As always, be careful what you cheer for - in the U.S., one party created a previously unheard of move called a "nuclear option" which allowed the Senate Majority leader (now gone) to force the approval of an unheard of judge. The opposition party used this very same option to add a 6-3 conservative majority to the Supreme Court.
So to, here. The Pope intervening on who can celebrate what Mass based on the accidental date of ordination, The Pope saying what can be posted in the parish bulletin, The Pope tying the hands of bishops literally thousands of miles away, completely ignorant of the pastoral needs today WILL provide for similar pastoral activity for the Bishop of Rome later. No one is happy all the time with any Pope. Add to the timing of this optional announcement in the week before Christmas. The process is disgusting and dangerous to the office of every bishop.
Really good and interesting analysis! On a related note, I would love to see an explainer of the differences between liturgical “forms”, “rites”, and “ordinariates”. (Maybe “churches” as well? And if you all have already done this, apologies and maybe someone can point me to the place!) My understanding, which may be wrong!, is that the EF and OF are two forms of the same rite, which seems to put it into a unique category. It seems to my mind to give the Holy Father much more latitude in regulating the EF, because it is by its remaining existence EXTRAordinary (at least in the mind of Pope Francis) and therefore regulations keeping it EXTRAordinary fall more into the purview of the Pope than would be regulation of just any old Mass schedule. Does that make sense? I may have the totally wrong end of the stick though, which is why I need the Pillar!
Very difficult to take Roche seriously while he has yet to issue a clarification that the German Bishops are the Devil Incarnate for trying to perform Same-Sex “marriages” or cracking down on the rampant liturgical abuse of the Novus Ordo.
I know that this is a piece of analysis, not a persuasive piece, but I suspect that if someone tried to deploy some of points made here in an argument with Abp Roche, he would only laugh.
It's kind of like when someone tries to use the argument "Sacrosanctum Concilium says that preference should be given to the Latin language and to the pipe organ!"
The documents of Vatican II are one thing, the way that "Vatican II" is deployed in intrachurch arguments is another, and the latter has little to do with the former.
It is an interesting question: Did TC and the new clarifications violate the teachings of Vatican II? If so, it would appear that Benedict did the exact same thing with SP by bypassing the local bishop and authorizing an any priest/anytime/anywhere approach. Saint John Paul seems to to have hit the right note vis-a-vis V II by authorizing the Bishops to allow, but regulate the use of the 1962 Missal.
It's quite ironic that this is coming about at the same time as the so called synod on synodality. Does the Vatican expect people affected by all this (or anybody sympathetic to them or even those with a keen sense of justice) to take it seriously?
As many on here are aware of, there are several priest fraternities dedicated to the TLM that were created in cooperation with the Vatican following the SSPX debacle in the 1980s. They were explicitly approved by the Vatican under JPII. They chose NOT to join the SSPX because they wanted to remain in complete communion with the Holy Father. These are folks like the FSSP and the Institute of Christ the King as well as several others around the world. Guess how much they were included in the "dialogue" that took place before TC came out? Zero. Nada. Nobody asked them what they thought, what sort of problems they were seeing in their parishes or anything else. This is how Pope Francis has chosen to treat those who seek to remain faithful - by making them segregated second class citizens without even getting their input first!
And now we're supposed to believe he's interested in synodality? Consider me skeptical.
It's all just so depressing. For those of us with no desire to be "anti-francis" but also can't in good conscience see what happening as anything other than a bully beating up on a small minority, there's nowhere to go. There's no hope in the institutional Church. Nothing to engage in. Nothing to get excited about. I actively try to avoid reading what Francis says, which means it's hard to find anything at all to read about current events in the Church. Just focus on prayer and my local parish. I'm very grateful I have that.
Few bishops actually have a fraternal relationship with more than a select few of their presbyters, and their chancery officials are very interested in treating parishes as branc offices rather than canonical persons.
Given the rather supine posture of the USCCB when it comes to liturgy, I expect passive-aggressive resistance rather than outright opposition.
"Some may intend to remind Archbishop Roche that they are, in the spirit of Vatican II, shepherds of their flocks, and not his local branch managers."
Auxiliary TO the local branch managers.
As always, be careful what you cheer for - in the U.S., one party created a previously unheard of move called a "nuclear option" which allowed the Senate Majority leader (now gone) to force the approval of an unheard of judge. The opposition party used this very same option to add a 6-3 conservative majority to the Supreme Court.
So to, here. The Pope intervening on who can celebrate what Mass based on the accidental date of ordination, The Pope saying what can be posted in the parish bulletin, The Pope tying the hands of bishops literally thousands of miles away, completely ignorant of the pastoral needs today WILL provide for similar pastoral activity for the Bishop of Rome later. No one is happy all the time with any Pope. Add to the timing of this optional announcement in the week before Christmas. The process is disgusting and dangerous to the office of every bishop.
Really good and interesting analysis! On a related note, I would love to see an explainer of the differences between liturgical “forms”, “rites”, and “ordinariates”. (Maybe “churches” as well? And if you all have already done this, apologies and maybe someone can point me to the place!) My understanding, which may be wrong!, is that the EF and OF are two forms of the same rite, which seems to put it into a unique category. It seems to my mind to give the Holy Father much more latitude in regulating the EF, because it is by its remaining existence EXTRAordinary (at least in the mind of Pope Francis) and therefore regulations keeping it EXTRAordinary fall more into the purview of the Pope than would be regulation of just any old Mass schedule. Does that make sense? I may have the totally wrong end of the stick though, which is why I need the Pillar!
Very difficult to take Roche seriously while he has yet to issue a clarification that the German Bishops are the Devil Incarnate for trying to perform Same-Sex “marriages” or cracking down on the rampant liturgical abuse of the Novus Ordo.
I know that this is a piece of analysis, not a persuasive piece, but I suspect that if someone tried to deploy some of points made here in an argument with Abp Roche, he would only laugh.
It's kind of like when someone tries to use the argument "Sacrosanctum Concilium says that preference should be given to the Latin language and to the pipe organ!"
The documents of Vatican II are one thing, the way that "Vatican II" is deployed in intrachurch arguments is another, and the latter has little to do with the former.
It is an interesting question: Did TC and the new clarifications violate the teachings of Vatican II? If so, it would appear that Benedict did the exact same thing with SP by bypassing the local bishop and authorizing an any priest/anytime/anywhere approach. Saint John Paul seems to to have hit the right note vis-a-vis V II by authorizing the Bishops to allow, but regulate the use of the 1962 Missal.
It's quite ironic that this is coming about at the same time as the so called synod on synodality. Does the Vatican expect people affected by all this (or anybody sympathetic to them or even those with a keen sense of justice) to take it seriously?
As many on here are aware of, there are several priest fraternities dedicated to the TLM that were created in cooperation with the Vatican following the SSPX debacle in the 1980s. They were explicitly approved by the Vatican under JPII. They chose NOT to join the SSPX because they wanted to remain in complete communion with the Holy Father. These are folks like the FSSP and the Institute of Christ the King as well as several others around the world. Guess how much they were included in the "dialogue" that took place before TC came out? Zero. Nada. Nobody asked them what they thought, what sort of problems they were seeing in their parishes or anything else. This is how Pope Francis has chosen to treat those who seek to remain faithful - by making them segregated second class citizens without even getting their input first!
And now we're supposed to believe he's interested in synodality? Consider me skeptical.
It's all just so depressing. For those of us with no desire to be "anti-francis" but also can't in good conscience see what happening as anything other than a bully beating up on a small minority, there's nowhere to go. There's no hope in the institutional Church. Nothing to engage in. Nothing to get excited about. I actively try to avoid reading what Francis says, which means it's hard to find anything at all to read about current events in the Church. Just focus on prayer and my local parish. I'm very grateful I have that.
Few bishops actually have a fraternal relationship with more than a select few of their presbyters, and their chancery officials are very interested in treating parishes as branc offices rather than canonical persons.
Given the rather supine posture of the USCCB when it comes to liturgy, I expect passive-aggressive resistance rather than outright opposition.