NCR Editorial on Summorum Pontificum

Our friends at the National "Catholic" "Reporter" have posted an editorial which is dated July 20 (the same as Bishop Finn's column set to run in the Catholic Key this week). The editorial trots out a lot of the now familiar boogeymen RE: Summorum Pontificum ("A day of mourning", what about... Catholic women -- who have felt deeply pained by the church?; "anti-semitic prayers, priests too busy, etc. etc.) and parades them past the weary reader one more time. But, since these concerns have already been answered (though not sufficiently for the tired "journalists" on Armour Blvd. [forgive the local KC reference - see the address of NCR Publishing for clarification]) Our editorial-writing friends then take a novel tack not often taken by those invoking the poltergeist they often refer to as the "spirit of Vatican II" - they quote from its body of documents. More specifically, they quote the following from Sacrosanctum Concilium paragraph 14

Mother church earnestly desires that all the faithful be led to that full,
conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations called for by
the very nature of the liturgy. ... This full and active participation by
all the people is the aim to be considered before all else. For it is the
primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the
true Christian spirit

Fine, this is reasonable. Except that their definition of "Full
Concsious and Active participation" means that everyone has to have a job, a
task to complete in order to be fully, consciously and actively
participating. Here I am reminded of a talk given some time ago by
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger regarding these very words, and, in fact, the
whole of the text of Sacrosanctum Concilium and how they can be applied as referring to (what we now call) the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite - for that is the liturgy the Council Fathers had in mind when they drafted that document - as well as to (what we now call) the ordinary form of the Rite.

Our Friends at the NCR go on to catalogue some of their other fears regarding the ways in which the Motu Proprio will be disruptive to the life of the Church:

We fear that re-embracing the Latin Mass could undermine the liturgical reforms that undergird the spiritual and theological developments of the Second Vatican Council. Changes that will set off our alarms include:

Let me point out that offering the option for the Latin Mass (according to the extraordinary form) is a truly liberal position - giving people more options than they had before! Nevertheless, as the Holy Father said in his letter, the wider exposure and availability of the extraordinary form will also help us to correct some of the de-formations of the liturgy that have taken place over the past forty years. I hope the NCR is NOT equating de-formations with true "liturgical reforms"

Reconfiguring seminary curricula to focus time, resources and talent on training priests to offer Mass and other sacraments in Latin and away from training that would support celebrating the sacraments in the vernacular.

All of a sudden they are concerned about seminary formation.

Cutting back on seminary training on pastoral duties, such as counseling and chaplaincies.

Offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass IS the primary pastoral duty of a priest (followed closely by the proper and fruitful administration of the Sacrament of Confession. Unfortunately, in my time in the seminary, only two classes (count six credit hours) were offered for those two pastoral duties. The priests trained at Our Lady of Guadalupe spend an entire year doing offering what are called "dry Masses" (no minister, no intention) in preparation to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As far as counceling and chaplaincies, I think the seminaries SHOULD spend more time on liturgy and Sacraments and less time (though sufficient) on authentic training for authentic counseling and authentic chaplaincies - which involve administering the Sacraments. This notion (that Sacraments and liturgy are really unimportant) is indicative of the deconstructionist mode of so many of those who actually subscribe to the NCR.

Restricting church design and architecture in favor of old forms not conducive to the guidelines in liturgical documents written in the last 20 years.

Many of the "liturgical documents" of the past twenty years (esp. those with regard to church design and architecture) are not binding in any sense. Much of the renovations that were done by the gospel according to Vosko were not at all envisioned by Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Discouraging efforts to use contemporary music and other artistic expressions in liturgy.

Yes! The rite has its own music (primarily Gregorian, and secondarily those expressions which are based on Gregorian melodies). As far as artistic expressions, when (modern) culture is NOT formed by a Christian ethos, those (modern) cultural expressions do not have a beneficial role in the Worship of God.

Increasing restrictions on liturgical ministries open to all laypeople, men and women.

Mmhh! Because Full, conscious and active participation does not mean that everyone must be physically "doing something" within the sanctuary!

I think the above "concerns" clearly illustrate our Holy Father's desire as far as the extraordinary form enriching and influencing the celebration according to the ordinary form. Perhaps the folks at the NCR have read the Motu Proprio pretty clearly!

I am reminded of thier scathing description of Bishop Finn's episcopal ministry. With a few exceptions, I do not remember reading anything I disagreed with. What I did disagree with was thier interpretation of the meaning of many actions!