A little of this and a little of that.
There’s nothing new here. Everyone knows that most theological Progressivists do not really accept all that the Second Vatican Council teaches regarding the Mass, the Eucharist; (instead “they shared their bread” when feeding the five thousand and that was the actual miracle!,” I heard them say down at Graymoore Monastery in Garrison, NY with my own ears when I was pink in the cheeks, and it was a big gathering); similarly in subsequent theological books and documents regarding Eucharist, liturgy, or traditional Church teaching in general.
But Progressivists are subtle and take with one hand what they seem to give with the other. Page 5 sounds like a genuine miracle is being discussed, but then on page 10 it sounds more like Kahlil Gibran, Allan Watts, Matthew Fox, Ram Dass or the Buddha him/her/they self.
Take the most contentious issue of the last sixty+ years.
The “listening and accompanying” Progressives had no intention of doing either listening or accompanying when it comes to traditional Mass. Like their Marxist brothers and sisters, their theological trajectory is the Future, the Omega-Point, not the liturgical “past,” even if “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8).
But then again Jesus Christ is being transvalued by them too.
If the Progressives were really serious about the Council, the New Mass should at last be made to universally conform to what the Council actually teaches, if it is to bear fruit and if the Council is finally to be taken seriously. Instead the churches in Leo’s America are closing and merging everywhere.
“There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them.”
— The Consitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Second Vatican Council
But Leo doesn’t seem any more inclined to take the real Council seriously than Francis, of sorrowful memory, did.
Summorum Pontificum Not Motivated by Lefebvre Schism
Benedict XVI said, : “The reauthorization of the Tridentine Mass is often interpreted primarily as a concession to the Society of Saint Pius X. This is just absolutely false! It was important for me that the Church is one with herself inwardly, with her own past; that what was previously holy to her is not somehow wrong now”
[Last Testament in His Own Words, Ignatius Press, 2017, pp. 201-202.
Traditional Catholics must understandably agree that the Novus Ordo, being issued by a bona fide Council of the Catholic Church, is, in principle, a true and valid rite of the Catholic Church. But it must be brought into conformity with the actual teaching of the Council.
In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger [Benedict XVI] had stated:
“Personally, I was from the beginning in favour of the freedom to continue using the old Missal, for a very simple reason: people were already beginning to talk about making a break with the pre-conciliar Church, and of developing various models of Church—a preconciliar and obsolete type of Church, and a new and conciliar type of Church. This is at any rate nowadays the slogan of the Lefebvrists, insisting that there are two Churches, and for them the great rupture becomes visible in the existence of two Missals, which are said to be irreconcilable with each other. It seems to me essential, the basic step, to recognize that both Missals are Missals of the Church, and belong to the Church which remains the same as ever” (Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy, pp. 148-9, emphasis added).
— (1) Cf. The Charitable Anathema, by Dietrich von Hildebrand. Roman Catholic Books, Harrison, NY, (c) Alice von Hildebrand, 1993
Why the Traditional Latin Mass?
Not because it “restores a sense of the sacred” which many are understandably nostalgic for, but because it fully and sacredly preserves, protects, teaches and recapitulates explicitly the entire unchangeable Catholic Faith at each and every Mass. And this is why it is the greatest sign which Progressivism (aka neomodernism) fears above all else: Lex orandi, lex credendi,
“The law of praying [is] the law of believing,” is the sacred motto of our Christian Faith, which means that it is our prayer which leads to traditional belief and liturgy which leads to Traditional theology.
Benedict XVI said: “The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law“:
“This power of teaching frightens many people in and outside the Church. They wonder whether freedom of conscience is threatened or whether it is a presumption opposed to freedom of thought. It is not like this. The power that Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve.
The power of teaching in the Church involves a commitment to the service of obedience to the faith. The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.
Pope John Paul II did this when, in front of all attempts, apparently benevolent to the human person, and in the face of erroneous interpretations of freedom, he unequivocally stressed the inviolability of the human being and of human life from the moment of conception until natural death. The freedom to kill is not true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces the human being to slavery.
The Pope knows that in his important decisions, he is bound to the great community of faith of all times, to the binding interpret- ations that have developed throughout the Church’s pilgrimage.
Thus, his power is not being above, but at the service of, the Word of God. It is incumbent upon him to ensure that this Word continues to be present in its greatness and to resound in its purity, so that it is not torn to pieces by continuous changes in usage.”
Benedict XVI
Homily
May 7, 2005
— See also Cancelling Pope Benedict
Is the Novus Ordo Mass valid? Does the Church have the authority to make such changes as we see in the Novus Ordo Mass?
Yes, de fide to each question, per the Council of Trent Session XXI Ch.2, 16 July 1562.
— Does this mean that the changes made in the Novus Ordo Mass were always wise?
Clearly not. Moreover, Progressivist forces have invaded the sanctuary. The Council of Trent only guarantees the validity of the Sacrament, the substance being explicitly preserved (see Session XXI, ch.2 which follows below).
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