By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.
We're not generally a news blog, but I don't think anyone in the traditionalist Catholic "blogosphere" can let this week's news pass without some commentary. This week, Tradition really was "on the march" and in a big way. I don't think anything this drastic has happened since the Novus Ordo was imposed on the Church:
Latin Mass to return to England and Wales and apparently the Traditional Mass for 'all the parishes', no less.
This news is nothing less than astounding to me and makes that faint spark of hope that we saw when Pope Benedict XVI was elected and then when Summorum Pontificum was issued, grow. The prospect of a Traditional Latin Mass just down the street from me rather than across the city (assuming this might spread to other countries after England and Wales) fills me with excitement.
However, when I sit back and reflect soberly on this turn of events, I am forced to say that as shocking and good as this announcement is, I don't think we can take it as an unmixed blessing. As long as heresy and/or meaningless saccarine-sweet mush is being preached from the pulpit, the crisis in the Church will endure. We need not just the Mass but an overhaul of the seminaries and the extirpation of all the [material] heretics from the episcopate.
There have been no moves to work on the Doctrinal aspect because, frankly, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is doctrinally liberal even if he likes the smells and bells of the Tridentine Mass. This move almost seems calculated to draw attention away from doctrinal issues and placate the traditionalists by giving them the Mass. Perhaps I am just a bitter and cynical traditionalist. But remember, they had the Mass in the 1950s yet the 1950s gave us Vatican II and the ensuing crisis.
Posted on the Feast of St. Antidius, Bishop and Martyr, a.D. MMVIII
We're not generally a news blog, but I don't think anyone in the traditionalist Catholic "blogosphere" can let this week's news pass without some commentary. This week, Tradition really was "on the march" and in a big way. I don't think anything this drastic has happened since the Novus Ordo was imposed on the Church:
Latin Mass to return to England and Wales and apparently the Traditional Mass for 'all the parishes', no less.
This news is nothing less than astounding to me and makes that faint spark of hope that we saw when Pope Benedict XVI was elected and then when Summorum Pontificum was issued, grow. The prospect of a Traditional Latin Mass just down the street from me rather than across the city (assuming this might spread to other countries after England and Wales) fills me with excitement.
However, when I sit back and reflect soberly on this turn of events, I am forced to say that as shocking and good as this announcement is, I don't think we can take it as an unmixed blessing. As long as heresy and/or meaningless saccarine-sweet mush is being preached from the pulpit, the crisis in the Church will endure. We need not just the Mass but an overhaul of the seminaries and the extirpation of all the [material] heretics from the episcopate.
There have been no moves to work on the Doctrinal aspect because, frankly, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is doctrinally liberal even if he likes the smells and bells of the Tridentine Mass. This move almost seems calculated to draw attention away from doctrinal issues and placate the traditionalists by giving them the Mass. Perhaps I am just a bitter and cynical traditionalist. But remember, they had the Mass in the 1950s yet the 1950s gave us Vatican II and the ensuing crisis.
Posted on the Feast of St. Antidius, Bishop and Martyr, a.D. MMVIII
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