Trads haven't asked if unity was the real goal, because we know unity was never the real goal. Persecution was the goal. Finding a scapegoat was the goal. The question from trads is not the very interesting one.
The question from far more trad-adjacent Catholics will be. It isn't 2003 anymore. The line between "trad" and "conservative" isn't as clear as it once was. And any analysis of TC that doesn't account for the fact most people attending your given TLM also attend the Novus Ordo without much difficulty, you will miss that distinction, and the potential problem it poses to bishops.
The first step toward pastoral accompaniment, it seems to me, would be to identify the reasons that people are attached to the traditional Mass, and then to determine which of those reasons the bishop or pastor judges to be praiseworthy or at least acceptable, and therefore worthy of pastoral solicitude. (On the flip side, this would also have the benefit of clearly telling people which ideas or practices are being disapproved by Church authorities.) The second step, then, would be coming up with ways of fostering the praiseworthy desires, and accommodating the legitimate ones to the extent possible, within the framework of TC.
I am following most of this secondhand, through news reporting, but I don't get the sense that a lot of dioceses are taking this approach.
It seems like the requests for 'pastoral accompaniment' from the bishops of Arlington, DC, etc. are really just straightforward requests for people's parish masses not to be suppressed. If the bishops won't do that then it's hard to see what else they could do that would have any effect. At least, seeing the reports and the reactions, this is looking like unstoppable force/immovable object territory until one side or the other relents and nobody seems to be really asking for 'pastoral accompaniment' other than giving back the mass.
A credible pastoral plan might begin with allowing the celebration of Mass in the ordinary form according to the actual instructions of Vatican II, but that is banned in both Chicago and DC. If a bishop loved his people, he would accompany them by making sure that there was an ordinary form Mass available which was as similar to the extraordinary form of the Mass as possible. Beyond a doubt there would be some radtrads who would reject it as not good enough, and that would prove their divisiveness, but to not offer it as an option puts the fault in the lap of the bishop. They do not want a unified liturgy. They want something else: a career? to pass the buck? to drive their moral enemies out of the Church? It is not obvious what exactly their motivation is, but if it were anything good, they would be going out of their way to accompany these families.
"Some bishops and commentators argue that impacted Catholics are not unwelcome — that they can — and should — remain in their parishes and simply begin attending the regular celebrations of the Ordinary Form."
Yes, that's exactly the point. People who refuse to attend the new Mass celebrated by the same priests who say the old Mass for them- presumably with the same care- are the "target" of Traditionis custodes. They are spreading their sad devotion to the new religion of traditionalism, and the point is to pull the brakes on that.
The problem is that those attached to the TLM were encouraged by Benedict, who convincingly argued that the TLM, being sacred to the Church for centuries, could not suddenly be considered harmful. Now they're being told that it's harmful. How do you pastorally accompany that?
On the other hand, they see liturgical abuses go uncorrected in the NO, even in the places where the TLM is suppressed. So, the message is: we're not really concerned with the integrity of "the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite," but we're very concerned with the TLM. How do you pastorally accompany that?
What's more, they see plenty of "pastoral accompaniment" for pro-abortion politicians, homosexuals and transsexuals, the divorced and remarried, etc. Contraception is back on the table because it's just too hard for people not to contracept. But those attached to the TLM, who just want to worship as their forebears did, get shut out. How do you pastorally accompany that?
Following the news out of Chicago, I see people wondering what the ICKSP will do with their church, which they own and have been renovating for years, but in which they are now forbidden to celebrate mass. My modest proposal is that they should not only keep the building, but should continue the work of renovating it. In other words, they should buy the field at Anathoth (Jeremiah ch. 32).
I attend a devout NO Mass but I feel very much for those that attend the TLM. The Pope was recently speaking with First Nations people in Canada. One of the wrongs done to First Nation and Native Americans was to be cut off from their ancient traditions ( I am not referring to traditions of violence but cultural / spiritual acts which can exist within even a Catholic culture )- yet the Church cuts off again people from their ancient traditions - its own people.
I recently finished a Tony Hillerman mystery (a Catholic writer) in which a Hopi elder is saddened that many of the younger generation no longer practice the ancient ways which kept them from becoming greedy or drunk or not caring properly for their families. There is more to the "ancient ways" than just a way of saying Mass - there is an important connection to our forbearers who were often persecuted and a connection to what is "right praise" that is due God. What adds to this difficulty is hearing about Masses which are definitely not "right praise" but of which nothing is done - not even the most fatherly of corrections.
As I hear the Old Testament readings at Mass these last weeks - how Israel has lost its way and has hit hard times, I cannot help but compare it to our own times. The need for "right praise" - the correct worship of God is of most importance. The Gospel story of how Judas did not like the waste of money spent on the oil the woman used to anoint Jesus because Judas thought the money should go to the poor - Judas forgets that worship of God comes first and all social justice done without right praise first will go sideways fast - take a look at the world we live in for some good examples of social justice gone sideways. People who attend TLM practice the ancient ways of right praise - and they should be respected.
How is being able to publish mass times and banning other sacraments ever going to bring about unity? If this was done to Eastern rites or other NO parishes I would be equally outraged.
I am at a NO parish, but my second child was baptized in the traditional rite, and it was a beautiful sacrament. I was really saddened when my third child could not be baptized with the same rite. How could anyone ever conclude that this will bring unity? I think this only drives people away.
I would love to see some bishops solve this problem by encouraging the Ordinary Form in Latin, ad orientem. Nothing in Traditionis about that, and would cause the trauma to be lessened significantly.
We're sort of ignoring the elephant in the room here. TC was based on the premise that the TLM movement was coopted by people who reject Vatican II and is being used to push that point of view. This is, generally speaking, a lie. Everybody who attends the TLM knows it's a lie. We were told that the pope did this because the bishops gave him such alarming reports in his TLM survey. However, the pope has refused to share the results of the survey, and it's been widely reported that most bishops thought Summorum Pontificum was going relatively well in their dioceses (that is the ones who implemented it). Finally there is this persistent insistence that the Novus Ordo and Vatican II are one and the same. But this too is a falsehood that an even casual look at Sacrosanctum Concilium and the timelines involved will demonstrate.
Bottom line is this - you can't base a pastoral program on a foundation of lies, deception and falsehood regardless of how good your intentions are.
My understanding is that when Bishop John Ireland of Minneapolis told Eastern rite Catholics they would have to celebrate the Roman rite instead, approximately 1.5 million of them decided to become Orthodox instead. So if the goal is to lower the number of Catholics while sending many of them into schism, history shows that preventing people from celebrating in the manner they feel comfortable in will simply lead to schism. We really need to NOT do that.
When will the bishops bring Unity to the Novus Ordo? Isn’t that why most Catholics parish shop? They don’t like the music, the priest, the loud kids, the silence… not to mention lack of unity in preaching
Trads haven't asked if unity was the real goal, because we know unity was never the real goal. Persecution was the goal. Finding a scapegoat was the goal. The question from trads is not the very interesting one.
The question from far more trad-adjacent Catholics will be. It isn't 2003 anymore. The line between "trad" and "conservative" isn't as clear as it once was. And any analysis of TC that doesn't account for the fact most people attending your given TLM also attend the Novus Ordo without much difficulty, you will miss that distinction, and the potential problem it poses to bishops.
The first step toward pastoral accompaniment, it seems to me, would be to identify the reasons that people are attached to the traditional Mass, and then to determine which of those reasons the bishop or pastor judges to be praiseworthy or at least acceptable, and therefore worthy of pastoral solicitude. (On the flip side, this would also have the benefit of clearly telling people which ideas or practices are being disapproved by Church authorities.) The second step, then, would be coming up with ways of fostering the praiseworthy desires, and accommodating the legitimate ones to the extent possible, within the framework of TC.
I am following most of this secondhand, through news reporting, but I don't get the sense that a lot of dioceses are taking this approach.
It seems like the requests for 'pastoral accompaniment' from the bishops of Arlington, DC, etc. are really just straightforward requests for people's parish masses not to be suppressed. If the bishops won't do that then it's hard to see what else they could do that would have any effect. At least, seeing the reports and the reactions, this is looking like unstoppable force/immovable object territory until one side or the other relents and nobody seems to be really asking for 'pastoral accompaniment' other than giving back the mass.
A credible pastoral plan might begin with allowing the celebration of Mass in the ordinary form according to the actual instructions of Vatican II, but that is banned in both Chicago and DC. If a bishop loved his people, he would accompany them by making sure that there was an ordinary form Mass available which was as similar to the extraordinary form of the Mass as possible. Beyond a doubt there would be some radtrads who would reject it as not good enough, and that would prove their divisiveness, but to not offer it as an option puts the fault in the lap of the bishop. They do not want a unified liturgy. They want something else: a career? to pass the buck? to drive their moral enemies out of the Church? It is not obvious what exactly their motivation is, but if it were anything good, they would be going out of their way to accompany these families.
"Some bishops and commentators argue that impacted Catholics are not unwelcome — that they can — and should — remain in their parishes and simply begin attending the regular celebrations of the Ordinary Form."
Yes, that's exactly the point. People who refuse to attend the new Mass celebrated by the same priests who say the old Mass for them- presumably with the same care- are the "target" of Traditionis custodes. They are spreading their sad devotion to the new religion of traditionalism, and the point is to pull the brakes on that.
The problem is that those attached to the TLM were encouraged by Benedict, who convincingly argued that the TLM, being sacred to the Church for centuries, could not suddenly be considered harmful. Now they're being told that it's harmful. How do you pastorally accompany that?
On the other hand, they see liturgical abuses go uncorrected in the NO, even in the places where the TLM is suppressed. So, the message is: we're not really concerned with the integrity of "the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite," but we're very concerned with the TLM. How do you pastorally accompany that?
What's more, they see plenty of "pastoral accompaniment" for pro-abortion politicians, homosexuals and transsexuals, the divorced and remarried, etc. Contraception is back on the table because it's just too hard for people not to contracept. But those attached to the TLM, who just want to worship as their forebears did, get shut out. How do you pastorally accompany that?
Seems like a good time to pray for bishops.
Following the news out of Chicago, I see people wondering what the ICKSP will do with their church, which they own and have been renovating for years, but in which they are now forbidden to celebrate mass. My modest proposal is that they should not only keep the building, but should continue the work of renovating it. In other words, they should buy the field at Anathoth (Jeremiah ch. 32).
I attend a devout NO Mass but I feel very much for those that attend the TLM. The Pope was recently speaking with First Nations people in Canada. One of the wrongs done to First Nation and Native Americans was to be cut off from their ancient traditions ( I am not referring to traditions of violence but cultural / spiritual acts which can exist within even a Catholic culture )- yet the Church cuts off again people from their ancient traditions - its own people.
I recently finished a Tony Hillerman mystery (a Catholic writer) in which a Hopi elder is saddened that many of the younger generation no longer practice the ancient ways which kept them from becoming greedy or drunk or not caring properly for their families. There is more to the "ancient ways" than just a way of saying Mass - there is an important connection to our forbearers who were often persecuted and a connection to what is "right praise" that is due God. What adds to this difficulty is hearing about Masses which are definitely not "right praise" but of which nothing is done - not even the most fatherly of corrections.
As I hear the Old Testament readings at Mass these last weeks - how Israel has lost its way and has hit hard times, I cannot help but compare it to our own times. The need for "right praise" - the correct worship of God is of most importance. The Gospel story of how Judas did not like the waste of money spent on the oil the woman used to anoint Jesus because Judas thought the money should go to the poor - Judas forgets that worship of God comes first and all social justice done without right praise first will go sideways fast - take a look at the world we live in for some good examples of social justice gone sideways. People who attend TLM practice the ancient ways of right praise - and they should be respected.
How is being able to publish mass times and banning other sacraments ever going to bring about unity? If this was done to Eastern rites or other NO parishes I would be equally outraged.
I am at a NO parish, but my second child was baptized in the traditional rite, and it was a beautiful sacrament. I was really saddened when my third child could not be baptized with the same rite. How could anyone ever conclude that this will bring unity? I think this only drives people away.
I would love to see some bishops solve this problem by encouraging the Ordinary Form in Latin, ad orientem. Nothing in Traditionis about that, and would cause the trauma to be lessened significantly.
We're sort of ignoring the elephant in the room here. TC was based on the premise that the TLM movement was coopted by people who reject Vatican II and is being used to push that point of view. This is, generally speaking, a lie. Everybody who attends the TLM knows it's a lie. We were told that the pope did this because the bishops gave him such alarming reports in his TLM survey. However, the pope has refused to share the results of the survey, and it's been widely reported that most bishops thought Summorum Pontificum was going relatively well in their dioceses (that is the ones who implemented it). Finally there is this persistent insistence that the Novus Ordo and Vatican II are one and the same. But this too is a falsehood that an even casual look at Sacrosanctum Concilium and the timelines involved will demonstrate.
Bottom line is this - you can't base a pastoral program on a foundation of lies, deception and falsehood regardless of how good your intentions are.
My understanding is that when Bishop John Ireland of Minneapolis told Eastern rite Catholics they would have to celebrate the Roman rite instead, approximately 1.5 million of them decided to become Orthodox instead. So if the goal is to lower the number of Catholics while sending many of them into schism, history shows that preventing people from celebrating in the manner they feel comfortable in will simply lead to schism. We really need to NOT do that.
When will the bishops bring Unity to the Novus Ordo? Isn’t that why most Catholics parish shop? They don’t like the music, the priest, the loud kids, the silence… not to mention lack of unity in preaching