TLM limited in DC
  • Reval
    Posts: 180
    This article came out today. Not much of a surprise, I understand.
    https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/dc-traditionis-custodes-plan-to-publish
  • If the text as reviewed in the article is correct, the following are the non-negotiable teachings of the Second Vatican Council or the liturgical reform which sprang from it:

    Concelebration, meaning every priest present must stand around the altar and individually say the words of the prayer assigned for that Mass, including the words of consecration, and especially the dividing up of the prayers as the bishop decides, is a necessary reform.

    Versus Populum, that is, the intentional act of the priest to face the assembled people, is essential, and any claim to the contrary is untrue. The location of the tabernacle is irrelevant, as is the sacred species on the altar, as is the state of recollection of the priest.

    The Mass can and must be separated from the other sacraments, because the Mass can be permitted, but the sacraments can not.

    The " liturgies on Christmas, Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, or during the Sacred Triduum," are defective in the old form.


    Can anyone help the archbishop (and idiots like me) by providing support for such ideas?

  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,694
    So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this, and I think a lot of traditional leaning Catholics don’t understand what’s really going on.

    TC was intended to see the end of the EF.

    “But it says that a Bishop can..”

    Yes. It says that. But the subtext is that the document is meant to put a swift end to the EF. Bishops can let it go on if they mustI for a period of time until it dies out. If you don’t think this is true, you need to look at TC from a non-English perspective. “l’unica espressione” is pretty dang clear to me.

    “We will take our money and go to the SSPX or go Eastern!!” - every trad on the internet when something like the +Gregory document is published.

    I think the trads think that this will punish those who are behind TC. It really doesn’t though, as I’ve become convinced that TC was designed with this in mind.

    The Vatican under the rule of HH Pope Francis has kept relatively good relations with the SSPX, particularly when you consider their standing just two papacies ago. I think this is no coincidence.

    I think those who designed TC realize the trad world is VERY SMALL, very vocal, pretty young, and really is split in some way (40/60? 50/50? 60/40?) down the middle:
    1) those who will go SSPX/irregular/other to avoid attending the Novus Ordo.
    2) those who will go to the Novus Ordo to avoid going irregular.

    They’re fine with losing the 40-60% of this small group. Even if they’re young and have big families. If attending the Novus Ordo is unthinkable to you, they don’t care if you leave, and in fact they’ve been friendly with the SSPX to make it easier for you. They’ve given them some faculties. They’re fine with you going. If you’re in that first group, they probably want you gone. They want to continue to run “their church” without your drama if you won’t use their books.

    Because they know the other 40-60% will attend the Novus Ordo if they have to. They’ll still be young, have large families, etc. They’ll go along with it.

    I’m fine with trads (I consider myself one) voicing their displeasure on the internet, but if you are, you have to realize - they probably want you gone.
    Thanked by 2Elmar LauraKaz
  • NihilNominisNihilNominis
    Posts: 986
    Ever since HH released Guardians of the Galaxy, there’s been blood in the water. Who else is nauseated by the feeling that the sharks are progressively closing their circle and will inevitably and infallibly be upon us, to rip out of our grasp and callously devour something we love so dearly — not merely the Mass, but beloved communities, parishes, choirs, etc., while not even given us the satisfaction of being our open enemies, but pretending they are our best friends for doing so. Sad for those of us seeking beauty and stability whom God has led to the Old Mass, through which we have received so many graces. L’unica espressione hurts so much to hear, because it is a conscious illegitimation of that experience of prayer for which many of us had longed with ‘legitimate aspiration’, and had found. In a place where we had felt heard, seen, loved, and supported by the Church’s ultimate authority, now there is just coldness and condescension — “we have the Roman Canon here, too, so what are you even complaining about”? Sad.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,946
    The problem is that trads have kids. Or at least they try and want to have kids. Normies… well, if they have kids, they're delaying baptisms, which is also turning into leaving the church, because sometimes kids don't get baptized at all, and Mass attendance in Chicago had its worst two-year drop since 1975 when counted and averaged over the first four Sundays of October 2021, representing a decline of 40%.

    It will punish the dioceses, actually. Chicago can't sell property that it owns, as the neighborhoods are undesirable, which is embarrassing, because they contribute to the decline all while taking away historically African-American parishes in particular. St Sabina's is exceptional; a disproportionate number of black parishes have closed, while white parishes remain open. You can argue that it's money and a relatively higher number of parishioners, but that money is on fumes and is only going to get worse after Dobbs. The Catholic schools crisis is only going to get worse, and that's without taking the culture war into account.

    and the trads who stay regular will cause what you (I think unfairly and unhelpfully) characterize as drama. Maybe it's drama to the bishops, but frankly, I don't care what they think since apparently, they are like judges and hear and understand but don't care. Cardinal Gregory is effectively closing, right this very day, St Francis de Sales, which has lost all appeal as it's not going to have the TLM for very much longer, all while having listened to its synodal delegate, a widow who had just buried her husband and came to beg the cardinal to not take the parish away too.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Matthew,

    May God bring the present trial to a swift end, so that Catholics don't have to pick between irregular and inane.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw LauraKaz
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Guardians of the Galaxy
    Holy Ordo Nova, chantman! That is too funny.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    This entire pontificate has been one of Orwellian double-speak: Endless talk of "Synodality" while creating the most centralized bureaucracy in Church history; decrying "rigidity" while entrenching itself in ideology and refusing to bend; "dialoguing" while refusing to listen; condemning "gnosticism" while basing its entire teaching on a "spirit of the Council" that only itself can divine.
  • Reval
    Posts: 180
    I guess it could be time for a "reverse infiltration" (not that we believe the Church has been infiltrated or anything).
    Kneel for communion at Novus Ordo - - see if they'll arrest us.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    @matthewj
    TC was intended to see the end of the EF.
    That is the hope of those that support the present regime in Rome, they have been working for this their whole lives, this is the last gasp of that generation.
    The Vatican under the rule of HH Pope Francis has kept relatively good relations with the SSPX, particularly when you consider their standing just two papacies ago. I think this is no coincidence.
    The writers of TC have no control over the SSPX, to them it is a separate Church. Francis likes the SSPX as he saw the work they did with the poor in Argentina, is his eyes they can do no wrong. They get gifts because he likes them and the enemies of Tradition cannot touch them.
    The FSSP go and chat to Francis, he likes what he hears so they gain exemptions. Once again the writers of TC know they control where the FSSP can work so they are not worried.
    They’re fine with losing the 40-60% of this small group.
    They don't care about who comes to Mass it is the ideology that matters to them. The supporters of TC have been closing churches for decades, and continue to claim it is progress to their new Vat. II church.
    Because they know the other 40-60% will attend the Novus Ordo if they have to. They’ll still be young, have large families, etc. They’ll go along with it.
    These families will go the way of the large families in the 1980's and 90's, most will lapse it appears to be a feature of the N.O. church. Cardinal Heenan said the churches will only have women and small children, and he has been proved right.
    Benedict said we would have a smaller and more faithful Church, there is nothing that the writers of TC can do to prevent this, our seminaries have closed we have no vocations most of Europe will run out of priests soon. The Biological option will play out, and the ideologies based around the spirit of Vat. II will die out.
    Thanked by 1LauraKaz
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    “We will take our money and go to the SSPX or go Eastern!!” - every trad on the internet when something like the +Gregory document is published.


    No, don't go Eastern. You won't be there two weeks until you try to make the eastern parish like the one you left. We don't want you.

    Yeah, I don't know what to make of the Washington thing, other than I thought Gregory was rather spineless to begin with. Who knows how this will resolve?

    For those of you joined at the hip with the papacy, I can only hope you get someone better in that office next time around. We easterners are in communion with popes but don't rest our faith on them.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 966
    They can try to destroy the TLM, but it will -- much to their frustration -- continue to expand.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw Reval
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,946
    The other thing is that, once the trad communities are splintered, even if they are supposedly under their diocesan pastors (territorial or otherwise), the diocesan and formerly-Ecclesia Dei priests lose all control over them. The faithful can do and say what they want, spewing whatever invective comes to mind or more, without anyone to keep them in check; the priests know that if these people continue to stay silent, they have more to lose, and indeed, some people would welcome a return to the 1980s, since it seems that we're already there (worse, actually, given the terms of TC).
  • Reval
    Posts: 180
    I'm not sure the trad communities are going to be splintered - won't they actually be consolidated? When you have people from 5 or 6 parishes going to the Franciscan Monastery (the only TLM in DC proper)? It's going to be SRO, I think. They're going to be more unified.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    We easterners are in communion with popes but don't rest our faith on them.
    it is a falicy that the faith of the west rests their faith on the pope... the "Magisterium" consists of three legs of the stool. it is the pope's "soul" job to protect what was handed down to the church. if a pope goes south, he is then ignored. (see aquinas and bellarmarine)
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,946
    No, because those people had community life in the parish that wasn't limited to the Mass. They don't have the other sacraments, and they don't have any stability afforded to parishes. It's also not as convenient, so if people do make the trek, they won't hang around. People correctly say that lots of people will go across the river, but not everyone will be able to do that, particularly the CUA students who come en masse to St Anthony's or St Francis de Sales. Now, officially, they won't have the other sacraments in Arlington, but they'll have community and the knowledge that the priests would if they could. In DC? Not so much.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Yes, dear Francis. But Aquinas and Bellarmine are "pre-Vatican II", so their teaching is irrelevant.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Yes, dear Francis. But Aquinas and Bellarmine are "pre-Vatican II", so their teaching is irrelevant.
    hmmm... how can the church hold to that which is relevant and irrelevant at the same time? The only way would be if one is irrational (or as spock would often say, 'highly illogical') I suppose.

    https://youtu.be/RABLYqnjEIE
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,721
    HH Pope Francis
    I would love to see a political cartoonist depict the HHS Francis as the Titanic with ancient tradition as the iceberg… because that’s what’s happening in slow motion. Mark my words.

    Kneel for communion at Novus Ordo - - see if they'll arrest us.
    I was essentially dismissed (as I attempted to quit) from a job in part (as said the pastor to the parish council) due to my “flagrant disobedience by insisting upon kneeling to receive communion on the tongue”. These (or something very similar) were the words shared with me by a member of the parish council. Curious that I should be labeled ‘disobedient’ while doing what is a.) the universal norm and b.) my canonical right, especially considering the “pastor” never talked to me or asked me to stop.

    So yes, they will come for you, and it is a badge of honor.