If You’ve Been Following the Saga of the Franciscans of the Immaculate…

Submitted by LocutusOP on Thu, 02/01/2018 - 22:52
Author: 

Fr. RP, Al P,  Stewart Davies, Michael, SJ Green, RodH, Michael Ezzo, MSApis,  Nicolas Bellord, Mike44R , tallorder, Mag. Theol.,
Raghn Crow

RodH,

       

Date: 
Thursday, February 1, 2018 - 22:30
Article link: 
If You’ve Been Following the Saga of the Franciscans of the Immaculate…
Fr. RP

Absolutely brutal. The despicable behavior of people who are supposed to be consecrated to God and living witnesses to Jesus Christ never ceases to amaze me. How is it that the people responsible for persecuting the FFI cannot see how evil their actions are and the wanton destruction of a thriving religious order is not of God? How is it that they do not realize that they will have to answer to a higher Justice than the corrupt CIVCSVA and the current Roman Pontiff?

Al P

How is it, you ask? These same type of people ran me out of the major seminary nearly twenty-seven years ago. They did not care one bit that I was a mere six months from ordination to the transitional diaconate. I am one of the seminarians that Mr. Michael S. Rose interviewed for his book, “Goodbye, Good Men.” Yes, I attended one of the major seminaries and had many of the priests and nuns mentioned in his book who taught outright heresy. I sat through their classes…and eventually paid the ultimate price with my vocation.

Stewart Davies

Your brief testimony here is heartbreaking: truly heartbreaking. If that’s the effect it had on me, then God alone knows what it did to you. It’s a miracle that you even retained your faith.

Al P

Truthfully, years before meeting my wife, I did leave the Church. I did not go to Mass for years. Only occasionally did I even go to Confession. The painful truth is that I walked and suffered through a very dark night of the soul before returning. And, when I did, I went to the TLM and to the Catholic Byzantine Divine Liturgy. I am still struggling today. Trying to “keep it all together” while married and bringing up a child in the Faith is extremely demanding. Thank God for all the graces that keep my wife and I going.

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  • Michael

    And yet, people still marvel at Francis’ humility, his mercy, his charity (especially when the cameras are on him). More and more people are starting to realize that all that is just an act. It is frustrating beyond words for those of us who have seen it from the beginning, but I suppose if God had intervened and ended things then, many others in the Church would have been heartbroken that their most humble, most merciful pope really wasn’t so great.

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  • SJ Green

    ‘… at least until the end of this Pontificate, …’ While I can’t be so uncharitable as to actually wish ill health to the current head, that day can’t happen soon enough. Sadly, I fear that until the fulfillment of Fatima (… in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph), any successor to Francis will be just as bad or worse, or at best (like Benedict XVI) a very temporary reprieve. Patience is not one of my strong points, but it’s become very necessary.

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RodH

Seems like the more I read about this the less I understand how it all started.

Can somebody outline for me a rough timeline of major events/causes of the current problem?

Michael Ezzo

Here is what I could find, Rod. The first one is short. The second is long, but gives a clearer picture.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vaticans-four-year-probe-of-faithful-franciscans-of-the-immaculate-could-en

http://traditioninaction.org/religious/m033rpFranciscans.htm

One thing I discovered is that Pope Francis did not violate Summorum Pontificum, which says :

1) priests who wish to offer the Tridentine Mass, cannot refuse to say the Novus Ordo
2) they have to accept the authority of Vatican 2.

(Some friars were refusing the Novus Ordo, and questioning Vatican 2, and that is what
brought down the sledgehammer on them). Francis and Benedict are thus not in contradiction on this issue. I previously overlooked that.

MSApis

Can you quote chapter and verse where it says that about the Novus Ordo and Vatican 2 in Summorum Pontificum? Here is the full text from the Vatican website. I couldn’t find anything of the sort there, but you may have better eyesight

https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20070707_summorum-pontificum.html

Nicolas Bellord

Ezzo referred us to:

http://traditioninaction.or…

Therein it says:

‘As Guimarães points out in his astute analysis of Motu Proprio, which I suggest readers study, “The apparently conservative motu proprio has some progressivist doctrinal demands.” First, priests who have doctrinal objections to the New Mass cannot exclude saying it. Second, priests who say the Mass must unquestioning accept the authority of Vatican II. These conditions must be met to say a Latin Mass for the public in order to “provide for the welfare of these faithful, avoid discord and favor the unity of the whole Church.” ‘

Looking at the text of Summorum Pontificum the only bit I can find which resembles the quote from Guimaraes is:

,Art. 5, §1 In parishes where a group of the faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition stably exists, the parish priest should willingly accede to their requests to celebrate Holy Mass according to the rite of the 1962 Roman Missal. He should ensure that the good of these members of the faithful is harmonized with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the bishop in accordance with Canon 392, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the whole Church.’

It seems to me that he has picked the last bit of that paragraph out and used it in a completely different context quite unjustifiably. But perhaps it is Marian T. Horvat who is misquoting Guimaraes?

Anyway the article by Horvat only says that the FFI had a preference for the TLM and nowhere is there evidence that the NO was excluded. Just because you express your preference for the TLM by always using it does not mean that the NO is excluded. Exclusion implies a refusal to say the NO.

  • Mike44R

    One thing I’ve never understood is how the NO and its promulgation ever passed muster. The Mass of St. Pius V (the original TLM) was promulgated essentially ex cathedra. Additionally, the Council of Trent, which produced the Mass, was a dogmatic council snd gave expression to the will of the universal magisterium. Thus, both the Council of Trent and the promulgation of the TLM were infallible. Ergo, the NO violates the rule of non-contradiction. As such, the NO csnnot supplant the TLM. I may be in error, but that’s my take.

  • tallorder

    the Council of Trent, which produced the Mass

    No, it merely codified the Mass for all time. It existed long before Trent.

  • Mike44R

    No, that’s not quite accurate. The Mass existed in various forms throughout the Christian world since the beginning. Trent took what was viewed as the best of the best, edited and made corrections to the various parts and produced, as a result, the Nass of St. Pius V.

  • tallorder

    Once again, that’s not correct.
    The “Mass of St. Pius V” is really the liturgy of St. Gregory the Great. Pius V just codified it, hence the term “Tridentine.”

    “From roughly the time of [Pope] St. Gregory [the Great, d. 604] we have the text of the Mass, its order and arrangement, as a sacred tradition that no one has ventured to touch except in unimportant details.” (Fortescue)

  • RodH

    Yes.

    Only problem I have with these types of statements is that as soon as we say “From the time of Gregory” there are those who immediately take that as an admission that THAT is the date which it began, and THAT is not the case. The truth is, as the opponents of the Gregorian Mass more or less then accuse it of being a “novelty” of Gregory, they CANNOT produce anything like substantiation that the NO has any connection to a previous Mass.

    To say the NO is the Mass of the Apostles is essentially like the Protestants who claim “praise services” are the way the “Early Church” “worshiped”. It’s just a wild self-congratulatory guess divorced from history and the tradition of the Church.

  • tallorder

    Well, Baptists go back to John the Baptist. True story.

  • Mag. Theol.

    The basic form of the Mass goes back to Gregory, and even further. It developed differently in different regions, but remained the basic structure of Gregory’s Mass. The Mass which Pius V codified was the “Roman Use” of the liturgy, which he had slightly altered (especially regarding the Divine Office). This means: The Mass of Pius V IS the Mass of Gregory, but of course, there has been a historical development. Dioceses and Orders with a liturgy that was older than 200 years could keep their liturgy; the “Roman Use” liturgy was only intended for those regions where no such tradition was existent. So, different Rites and Uses continued to exist even after Pius V. Some of those only gave up their liturgy in the late 19th century, and unfortunately, the Religious Orders gave it up following the liturgical reforms after Vatican II.

  • Mike44R

    That’s more in line with what I learned and inadequately expressibg. Thanks for the clarification.

  • Raghn Crow

    The Norbertines here in Budapest use a pre-1912 version, with the Confiteor just before Holy Communion (it fits really well there) and I was told this was the Norbertines using their old Mass. Also, I have a Dominican friend back in the States who says they’re using their old Rite now and again, as well.
    Just sayin’.
    RC

  • Mag. Theol.

    The Confiteor before the Communion is also a Roman tradition. It was abolished either in 1955 or 1960 (I am not sure, so please correct me if I am wrong). It was not forbidden, but seen as more of a “personal devotion”, so it was cut from the official books (like the Pater noster and Ave Maria at the beginning and ending of the hours of the Divine Office). Some communities have retained this second Confiteor before Communion.
    I think since Summorum Pontificum, also the Religious Orders are re-discovering their liturgical heritage. Many Orders like Benedictines, Trappists, Dominicans, Franciscans etc. have a proper liturgy. More traditional religious priests try to revive their own liturgy, which is an extremely noble cause. After Vatican II, everything has been Romanized, but before that, the traditional religious rites used to be considerably different from the Roman Rite. It would be a shame if this part of Tradition went lost.

 

 

 

 

 

Own comment: 

One point from Mike44R is worth repeating:

One thing I’ve never understood is how the NO and its promulgation ever passed muster. The Mass of St. Pius V (the original TLM) was promulgated essentially ex cathedra. Additionally, the Council of Trent, which produced the Mass, was a dogmatic council snd gave expression to the will of the universal magisterium. Thus, both the Council of Trent and the promulgation of the TLM were infallible. Ergo, the NO violates the rule of non-contradiction. As such, the NO csnnot supplant the TLM. I may be in error, but that’s my take.

It is not just his take: Those are the facts!

I can only put it down to indiscreet obedience - which is sinful to the core - and a collective ruse owing to the hippie mentality in the 1960s and the post-World War II unbridled optimism and licentiousness in most Western countries.