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To this notion that it's not "pastoral" to restrict celebration of the vetus ordo over the objections of a particular community: sometimes a pastor has to do unpopular things in order to properly care for the souls he has been entrusted.

Just like the question of abortion and politicians, the unpastoral decision is to give in to masses of complaining Catholics who think they know better than the successors of the apostles. Bishops should care for our souls whether we like it or not.

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When I read commentary on TC, I tend to hear a lot about how the local ordinary is the chief liturgist for his diocese and can effectively carve out pretty huge loopholes in the motu proprio if he wishes. Maybe I'm missing some detail of canon law, but that's been my impression.

That being the case, this move is totally discretionary, correct? I ask that because I think the "in the corner" language implies constraints on his action that go beyond the possibility of making people in Rome mad at him.

I would also be interested in some reporting on what this "church on the grounds of the Franciscan monastery" is going to be, since as far as I can tell, the two options are (1) huge, gorgeous monastery church, and (2) chapel so tiny it can't fit more than a dozen people. And given the cruelty that has marked the implementation of this motu proprio, I really don't think it's going to be #1.

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This is not 1970 anymore. The reforms came along with disobedience. The reforms do not stick but the disobedience does. The idea that heretics can recieve Communion and that Mass could be celebrated in absurd ways but not in the normal way is so absurd that no one can take it seriously. We just aren't the ultramontanists of 50 years ago.

Some people will actually move. Some people will cross diocesan boundaries. Some people will go back to their parishes and demand a properly celebrated Ordinary Form. Some people will go to places that are allowed to celebrate the Mass or that celebrate it illicitly. No one who was going to the Extraordinary Form is going to say, "Oh it's bad now? Well. I'll have nothing to do with it then."

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If I were a Catholic in the Archdiocese of Washington attached to the TLM, I would do everything possible to move to a place where I would be free to worship peacefully. Write his Eminence and let him know that given his decisions you have no choice but to leave his flock, and leave it at that. Catholics who take their faith seriously need to act like it.

It's terrible to be in that situation, but such is the way of the cross. The shepherds are now striking the flock.

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Jun 8, 2022·edited Jun 8, 2022

I don’t attend the TLM but have many friends that do and if this stands as reported by Ed, the SSPX Chapel in Upper Marlboro, MD will need to be expanded. The irony is astonishing.

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One hopes that Cardinal Gregory reads and prays long and hard over Saint Augustine's Sermon 46 On Pastors before making any decision.

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the pastoral thing to do would be to follow the motu proprio in ensuring that liturgical celebrations are done according to the most recent liturgical books. as Pope Benedict XVI said, "The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal." With parish communities united in love of the Mass, there will be no need for celebrations according to an earlier form of the Roman rite.

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I don’t like people saying things like “no one sees the need or the benefit” for this change. That implies the pope is just doing thing Willy Nilly. While that obviously is not the case. TLM caused a division in the faithful as some (not all obviously) on both sides tried to claim their side was the better side. Both ways of worship are valid, BECAUSE the church says so. Hopefully those that enjoyed TLM will go to their parish and volunteer to help making the existing masses even better

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I am part of a TLM community in San Diego diocese who have already been “peripherized” by Bishop Née Cardinal McElroy. When the Motu Proprio was released last year by Pope Bergolio two TLM communities from diocesan parishes were told they could no longer have a TLM mass at their parishes.

McElroy met the two groups(no, it was not a synodal approach) and from this meeting he decided we could have one mass a week, but not on diocesan property and the mass could not be said by any diocesan priests.

We are at an Indian mission in Pala, California, the San Juan Diego Center—an hour’s drive for many from their original parishes.

We have Norbertine priests that come from their abbey in Orange County to hear mass.

McElory also said he didn’t want the congregation to grow and he didn’t want us to advertise the mass in parish bulletins.

Our first mass was last Labor Day weekend. We have close to two hundred people attending each week. We are self-sustaining financially with only rent and stipends to the abbey as our overhead. We have purchased all the priest’s vestments, built an altar, and bought the church linens.

We have confession, rosary. Mass and Divine Mercy chaplet, with coffee and donuts after mass.

The diocese has assessed the parish close to $6,000 because we have our money placed in their accounts, so the diocese still pilfers donations from our community although it doesn’t support us in any way.

Of course, baptisms, communions or catechism are not permitted—not even a funeral.

There is an FSSP church in San Diego that is a long way from us.

Pope Francis loves peripheries and that is what we are as a community.

Our Lady of the Perpheries—Ora pro nobis!

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Most dioceses have done such a "moderate" implementation. What Condon means but cannot say is men like Gregory effectively owe their stature to Francis alone, and if he wants any further favor, persecution is the only way

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The way out of the "corner" is for an ordinary to make a huge push to have the new Mass widely celebrated in the fully traditional style--Latin, chant, ad orientem, communion rail, the works. It seems that this would be both genuinely pastoral and responsive to Rome's concerns. That is to say, it wouldn't satisfy everyone, but it would satisfy a lot of people, and perhaps solve or clarify some other problems in the process.

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Jun 9, 2022·edited Jun 9, 2022

His Eminence of DC could easily designate one of the many chapels in his archdiocese as a Mass Center, these would not be parish churches. He could as a number of bishops have interpret TC in the most generous way possible. He is a very creative man, if he wants he could find a way. The operative word in that last sentence is "wants".

The Holy Father talks a good game about synodality, subsidiarity and people on the peripheries, his actions show he does not actually believe in them.

He doesn't listen and simply ignores those with differing opinions or insights. Let's not forget the " Dubia" Cardinals, Cardinal Zen, the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales and the "ghosting" of the former bishop of Ponce. Pius IX, at least in authority and management could be his spiritual brother.

A differing form of ultramontanism is the game of the day.

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Putting TC aside for a moment, I think there’s a bit too narrow focus of the relative merits of the Novus Ordo on the American experience of implementing it. If you look to the rest of the World, especially Africa and Asia, there was a verifiable explosion of conversion AFTER VII and the NO. Why? Because the Pre-Vatican II mass incredibly foreign to people living there. I’m Australia a similar revival happened in Aboriginal communities postVII. The Reforms of Sacrosanctum Concillium gave the Church two immense gifts, one was permission for the Eastern Churches to be themselves and deromanise as they saw fit. The other was it gave the Church in mission territory the necessary (warning trigger word) ‘flexibility’ to inculturate Christianity appropriately whilst maintaining the core structure of universality in the Mass. The Holy Spirit sometimes asks us to go out on a limb and let him sort out the mess.

I’m not so naïve as to assume that missionary priests in a variety of contexts did not take liberties sufficient to qualify as abuse. My parish that I grew up in was next door to and administer by Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who worked all over Oceania. We occasionally had fill in priests who had retired from a 10+ year mission in the outback or in PNG with very limited contact with anything. The most charitable thing I can say about some of their masses is “OH Boy…”

But that is part of the mess that I trust the Holy Spirit is sifting through. In hindsight, liturgical reform did need to be more sensitive to the cultural European tradition embedded in the Latin liturgies, but if we are going to be a global and universal church, we can’t expect everyone to adhere exclusively to a European liturgical expression

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"... closing the old Mass in some of these places will effectively close the parish, too. What community is that supposed to serve, exactly?” I have little doubt that the powers that be in Rome would consider a parish closing an acceptable price to pay to snuff out a TLM community. Let's face it. Traditionis Custodes is analogous to Herod's order in Matthew 2:16. The idea of TC is to end a perceived threat once and for all. It may be worth remembering, though, that for all its cruelty and brutality, Herod's order ultimately failed to accomplish its goal. I predict that decades from now, Catholics will laugh at the absurdity of Pope Francis trying to cancel the TLM. As a group, the TLM attendees are typically the most hardcore, zealous Catholics in the diocese. The idea that the TLMers will just roll over, accept this injustice and abandon their Mass, is about as likely as Mary and Joseph handing over the baby Jesus to Herod's goons.

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An interesting follow-up will likely be to report when the (awesome but I’m biased) diocese across the river from Washington (Diocese of Arlington) releases their new policies re: TLM. Many parishes in the Arlington diocese celebrate TLM and the TLM communities are frequently young and vibrant. Our bishop is very pastoral and is trying his best in consultation with his clergy and faithful to develop new guidelines. Depending on what is released in the two dioceses, could be an interesting compare and contrast. I suspect some of the Washington TLMers might find their way across the river but we’ll wait and see.

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TC is premised on the idea that TLM communities exist as nebulous groups of people detatched from the life of any particular parish. It assumes that they are alien to parishes, only coming in to use the church as a 'venue' for their foreign activities. TC can't imagine a world in which the TLM is a real part of parish life.

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