TIME TO GET THAT REPORT READY MY LORD

The Bishops are due to submit their reports to Rome on the implementation and any problems encountered in response to the Holy Fathers accompanying letter to Summorum Pontificum.

1.  Do the laity have a veiw about the implementation of Summorum Ponticificum in the Diocese of Wollongong?  Yes - very strong views.

2.  Have the laity been consultated at any stage about the implementation of Summorum Pontificum? No - not at any stage.

3.  Has their been any change to the number of Extraordinary Form Masses celebrated in the Diocese since before the Motu Proprio?  No - despite requests there has not been any increase - most people leave the diocese on Sundays.

4.  Have there been any attempts to identify the needs of those attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass in the diocese?  No. - not at any point.

5.  If a report to the Ecclesia Dei Commission regarding the implementation of Summorum Pontificum is sent misrepresenting the facts mightn't there be a backlash in the diocese from those who until now have exercised patience and good will toward the bishop and his advisors. I suspect that if people think that they have been ignored, overlooked or marginalised there is a threshold of patience and this issue may represent that threshold.

AD EXPERIMENTUM

Fr Michael Brown of Forest Murmurs:
On using the new translation

I`m on the diocesan clergy retreat at Ushaw this week so this is just a quick post. Some priest bloggers have discussed recently using the new translation of the OF Mass before the official launch date. I thought readers might be interested to know that Mass at the retreat today was celebrated by our bishop and priests using the new texts. Everyone dutifully replied `And with your spirit`. No-one died and no horses appeared to be frightened. My impression was that it seemed a bit more wordy but it was a huge improvement on what we have had. I expect we`ll be using the new translation the rest of the week.

UPDATE: 26.05.10 Apparently it was just a one off. Today we returned to the old new Mass.
 

Radical Change

11. Jesus thus brings his own radical novum to the ancient Hebrew sacrificial meal. For us Christians, that meal no longer need be repeated. As the Church Fathers rightly say, figura transit in veritatem: the foreshadowing has given way to the truth itself. The ancient rite has been brought to fulfilment and definitively surpassed by the loving gift of the incarnate Son of God. The food of truth, Christ sacrificed for our sake, dat figuris terminum. (20) By his command to "do this in remembrance of me" (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:25), he asks us to respond to his gift and to make it sacramentally present. In these words the Lord expresses, as it were, his expectation that the Church, born of his sacrifice, will receive this gift, developing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the liturgical form of the sacrament. The remembrance of his perfect gift consists not in the mere repetition of the Last Supper, but in the Eucharist itself, that is, in the radical newness of Christian worship. In this way, Jesus left us the task of entering into his "hour." "The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving." (21) Jesus "draws us into himself." (22) The substantial conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of "nuclear fission," to use an image familiar to us today, which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).

Sacramentum Caritatis

Lateline a Bishop & Abuse - Recipe for a Sensation

It seems that the recent media attempts to link the Holy Father with cases of child abuse are increasingly using devious, sensantionalist and deceptive devices to achieve a particular impression including:

1. Time conflation; conflating several decades and given the impression that the events occured in the recent past rather than 30 years ago.

2. Missuse of titles: calling people by their current titles or positions even though at the time of the event they did not occupy the same position of authority - thus giving the appearance that (or at least creating a confusion in peoples minds) that it happened more recently and by someone in greater authority eg. Pope Benedict rather than Cardinal Ratzinger or the Archbishop of Munich Friesing as the case may have been.

3. Using misleading termanology: such as defrock (which is a laymans term (no longer being able to function as a priest it has no cannonical meaning - suspension being the closest thing) and confusing it with layasisation (an ecclesiastical punishment - which cannot be confused with civil punishments) desplaying a completely wilful ignorance of ecclesiastical law and process e.g. "he was not defrocked until 5 years latter" meaning that he was not layasised for five year despite his actual suspension from all duties.

Last night's Lateline programme on the ABC used all of the above devises and more - We were led to believe that a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church was aware of child abuse and did nothing.  The truth seems to be that a young uninquisitive curate/assistant priest was blithely unaware that child abuse was going on a few rooms away. The victim claims that Father (not bishop) Wilson saw him enter and depart the building and presumes from this that he must have known what was going on.  Must he have?

Given the post Vatican II "dawn of a new age" feeling in the church in the early 70's taking people to your room as priest for private spiritual direction or even confession could have been a possiblity - however stupid the idea may seem now. One could perhaps deduce from the facts that the young Fr Wilson was uninquistive or even naive - but to devote an entire programme to attempting to connect him with these matters at a deeper level must be considered malicious not to mention an attempt to question the crediblity of the Catholic Church in the country.

These devices are amongst the lowest of journalistic tactics hitherto seen and are an absolute disgrace - all self respecting victims of clerical sexual abuse are utterly scandalised by the way in which their abuse is being exploited and twisted by the media.  The abused look for justice not exploitation.

THE TRAPPIST ABBEY OF MARIAWALD - Cistercian Rite & Vocations

FROM TRADITIONAL VOCATION BLOG

Readers will remember the heroic decision of the Trappist Abbey of Mariawald to seek the benefit of the provisions of Summorum Pontificum to permit the restoration of the traditional rule and liturgy in the Abbey. Readers will understand the difficulties that would face any community that turned its face back to the venerable traditions abandoned by the rest of their Order.

The Abbey of Mariawald is by no means large, even by modern standards, with a total community of 11 present as of the beginning of 2009. However, if fruits are yet to appear, there are the shoots of growth. It was announced that from the feast of the Purification, 2nd February, the Abbey has commenced a programme of formation for new postulants and novices.

In fact, three postulants, one of them a Priest formerly of the Archdiocese of Hamburg, were received into the Abbey within one year of the application of Summorum Pontificum to the Abbey. One was later received into the Noviciate as Brother M. Dominic and the Priest was received as a novice under the name of Father M. Ignatius. Effectively, almost half the community consists of members in formation, a unique claim among Trappist monasteries.

As the abbot of Maria Wald, Dom Joseph Vollberger OCSO has said, the Abbey has decided to institute a programme of formation within the monastery to train monks, organized and supervised by Dr. Dr. Erich F. Zehle as a delegated principal of studies. It is fundamental for proper formation that the monks remain in the monastic community and operate in the very well-equipped library of the monastery conducting their studies in a reasonable peace.

On the feast of Candlemas, the 2nd February, 2010, the summer semester of the academic year 2010/2011 commenced. Since the Abbey, with papal privilege, returned to the ancient customs of the Trappists after the usage of Monte Cistello of 1964, it has experienced an influx of postulants, some of whom are now novices.

Prof. Dr. Klaus Berger will teach exegesis and the noted philosopher, Prof. Dr. Robert Spaemann has promised to participate in the formation programme. Other subjects will include general canon law and the Constitutions of the Order, the ratio institutionis, the provisions of the General Chapter and the traditions of the Order.

Seminars, lectures, tutorials and revision courses will lead to a solid philosophical, theological, historical and linguistic training for the holy priesthood. If their superiors approve it, monks and clerics of other monasteries and institutes of consecrated life will be admitted to the programme of formation.

Those wishing to stay at the monastery guest house can contact the porter here.

Religious Habits - making religious women accessable to the modern world

Princess-Abbess Maria Maximiliana von Stadion of Buchau and her sisters from a painting on a church wall.  The Princess and her nuns are sporting their distinctive habit designed by the princess-Abbess as can been seen it has included the fashion of the day - let us hope that the Abbey had wide doors. 

It seems amongst religious women in Australia and the United States such rediculous notions still persist - will someone please take some photo's for posterity - they must be painted on the church wall so that generations to come can admire their folly!

Women in the Church in photo's continued

Women in the Church - a photographic study

The Recent Profession ceremony in Kansas, of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles - May they continue to prosper