If he's going to go after trads for their lack of orthodoxy, he ought to go after progressives who use Pope Francis to push for their pet projects, but he doesn't, so I can only surmise that he doesn't actually care about orthodoxy.
(...)
Lewis also seems to think that rethinking the papacy is a bad thing, as if the left doesn't do it all the timeand that we're the bad guys for being angry about things like the Flemish bishops. That's insulting, never mind chock full of lies.
(...)
It is run by a mendacious liar who needs to be made unwelcome in Catholic company for what he's said about good people just trying to do their best in these times.

Three things:

1. "Liberals" doing something doesn't make it okay for conservatives to do the same. In fact, conservatives should really know better, given their attachment to orthodoxy. This is actually Lewis's point and the reason why he focuses on conservative heterodoxy.
2. I hardly think directly advocating disobedience of the Supreme Pontiff and arguing that he has no power to teach anything with which they personally disagree is "good people just trying to do their best". I don't recall WPI going after the silent people in the pews who just want to get away from liturgical silliness.
3. The onus is still on you to disprove the direct arguments that have been quoted pertaining to this matter, instead of simply complaining about Lewis's character.

Charles, aren't you canonically Byzantine? I don't think that Byzantine Catholics would allow the pope to interfere, so it's a bit rich to hear this from you.

I suspect we would do as many Byzantine Catholics did early in the last century when the issue of married priests came up, return to our mother church which is Orthodoxy, not Rome. While we are in union with Rome, we haven't fallen into the "pope-olotry" that seemingly affects the west. While I don't agree with Francis on the TLM - heck, I think he may be one of the worst popes of the last hundred years - his objections seem to be that the TLM folks have become a church within the church. Some of the more vocal ones are even anti-church to the majority of western Catholics.

Defenders of the OPTION gambit,

Since the Council says that Gregorian chant and Latin shall have pride of place, does Cardinal Cupich's reducing them to nice add-ons (like legroom on Spirit Air) mean that they aren't actually supposed to have pride of place, and that, in fact, they don't really belong in the Missal of Paul VI..... and doesn't that put Cupich at odds with the Council?

"Liberals" opposing the Church's teaching of the Church on contraception, women in the priesthood, etc., which have been taught consistently for centuries, is very different than "conservatives" defending a teaching which has been taught for centuries against a "development" which (as far as many people can tell) is in direct contradiction to the perennial teaching. The content is not the same.

"Tradition" does not mean that Church teaching never develops. Whether a teaching is a rupture or in continuity with the past is for the Magisterium to decide, not agenda-driven American traditionalists on the Internet. Again, this is clearly laid out in Canon Law.

If you reject the authority of the Magisterium, the Apostolic See, and Canon Law in favour of your personal view of "Tradition", how is that different than Martin Luther rejecting all of the above in favour of his personal view of "Scripture"?

Which goes back to the very issue posed by this thread—people elevating their personal conclusions to a higher level of validity than the instructions of Church hierarchy.

"Tradition" does not mean that Church teaching never develops.

Understood; but "development" does not include "contradiction."

Whether a teaching is a rupture or in continuity with the past is for the Magisterium to decide, not agenda-driven American traditionalists on the Internet. Again, this is clearly laid out in Canon Law.

You still haven't solved the problem of one pope saying one thing, and another (seemingly) saying the opposite - i.e. the latter cannot be considered a development of the former, but its repudiation. I hope we can agree that the principle of non-contradiction is something we can all apply for ourselves.

people elevating their personal conclusions to a higher level of validity than the instructions of Church hierarchy.

If we're talking about instructions of the hierarchy (as opposed to papal teaching), it's a very different story. It's not always like "obeying" a traffic light. A directive while not being sinful may be grossly unfair, unworkable, even harmful and unlawful. The decision may be valid in the sense of being issued by a lawful authority, but if the last few decades has taught us anything, this doesn't mean it's a good decision.

Chas,

should

indeed!

Mark,

A group of cardinals, nearly 40 years ago, asked the question "Did Pope Paul VI abrogate the older form?" (in essence). They answered in the negative.

I think you will find that the Church has the authority and the power to modify some portions of the liturgy, whether the exercise of that faculty is wise or not. There are, however, some parts which can't be changed. (Vatican II says so.) Nothing can be changed in the MATTER or FORM of the sacrament required for validity.

Matthew,

Mike Lewis (whom I don't know from Adam) may or may not be a liar, but would you agree that his status as truth-challenged has little or nothing to do with your dislike of TC?

It has little or nothing to do with my views on TC, but it has everything to do with his own, and it's completely relevant to the suggestion that WPI and Mike Lewis are healthier than Peter K.

Re: the Institute of Christ the King: yet BXVI's people approved the constitutions, and Francis oversaw their definitive approval (by the way, they show up to the chrism Mass, and they don't make a public fuss about it)

I am not sure what "the TLM is timeless" means, indeed I doubt whether it has any meaning. Aquinas rejects the whole principle of Platonic Ideals, and "the TLM" appears to me to be nothing more than a Platonic Ideal. The reality is embodied in, for example, the Pian 1570 missal which is different from the 1604 missal, ... or the 1962 missal, or the 1965 missal. Quite apart from the calendars, there are differences in the texts and in the rubrics between all these. And each was properly authorised as a replacement of that previously used.

This discussion cannot be had without some saintly help:

[W]hen I speak of Conscience, I mean conscience truly so called. When it has the right of opposing the supreme, though not infallible Authority of the Pope, it must be something more than that miserable counterfeit which, as I have said above, now goes by the name. If in a particular case it is to be taken as a sacred and sovereign monitor, its dictate, in order to prevail against the voice of the Pope, must follow upon serious thought, prayer, and all available means of arriving at a right judgment on the matter in question. And further, obedience to the Pope is what is called “in possession;” that is, the onus probandi of establishing a case against him lies, as in all cases of exception, on the side of conscience. Unless a man is able to say to himself, as in the Presence of God, that he must not, and dare not, act upon the Papal injunction, he is bound to obey it, and would commit a great sin in disobeying it. Primâ facie it is his bounden duty, even from a sentiment of loyalty, to believe the Pope right and to act accordingly. He must vanquish that mean, ungenerous, selfish, vulgar spirit of his nature, which, at the very first rumour of a command, places itself in opposition to the Superior who gives it, asks itself whether he is not exceeding his right, and rejoices, in a moral and practical matter to commence with scepticism. He must have no wilful determination to exercise a right of thinking, saying, doing just what he pleases, the question of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, the duty if possible of obedience, the love of speaking as his Head speaks, and of standing in all cases on his Head's side, being simply discarded. If this necessary rule were observed, collisions between the Pope's authority and the authority of conscience would be very rare. On the other hand, in the fact that, after all, in extraordinary cases, the conscience of each individual is free, we have a safeguard and security, were security necessary (which is a most gratuitous supposition), that no Pope ever will be able, as the objection supposes, to create a false conscience for his own ends.

Yet there are some, such as Dr. Kwasniewski, who claim the TLM has become timeless because it has attained a canonical status, similar to the canon of Scripture, that no ecclesiastical authority has the power to alter. Therefore, Dr. K. asserts that disobeying ecclesial edicts that curtail, restrict or abolish the TLM is a duty, which disobedience is framed as true obedience to a supposed higher authority: the alleged divine authority of every jot and tittle of Liturgical Tradition as it stood in 1954 or whatever other year is claimed to be the apex of TLM splendor and purity.

That's TLM Protestantism, replacing Sola Scriptura with a sort of Sola Liturgia.

I don't buy that the TLM is timeless. One could compare a 5th-century liturgy in Rome to it, and they would not be the same. However, I would be the first to say the "reforms" in the sixties were ill thought out and poorly executed. But given the state of the hierarchy today, would anyone in their right mind want to call another council? God only knows what would come out of it.

I am not sure what "the TLM is timeless"

God is timeless He does not need to change to suit the time. The Church is timeless even though it (the Church militant) sails on the river of time it does not need the river to exist. The TLM (the Ordinary, canon etc.) is also timeless it does not need anything, it can be said in a 5th c. Roman basilica, a Spanish mission, in a wooden hut built on the site of one of the German pagan groves, in a Shogun's palace, on the back of a jeep, in a vast cathedral, or on a Mass stone... It is designed to fit in any place. That is why it is timeless.

If the Church supposedly has no power to suppress the usus antiquior, why would there be any reason for him to do either of those things?

A careful look at the pronouncements will see only a current of confusion.
1. SC wanted a minor reform although it appears that there was no consensus among the cardinals as to what this should look like.
2. A committee wrote a new Liturgy based upon false research.
3. A new Missal was published supposedly replacing the TLM.
4. Permission was soon freely granted by the Pope himself for the use of the TLM
5. The standard form of the new Missal in Latin with chant was allowed to quickly become a rare occurrence which is not what Vat II asked for.
6. Unsurprisingly the new Missal was not a success as church and seminaries emptied.
7. John Paul II granted further permissions to use the TLM.
8. Benedict did likewise, while asking for an eventual return to one Roman Missal.
9. The reform of the reform appears to have failed.
10. Francis who knows the SSPX very well from his time in Argentina, gives them faculties. Whether he has power to do this universally is another question.
11. Francis (in fact a collection of ghost writers) publish T.C. with an intention to eventually return to one roman missal based on the N.O. Missal.
12. Francis then gives permission for the FSSP to continue.
13. Francis has continued to give permission for priests to say the TLM in Rome and elsewhere.
14. Meanwhile vocations and seminaries have continued to decline...

So what can we infer,
1. Is the TLM suppressed? No
2. Will the TLM be suppressed? Not in my lifetime or my children's possibly not at all.
3. Can the Church suppress the TLM? Probably not as it did not do it after the publication of the N.O. that would have been the most opportune time.
4. Are the TLM and N.O. the same rite? Possibly not although Francis appears to think so.
5. Are we going to return to having one form of the Roman rite? No because we have never had one form of the Roman rite, and it appears to be undesirable.
6. Do we have one form of the N.O. rite ? Obviously not look around...

I agree that they should've, but it's irrelevant to the question of whether or not they should be obeyed.

What is this about obedience to the Ordinary...
1. They don't have the power to tell me what Mass I attend.
2. They do not have the power to tell me what Catholic Rite I go to.
3. They don't really have the power to ban Latin, chant, and other practices that are an integral part of the N.O. as written.

They do have power over secular priests that while limited these limits are frequently abused. They have little power over religious clergy, and clergy of societies of pontifical rite. They have no effective power over the SSPX as Francis has given them faculties over their heads.

Do we have to follow the whims of our bishops? No, but if you want to you can attend balloon 'mass', giant puppet 'mass', various goings on in Southern California that maybe 'mass' but can not tell from looking. Just because a bishop (your ordinary) does or says something does not make him right. They are not dictators and their powers are limited.

Finally describing Catholics that are following Church teaching, as protestants is deeply offensive. Protestants chose what to believe based on what disgusting people like Luther thought (You have read what he wrote about the Jews). Just because you do not attend the N.O does not make you a protestant, just as many Catholics do not attend any western rite Liturgy. You can say unique expression as much as you like but we do not have one unique expression.

Wow

I have had no time to respond since my last post, and I certainly have more to clarify our progression of thought here... hope to soon.

@Schönbergian This morning I was at our Cathedral providing servers (4 of my sons) for the regular TLM, we were all made most welcome. Benediction beforehand is now done mostly according to the old books. The staff at the Cathedral are delighted that they too can have the TLM, they kindly provided a lay clerk to sing the complete Ember day Mass.

Now reading your comment above because I only attend the TLM and am a traditionalist, I am seemingly against Canon Law and the Magisterium. Sadly you are wrong I have two letters from my Ordinary commending me on my service to the Catholic Church. I have only seen my parish priest (of an N.O. parish with TLM) really angry when I told him that someone on this forum said that I was not a full member of the Catholic Church.

I see that Canon Law is only a problem when YOU think that Traditionalist are not following it. Could you kindly list what laws are being broken.

When you judge Dr. Kwasniewski I can only think of the Pharisee and the Publican.

Most traditionalists care little for the Translation, some use the old hand Missals, others use the online guides, etc. Why do you care what translation someone uses? When I last attended the N.O. Mass 25 years ago I would follow the Mass in my old rite Missal, what harm am I doing?

The 1955 Holy week has been celebrated with express permission from Rome, did you get that memo? I do not remember getting a memo saying we have to stop!

The Dies Ire is the Sequence for the Requiem... and under the old GIRM, our cathedral choir would sing the old sequences as the hymn before the Gospel... Once again why do you care?

Your views are just your views, How do you know what Dr. Kwasniewski ordinary thinks of him? Why do you condemn him? What authority do you have?
I would be far more worried about the number of people attending the Mass that do not believe in the Real presence, that are happy with sacrificing babies to baal, and seem to believe that 'marriage' is a temporary arrangement between two people that claim to love each other.

"Tradition" is not a blank check [sic] to do whatever we want; to do the traditional Holy Week is very simple. It is to celebrate Holy Week as it was in my grandparents' lifetime. For some of us, that is our parents' lifetimes and even the beginning of our own for the eldest contributors here.

You don't have the right in the Church to pick and choose which liturgical reforms you like, and you have never had that right.

I would at least like the people bossing trads around to listen and to stop beating up on us when we're already taking a beating from Rome, the Catholic establishment and religious press, and, for many of us, our bishops and pastors.

If trads did any self-reflection at all, perhaps I would be more sympathetic. But when the problem seemingly extends to virtually the entire universe including most of the Catholic Church but never the traditionalist community, I have a hard time doing so.

I see that Canon Law is only a problem when YOU think that Traditionalist are not following it. Could you kindly list what laws are being broken.

I have already listed them, and the response was a rebuke that Canon Law was not given to us directly by Jesus or the Apostles, as if I were arguing with an evangelical.

Why do you care what translation someone uses?

The Dies Ire is the Sequence for the Requiem... and under the old GIRM, our cathedral choir would sing the old sequences as the hymn before the Gospel... Once again why do you care?

Because we have rubrics for a reason, and if a "liberal" tried to re-translate part of the Mass or make a musical addition we all know this forum would be up in flames about it.

I don't know what month, but I suggest the missal listed in last years catalog(ue) of LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA is that defined as authoritative.

Missale Romanum ex decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini restitutum Summorum Pontificum cura recognitum.
Editio typica 1962, 2010, pp. 1.096 8357 210,00

And I would say that even if that edition was not available in 1962, or the text not even first printed in 1962.

@a_f_hawkins
So I presume December when Joseph was added to the Canon... I wonder if this is the FSSP edition that I supplied the text for? I would instead bet on the edition of June? that appears in the AAS! of course these editions are modified by the decrees Cum sanctissima and Quo magis. Note none of these editions were published in 1962!

Like his first, the title of Richard Feynman's second memoir comes from a remark directed at him. He was abashed to learn he had acquired a reputation: "What do you care what other people think?"

I was once at an All Souls' Mass where the director programmed Dies irae as the bona fide Sequence because "it's traditional".

Is that exactly what he said, or did he program it under the rubric "alia aptus" which as you know is licit in the NO?

Is that exactly what he said, or did he program it under the rubric "alia aptus" which as you know is licit in the NO?

It was programmed as a Sequence. If it were merely the latter in another section in the Mass which supports it, I would have no issue.

First, Dad29 has very recently pointed out (correctly) that the Holy Father has total and complete authority over things liturgical. He's quite correct, but the idea he's correctly noting doesn't mean what some, perhaps you, think it means. The Holy Father can not contradict what the Church has always taught, so he can't require that during the sermon (or homily) on Easter the non-bodily non-resurrection of Christ will be preached , and alluded to on the other Sundays of the year. His lack of authority in this matter doesn't diminish the statement I've previously referenced. A university professor who required his students to say that pi = 4 exceeds the authority of his classroom and speaks pure nonsense. This isn't because he isn't the master of his classroom.

I agree, Chris, but two points:
1) Who makes the determination of whether or not it's nonsense? There is still debate on whether the changes of 1965, 1967, and 1970 are indeed enough to warrant the establishment of a new "rite" of the Church, for instance, yet some people here seem to take it as a foregone conclusion and reason from there. If we can't rely on the Magisterium to provide this guidance, who should we turn to?
2) One of the prevailing views has been precisely that the Holy Father does not have power to alter the liturgy, whether that is through abrogation of a certain Missal, alteration of a Rite, or establishment of new norms. In fact, I have spoken to several self-proclaimed traditionalists who essentially argued that one could safely ignore anything the Pope said that's not ex cathedra. I find these viewpoints both contradictory of Church law and necessary to debunk before any further conversation is truly possible.

Schönbergian, we've been doing the self-reflection, and we were perfectly fine being left alone before Francis interfered. Yes, we'd be up in flames by innovating. Returning to tradition is different, and honestly, I'm starting to question your comprehension. You can disagree, but I don't think you can fail to understand without losing all credibility.

I'll say it one more time. When a personal interpretation of the Church's tradition (that is, not emanating from official Church channels) comes into conflict with established sources such as Canon Law or authentic teaching of the Magisterium, the personal interpretation does not take precedence. You could substitute "Scripture" for "Tradition" and have people running around saying that they're more Catholic than the Pope because they found some passage that invalidates a Church doctrine in their view. One should not be incredulous that the authorities started to look suspiciously at communities that were loudly and publicly trying to rules-lawyer themselves out of being subject to the Church.

At least with a liberal dissenter, they will acknowledge that they disagree with the Church's teaching on issue X. With many of these trads, they construct an argument that essentially portrays themselves as the only authentic Catholic voice, with the majority of Catholics and the Magisterium at odds with the true teaching.

Cdl. Mueller's remarks on the recent Consistory are germane to this topic.

...critical contributions referred to the theory of the papacy as an unlimited power of divine right over the whole Church, as if the pope were a Deus in terris. The newly appointed Cardinal Ghirlanda, SJ, as the pope’s most important advisor on curial reform, holds the view that everything the popes have said or done in the course of Church history is either dogma or law de jure divino.

This view contradicts the entire Catholic tradition, and especially Vatican II, [which overcame the error] that bishops and priests only had authority to perform sacramental acts while the pope was in exclusive possession of all jurisdiction, which he could delegate at will to clergy or laity. In reality, in the sacrament of Holy Orders, Christ confers on the bishop (or priest) the authority to preach, sanctify, and govern, even to administer justice. The pope does not confer jurisdiction on a bishop, but only assigns a specific diocese to a bishop, who is not a representative of the papacy, but of Jesus Christ (Lumen Gentium 27). ...

(Cf: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/09/cardinal-muller-reveals-consistory.html)

So while at this time Canon law places plenary authority over the liturgy in the hands of the Pope, +Mueller's comment raises the question: is that the right position to hold?

We also know that the Bishop does have 'flexibility' in his application of Francis' New Law within his Diocese under Canon Law. That's a reflection of +Mueller's comment. Obviously, the question becomes one of 'balance' between the Church's apparent desire for a New Liturgical Order vs. the desire of many of Her faithful for the V.O.

The error of Rome here, IMHO, is clearly shown by the happy existence of other Rites within the Roman church. It should come as no surprise to any Catholic with a sense of history that Rome is occupied by venal, power-mad men; there is an analogy in D.C. Francis may or may not personally care about V.O. vs N.O.--but some several of his underlings do care, a lot, and are willing to 'excommunicate' good Catholics over this matter.

Again, if you do not see the parallels to D.C., you are not seeing well at all.

I’ve tried to keep my head down as much in this conversation as possible; it has certainly had its moments of toxicity and it really seems a bit of trench warfare, but…

I find it strange that people don’t seem to see the very apparent contradictions in the modern church, and seem to have more fealty to the living than the dead (and by “dead” I actually mean those living in heaven). That is to say: such persons seem eager to do whatever they are called upon to do no matter how bizarre or novel, rather than pausing and daring to question whether or not those requests go against tradition and teachings since time immemorial—something St. Paul himself commanded us to do in strongest terms.

We must also remember that when rites were suppressed in the past, it was because they were novel, not because they were ancient. The current situation is a perfect inversion of this principal—something that should trouble us deeply. In the past, that which was ancient and came from the fathers was treasured and guarded, and anything that was novel was treated with an eye of suspicion. Now, not only is that which is ancient attacked, it is outright verboten. You can speak until you’re blue in the face, but you’ll never be able to justify this perfect inversion and sell it to me as a ‘good’.

At the time of Trent, rites had to be at least two centuries old to be kept, and here we are only 50 years in to the novus ordo experiment. Considering the rather glacial speed at which the church tends to act, it seems imprudent to insist upon vetoing the old rite in the name of ‘obedience’. I’d like to think that we are actually capable of obedience on a higher order, and to a Tradition that actually exceeds the pontiffs of living memory.

Who makes the determination of whether or not it's nonsense?

Thank you for phrasing this so appropriately.

The answer, alas, is "it depends on what is in question".

If the next Holy Father happens to be a Cardinal from Belgium, his full authority over the liturgy will not permit him to draw up or to propose/impose on the Church a new rite for the blessing of Sodomyor the Sacrament of Sodomite Conjugation. The problem isn't the Holy Father's authority, but the object (the thing on which he would be attempting to act). Why? Simple: the Church has no authority to bless sin, nor can she unite in marriage two people who can't be married to each other. This doesn't depend on a consistory of cardinals, for the fact that marriage is the union of a man and a woman for purpose of begetting and raising children is available to mere human reason. She can't make abortion a Sacrament either, because the intentional destruction of innocent life is objectively wrong, and the fact of that truth is available to mere human reason.

It's not a stretch to say that if the Holy Father were to propose an anthropocentric rite for the ostensible celebration of Mass, so that the creature worshiped man, rather than God, this would be beyond the authority of the Holy Father, without hindering or diminishing in any way the Holy Father's authority of things liturgical.



Does that help you understand?