending a non-Dialogue Mass, and how great it was not to be doing anything the servers or the choir were doing. Which made me think - at any parish I've attended where the Dialogue Mass is celebrated, I have never seen anyone coerced into following along exactly as is laid out. You didn't want to say the responses? Fine. Don't. But for those who find great spiritual consolation in following along these prayers, and joining their voice along with the servers (without the underlying mindset of "look at me, I'm usurping a sacerdotal function!") - what sort of welcome are they going to receive at the non-Dialogue parish?

Can you participate at a Mass by just saying a Rosary? Or following the Stations of the Cross? Or just praying silently? Absolutely. But ask yourself: was there no other time in the space of twenty-four hours in which you could've prayed this devotion, in order to devote yourself, as best as possible, to follow the prayers in the Missal? Why is there this pervading temptation to turn Sunday Mass into "Cram as much God stuff into the space of one hour"? I've got a pretty good idea as to why, and I'm sure you do, as well. And for those who claim it's too distracting to flip through a Missal during Mass and it thwarts your concentration, here's an idea: why not read through the prayers the night before, so you can reflect on what is being prayed at the Mass, AND still participate whilst kneeling/singing/whatever?

So, TLDR version: no, we shouldn't try to take over the priest's functions. But, at the same time, we should realize what are and aren't the functions particular to the priest, and realize that participating in these functions isn't an evil modernist development.

Just like how the 1962 Missal isn't an evil modernist development. But that's a can of worms for another day. (And I say this as someone who loves both the pre and post '55 Holy Week!)

Surely the answer, Corinne, is that because those other things must go on, the Traditional liturgies must be suppressed.

@StimsonInRehab
Actual participation is interesting, Martha was active and she was told it was important but not as important as Mary with her silent attentiveness to the Words of our Lord.

Not all forms of prayer are equal, vocal prayer is not the highest sort of prayer, meditative or contemplative prayer is the highest.

So let us look at some examples,
1. When I first started serving the TLM, I would use my Missal and follow the Epistle and Gospel. The problem I would find is that as you listened to the text in Latin while reading the English and Latin side by side, you would start meditating on the texts... the next thing I would find is the priest was waiting for the responses / moving the Missal. So I stopped reading the texts and try to keep my mind from following too closely. A number of senior M.C. read the responses from a sheet to keep their mind on the task in hand and to avoid meditative prayer. My prayer is my words and actions, as was Martha.

2. When we sing in the choir we cannot follow all the texts of the Mass, we sing over them, or are preparing to sing during them. Is our prayer less? But we are told he who sings prays twice! Our prayer is the music.

3. Polyphonic settings can lead you to higher prayer as you listen, many people in our congregation have told me that the music aids their prayer. We have confession during Sunday Mass, I find it difficult to confess during some Polyphonic music as your heart and soul can be soaring among the clouds far from the earth, while the head is trying to remember more earthly things. One of our priests told me he also finds it difficult to listen to sins being confessed when the choir is singing.

4. So what is the Mass? One story told is of a priest reprimanding an elderly lady for praying the Rosary during Mass, her reply was interesting. She asked what in essence is the Mass "A prayer encompassing the life, death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ" is one answer. What we are doing while saying the Rosary is meditating upon the Life, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The person following every word in the missal without meditating prayerfully about the meaning of the words, is their prayer greater than the meditative prayer of the elderly woman?

5. I have come across some mothers that feel they have not been to Mass as they were outside the church placating a screaming child... But they have followed the instructions of our Lord 'to bring the children to him'. The mother may not have been able to follow the text of the Mass, but is her prayer and sacrifice (for her child) the work she is doing for her child? Is her prayer and sacrifice during Mass worth less?

There is no one single way that we must use to pray the Mass. Some ways are better than others, but we cannot read hearts. Let us not be the pharisee looking down upon the publican, our prayer may be worth less than those that we look down on. I rejoice to see people coming to Mass how they pray the Mass is not my concern.

Not all forms of prayer are equal, vocal prayer is not the highest sort of prayer, meditative or contemplative prayer is the highest.

errrmmm...

But we are told he who sings prays twice! Our prayer is the music.

...aaa!
Seriously, I think there is a slim line separating active participation at Mass by meditative prayer from privat devotion during Mass. That's the issue that VII was addressing, isn't it?

But nobody can deny (even myself...) that many pastors/parishes are over-doing it; as choir director I hate 'animating' the congregation to sing their parts, but that's exactly what I'm instructed to do in one church, to the point that I have to assume a position where the congregation can see my gestures well (and I can easily turn towards them, grrr...) even though this harms my visual contact with the choir or rather the other way round.

In sum I agree that with respect to fruitful paricipation of the congregation a lot more can be won by improving NO practices than by phasing out the use of the old missal.

suppressing' 'Traditional Liturgies'

The very wording of the question itself is rather telling isn't it: suppressing traditional liturgies. Nothing says 'catholic' like suppressing tradition! No cognitive dissonance here!

There is no one single way that we must use to pray the Mass.

No disagreement from me, nor with anything else you have said. My issue is this: why is the Dialogue Mass so anathema amongst so many trads? Any congregation is going to be a mix of Marys and Marthas. Why must they be forced to choose?

Not once in the history of the Roman Rite has anything as different as the Novus Ordo Missal is from the Roman Missal (from its predecessor, if you like) been proposed and accepted to supersede. That's easy to verify.

It may well be that the venerable Fathers of the recent Council agreed together to have the Roman Rite revised: and very probably that the subsequent Missal editio was that revision. But the Novus Ordo is evidently something else. A different rite, albeit in the Latin tradition. Not what the Fathers wanted, probably, what what we have all the same.

No, the only way forward is to recognize and acknowledge the truth: that there are two rites, and that the ancient one cannot be suppressed.

@Elmar
He is yet another bishop that has seen a decline over his tenure. He has buried more priests than he has ordained, closed more churches than opened new ones, etc.

Our Auxiliary bishop when I was a child did not like me c.14 year old asking to have the TLM. He said no, and continued saying the same each time we met. Interestingly when he retired he was more than happy to travel around saying little else than the TLM.

+Vigano is saying what his audience wants to hear... He has found a remnant of tradition however weird, with all the other oddball ideas any fringe is prone to have. But is he any different from other bishops that talk to their audience, but only tell them what they want to hear?

@Richard Mix

Um, no, Nathan, nor does the St Sabina Faith Community claim to be Catholic in the first place.

Actually, St. Sabina is a Catholic Parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago. You can find them by searching here: https://www.archchicago.org/parish-map

Msgr. Pope weighs in:

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/a-pastor-responds-to-the-responsa

so vastly different from its predecessor.

you remind us of the Intervention...

https://brizek.com/mass/ottint.htm

When the Novus Ordo was presented at the Vatican Press Office, it was impudently asserted that conditions which prompted the decrees of the Council of Trent no longer exist. Not only do these decrees still apply today, but conditions now are infinitely worse. It was precisely to repel those snares which in every age threaten the pure Deposit of Faith, [55] that the Church, under divine inspiration, set up dogmatic definitions and doctrinal pronouncements as her defenses. These in turn immediately influenced her worship, which became the most complete monument to her faith. Trying to return this worship to the practices of Christian antiquity and recreating artificially the original spontaneity of ancient times is to engage in that "unhealthy archaeologism" Pius XII so roundly condemned. [56] It is, moreover, to dismantle all the theological ramparts erected for the protection of the rite and to take away all the beauty which enriched it for centuries. [57] And all this at one of the most critical moments--if not the most critical moment--in the Church's history! Today, division and schism are officially acknowledged to exist not only outside the Church, but within her as well. [58] The Church's unity is not only threatened, but has already been tragically compromised. [59] Errors against the Faith are not merely insinuated, but are--as has been likewise acknowledged--now forcibly imposed through liturgical abuses and aberrations. To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries stood as a sign and pledge of unity in worship, [60] and to replace it with another liturgy which, due to the countless liberties it implicitly authorizes, cannot but be a sign of division--a liturgy which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith--is, we feel bound in conscience to proclaim, an incalculable error.

The Viganò essay linked above has this line:

Just as in the face of the pandemic, effective treatments are denied with the imposition of a useless “vaccine” that is actually harmful and even lethal [....]

It's not clear what vaccine he's talking about, since in his country, there are two from China, one from Russia, and one domestically developed. None of those are used here.

And it's not clear that he's really making an accusation about any of the vaccines at all: he may just be using the idea as a metaphor, in order to say that the modern form of Mass is a poor substitute for the Tridentine Mass, which he calls "the true medicine of the soul".

If he were making such a claim about any of the well-known vaccines used in this country, I think it would be fair to call it nonsense, since they're all demonstrably effective in most patients at reducing the effects of Covid disease, and hence not "useless".

For an ironic note: some of the Chinese vaccines were developed and tested completely without use of human fetal-line cells and therefore they have no moral taint from any use of cells derived from abortion victims: they might therefore be morally superior to the vaccines used in the US and much of Europe.

Chris, I would take the Kolbe Centre insisting that YEC is akin to Catholic dogma as an example, a view that has only become more prevalent in time.

What the media call "anti-vax" is a very broad term ranging from actual Luddites to those who insist that the COVID "vaccines" aren't really vaccines at all. The opposition of this second group is based (sometimes) on an appreciation of science and the desire to save its good name.

I understand this, and have no desire to further media sensationalism. I limit my concern to comments like Viganò's.

Accepting the usus antiquior implies accepting the moral framework which the Church has taught over the centuries. Rejecting it, it seems to me, results from rejecting that same moral framework.

Which is why I listed examples that have nothing to do with the Church's moral framework.

Anti-vaccine nonsense? That people have died as a result of vaccines is nonsense? That we are supposed to demand safer, abortion-free methods of therapeutics is nonsense?

Viganò insisted that the vaccine is useless and has only caused harm, which is objectively untrue by any measure. Moreover, this has nothing to do with a choice of Missals. Also, don't try and spin my objection into something that it isn't, using examples I never even mentioned.

I believe that Corinne is referring not to the OF per se, but rather the rampant abuses of it which largely tend to be ignored or (at least implicitly) approved of.

Charles,

I don't want him to go to a Peronist rally in the sky. I want him to spend eternity enjoying the beatific vision. Accordingly, I pray for him daily.

@CharlesW Judas 'went to his own place'... I suppose some people would not be happy anywhere.

Very interesting interview with a church historian, Christophe Dickès, which gives the view of an educated Frenchman looking at TC "from the outside" so to speak (as far as I know he has no particular sympathies with traditionalists). It also telling that it's published in Aleteia, which is known as being very "middle-of-the-road":

It is difficult not to see in this suppression a purely ideological design. No matter how you look at it, the current pontificate has just suppressed the achievements of thirty years of patient and benevolent work by the two popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Like certain media outlets, we can ask ourselves if Rome wants to engineer the death of traditionalist communities.

and

it is surprising that Rome is engaging in a form of legalism: is it not Pope Francis himself who keeps saying that we must put the spirit before the law, in the words of Saint Paul? Moreover, we see people who are far removed from traditionalist circles being surprised by such Roman rigidity.

At the risk of sounding like a bargin-bin William F. Buckley (moreso than usual) I would argue that the charism which needs to be promoted by the Church, especially in these critical times, is that of a "big tent". There are those among us who are not young-earth creationists, geocentrists, or dogmatic anti-vaxxers, but still support the continued use of the rites prior to 1969, just as the exact opposite is true.

And yet William F. Buckley did more than anyone to purge the conservative movement of those people who he believed harmed its mainstream credibility, and did so quite successfully in my eyes.

Interesting article, Elmar. I have noticed that same disdain for Vatican II and the post-conciliar popes. Granted, it is hard to build any case for excellence among some of those popes. Was Vatican II ecumenical? Latins think every council they call is ecumenical whether or not the rest of Christianity agrees. Did Vatican II clarify, or create confusion in its wake? Another good question. How will this all shake out? God only knows. I will state again what I have said many times, we have a genuine leadership crisis in the church. Our bishops, for the most part, are corporation vice presidents. They serve for a time then are retired. Is it any wonder they act like business executives. Unless God raises a saint - He has done it before - and clarifies and re-defines roles, the confusion will likely remain with us for some time.

Well, I think the examples being considered in that time frame were Birchers and the (((anti-Jewish))) wing of the then paleocons. WFB was wise about that, not necessarily about everything else, especially in race relations, as it were.

And yet William F. Buckley did more than anyone to purge the conservative movement of those people who he believed harmed its mainstream credibility, and did so quite successfully in my eyes.

Right, wrong, or otherwise.

I have said all along that this is all a lead-up to suppressing the 1962 missal.

I agree, Salieri, that it is very naïve indeed to think that TC will lead to anything other than more universal destruction of tradition. The idea that it will bolster RotR because all of the trads have been hiding in TLM parishes is a fantasy.

I think Sallieri may be on to something there re trial balloon.

And I agree with trentonjconn. Where I’ve seen a RotR type of approach to the NO flourish it has always been in parishes where either (1) the church somehow managed to hang on to most of its liturgical traditions during the potty-ness of the last few decades or (2) the TLM was introduced at the parish and slowly but surely led to cross-fertilisation in the NO.