The real big news this week were liturgical, with the translation of an article posted by Cardinal Sarah on the 10th anniversary of Summorum Publication. The article itself was published on the anniversary, but its translation was only published this week.
In that article Cardinal Sarah argues that Pope Benedict XVI's mutual enrichment has been perceived in too one-sided a manner and that we should also see how the Novus Ordo can enrich the Tridentine Mass. Supporters of this mentioned the lectionary of the Novus Ordo as one such area, where there is somethign to be learned from the 1960s Mass. One priest writign for the Catholic Herald was quite emphatic in this assertion and when confronted with opposition he doubled down and insisted that there is near unanimity that the new lectionary is better than the age-old one, and that it is only traditionalists who disagree with this. It never occurred to him, perhaps, that it is only traditionalists who matter in this debate, because the "conservative Catholics", as he calls them, have proved themselves to have strentgh which can only be compared with that of boiled spaghetti.
Those pointing out the absurdity of unifying the lectionaries included Joseph Shaw, Gregory DiPippo, Fr. Zuhlsdorf and Fr. Tim Finigan, to name a few whose articles I read. Fr. Tim Finigan, in particular, summed it up well by pointing out that perhaps the problem is that those who make comments on the Tridentine Mass simply lack familiarity with it, and he pointed towards Fr. de Souza as an example of one such person. That may well be the case, but the same can certainly not be said of Cardinal Sarah, the Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship, and a man who, I am quite certain, has celebrated the Roman Rite on quite a few occasions. It is worth pointing out that he is generally considered to be a friend of tradition, and one of the more sane cardinals that we have.
The owner of the DeusExMachina blog saw it rather differently and saw it rather as an attempt by Cardinal Sarah to position himself in the fight for who takes over from Bergoglio. He pointed out that there are now 3 fronts, of which the dubia cardinals are one, then we have Cardinal Müller, who finally seems to have grown a reality-based perspective, and then we have Cardinal Sarah, who is reaching out to the middle ground which is opposed to Bergoglio's perversions, but is not quite willing to accept authentic Catholicism.
With regards to Cardinal Mũller, we had yet more interviews from him and Bergoglio is not painted in a good light, and neither is the Church in Europe generally. Nor should it be. Nonetheless, it is a bit rich coming from him now given he had a whole year to speak out about Amoris Laetitia in clear terms yet failed to do so, when he could have done much good. Now that he has been dismissed, anything coming out from him smells of sour grapes, no matter how truthful it is.
On the political side we had news of a report which came out from the OPCW, which monitors chemical weapons, in effect coming as close as it could to completely absolving the Assad government. It does not come out and say that in a direct manner, but let it be known that any report released by an international body of that sort which falls as far away as it did from the American and Western European positions is basically a confirmation that the EU and the U.S. are lying. Peter Hitchens has, as usual, done good work on this and his articles on this are well worth reading.
Then we had the MAKs airshow in Moscow, in which the MiG-35 made its public debut. One cannot say that the Russians have not done a good job of rebuilding their military infrastructure, and any time the Russians come up with a high-tech weapon it is good for peace. One should also take the time to not that there were very many countries involved in that airshow, and I hope that those who parrot the line that Russia is isolated can take the time to see that it is the EU and the U.S. which are isolating themselves on these issues.
This is no more evident than with the news that Turkey is on the verge of signing a deal with Russia to procure the highly advanced S400 anti-missile system, the best that Russia has to offer. Bear in mind that Turkey is a key NATO member, in fact, the flagship member of NATO apart from the U.S., given its strategic position both geographically and culturally! That Turkey would turn to Russia, the very country against whom NATO propagates for its very existence, shows that around the world people have come to the realisation that it is better to turn away from the West. This comes not long after The Phillipines under Duterte made similar overtures to Russia, while essentially sabotaging its military alliance with the U.S. and it is also my understanding that even Croatia has purchased military weapons.
We also had the first joint Russian-Chinese naval drill in the Baltics. All the tough anti-Russian propaganda has done, it seems, is to drive Russia and China closer together. Make no mistake about it, this was a message to the West boldy stating "this world is yours to ruin as you please no longer!"
Finally we have more information of just how heinously anti-Catholic Bergoglio really is. Indeed, it wouldn't be a normal week nowadays without more details about how the pope is anti-Catholic. The man is not happy with even Novus Ordo vocations. We can therefore dismiss, as I already had before, any claim from him that he is concerned about a lack of vocations.
Returning to Cardinal Sarah, it is quite obvious to see that as long as a Catholic holds Vatican II as a good thing,...
