This is unspeakably sad.
Sick.

This is wrong. Very wrong. Obviously someone fears them.

Italian church music is hitting rock bottom, I think.

[I also deleted some comments that were contrary to the etiquette norms.--admin]

Look on the bright side.

We still have next Tuesday's Vatican/World Bank light show to look forward to.

Horrible. This stuff happens here as well. How many dioceses have embraced the idea that professional musicians need not apply to work in them?

And this just when we in the USA thought a significant corner had been turned! Is the Church in Italy really 50 years behind the Church in America? This is the kind of stuff that we experienced a generation ago! I'm afraid this begs the questions: is this happening under our new Pope, and would this have been allowed to happen under our Pope Emeritus? I'm really trying to keep an open mind on this. So far, I haven't seen anything Liturgically reversed from the wonderful changes the last two Popes encouraged. Is this another "new beginning"?

is this happening under our new Pope, and would this have been allowed to happen under our Pope Emeritus?

You have to remember that Milan has not been 'conservative' for over 20 years. And I suspect that there's more to this story than we know. Given that, it's still sad that this has happened.

On a MUCH smaller scale, this is the very thing that happened in our parish this past summer--out with chant, in with guitars and "contemporary" music.

this is the crime against faith and it WILL suffer justice

this is so sad.

This is why the SSPX exists.

No, this is an excuse sometimes given for why the SSPX exists. There's human pride, disobedience, lack of hope, lack of charity, monarchism, and a host of other reasons why the SSPX exists.

Well, Father, I doubt human pride, disobedience, lack of hope, charity, monarchism, etc., are the exclusive province of our SSPX friends. According to Pope Benedict XVI, there are other reasons why the SSPX exists, and one of them is because after Vatican II, there existed in the Church in certain quarters the idea that the Council represented a break with tradition, a ground-zero starting point, if you will, wherein everything that came before the Council, including Gregorian chant, but not exclusive to it, was made to seem as if it was outdated, outmoded, archaic, useless and no longer of relevance to the modern Church. In other words, after the Council, we burned what we had previously adored and imposed upon the faithful an artificially created, experimental liturgy, regardless of the confusion, consternation and heartbreak it caused countless Catholics.

This, despite the fact that the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, for example, said that Gregorian chant was to enjoy pride of place in the Mass, as the Pope reminded us in Summorum Pontificum, "what was sacred then, remains sacred now."

So, let's be honest and admit with the former Cardinal Ratzinger that the New Mass represented a break in the centuries-long process of organic development in the Liturgy, and, of course, we all know that the "break" was only exacerbated by the work of ICEL in its first translation which, thankfully, was revised under the last two papacies and some of the egregious issues with it were resolved.

Pope Benedict XVI also made a significant observation about the SSPX in his letter to the bishops of the Church concerning them in which he made clear that it always seems that there has to be one group in an institution upon which opprobrium can be heaped and which is the object of universal scorn. As he remarked, this is indeed the case with the SSPX, and we all know how fashionable it was and is to talk in such disparaging and unecumenical terms about our SSPX friends when we would never dare to talk about any other religious, or quasi-religious group in such fashion, no matter how extreme, radical, fundamentalist or fanatical or downright evil their worldview might be.

Finally, this is not in any way to make excuse for the fact that the SSPX is not regularized, but I think there are many of us who feel that the treatment being dealt out to Giovanni Vanini reminds us of the bad old days of "the hermeneutic of rupture" and wish he had been treated more along the lines of that wished for by Pope Benedict XVI, who was in the process of setting up the restoration of Gregorian chant under the auspices of the CDW when he suddenly resigned. If it had been, SSPX would probably be a few steps closer to us instead of remaining on the peripheries.

Let's get our house in order and let's try to start mending fences with those who should be closest to us, as Pope Benedict XVI tried to, and, I might add, Pope Francis is also trying to do in allowing our SSPX friends to have ordinary jurisdiction for the Holy Year of Mercy.

after the Council, we burned what we had previously adored and imposed upon the faithful an artificially created, experimental liturgy, regardless of the confusion, consternation and heartbreak it caused countless Catholics.

The Council never called for the things it gets blamed for, As for burning what was "previously adored," I don't recall most folks as being upset about it. They, for the most part, were glad to see chant and the old mass go.

Coming from an eastern perspective where everything is sung, chant is the norm, and the people sing the liturgy, the whole idea of the "low mass" seems an aberration and distortion of what the liturgy is supposed to be. I don't think we can blame it all on the Irish. Liturgical corruption occurred after the civilization collapse when Rome fell and worsened during the time before Trent. Some of the centuries after Trent created their own liturgical peculiarities. There was too much over-explanation and justification for why things were being done wrong with little effort to actually fix the problems.

Well finally. My time here has not been wasted.

Bonniebede, I somehow knew you were personally responsible for it all. LOL.

Bad liturgy is not anything new, but has been with us for centuries. As long as there are priests looking for shortcuts and uninformed laity who either don't know better or don't care, nothing much will change.

Dear Father Ron,

You're right; Vatican II did call for a revision of the liturgical books. However, it also called for a lot of other things. It called for all lawfully existing rites to be preserved. It also called for no new innovations unless the good of the Church "genuinely and certainly required them."

So, the important thing to remember is that SC was laying out general principles and was leaving it to others to decide the specific application of those general principles. The fact that you disagree with then-Cardinal Ratzinger on whether Arbp. Bugnini's Consilium's work faithfully carried out the wishes of the Council is proof positive that there is a legitimate freedom in the Church to disagree on the wisdom of what was produced and still be in good standing. You and then-Cardinal Ratzinger demonstrate this because you both accept SC while disagreeing on the way its broad principles were carried out and yet you are both obviously inside the Church.

So in like manner we can also say that while Arbp. Lefebrve signed SC, his Society should also have the freedom to disagree with the work carried out by Arbp. Bugnini, while accepting the validity of the OF.

Of course, that is the freedom that was offered them by the last two popes which they unfortunately did not accept.

Lastly, Cardinal Ratzinger made a proposal to bridge the gap between OF and EF Catholics which would go a long way towards re-establishing liturgical peace and unity in the Church. He said that "the essential criteria" of SC apply to both forms of the Roman Rite and he listed them in the same address cited above.

This is also relevant in light of the effect that Cardinal Sarah recently stated that SC remains "the Magna Carta of all liturgical celebrations", i.e., in both forms.

That concept of following "the essential criteria" of SC enables both EF and OF people to pursue the two forms of the Roman Rite in the true Catholic spirit of unity-in-diversity. But here's the rub: that liturgical reconciliation presupposes that the average person attending both forms of the Roman Rite would be able to tell instantly that they are essentially the same liturgy.

I think that represents the essential liturgical vision of Cardinals Josef Ratzinger and Robert Sarah and is a proposal that can bring us the much-desired unity and mutual enrichment we all seek.

Thanks, Chonak. I should have been more precise: If we must now drop all active missionary outreach to those of the Jewish faith, how does that change our perception and attitude toward the SSPX?

The key word, JulieColl, is "institutional". Thr Church has no Department of Mission to the Jews. There's no blanket program of outreach, and the faithful are therefore to share the faith individually as opportunities permit. And of course there can be organized efforts of outreach to the general public.

I wonder if there are organized efforts directed toward making converts amoing any specific non-Christian religions.

What? Missions? Conversions? Don't all faiths contain elements of truth and point to the same god? How un-pastoral, and insensitive. This does not fit within the spirit of Vatican II.

bonniebede, can we just blame it on the sort of Irish who couldn't make it in Ireland?

Too funny! However, we did have an Irish priest here a few years ago. Why he left Ireland I don't know, other than he may not have been able to screw things up there as much as here. LOL. He was, to put it mildly, an administrative nightmare whose disorganization created havoc. Everywhere Fr. John went, he left chaos in his wake and another priest had to be assigned to clean up the mess. Finally, he moved to a nearby diocese and was put in a position where he can't cause as many problems.

The Missionaries of Divine Mercy, erected in the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, have as part of their apostolate the evangelization of Muslims.

No, this is an excuse sometimes given for why the SSPX exists. There's human pride, disobedience, lack of hope, lack of charity, monarchism, and a host of other reasons why the SSPX exists.

No, this is an excuse sometimes given for why many Diocese exist as they are. There's human pride, disobedience, lack of hope, lack of charity, monarchism, and a host of other reasons why the Diocese exists.

Charles is right there are priests who are not administrative experts who, like this priest who I also know, are very holy men. And Bishops who have never served in a parish for the same reason.

They have an unconventional approach to Gregorian chant, as this recording shows:
https://myspace.com/leschantresduthoronet/music/song/resurrexi-95662421-106587114

Yes, their site says they sing it based on medieval manuscripts.