July 7th

Is this reliable? Will it happen?

Expected Motu Proprio to be published July 7, German newspaper announces

Vatican City, Jun 27, 2007 / 03:21 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI intends to publish his Motu Proprio liberating the Mass of St. Pius V on July 7, 2007 announced today the Vatican correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt, Paul Badde.

Badde reported today that Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, presented a copy of the Motu Proprio universally liberating the Tridentine Mass to some 30 bishops from different countries at the Sala Bologna of the Apostolic Palace.

Die Welt’s correspondent only mentions that Cardinal Karl Lehmann from Germany was one of the bishops attending the meeting, which ended with a one-by-one greeting to the Holy Father.

The 3-page long document, signed by Pope Benedict XVI, comes with a letter of explanation about four pages long. The publication of both documents will take place on July 7th.

According to Badde, the letter emphasizes the unity of the Roman Rite, which from now on will have to forms, an “ordinary” and an “extraordinary,” supposed to inspire each other.

The ordinary form will continue to be the Post-Vatican rite; while the extraordinary will be the Missal used until 1962 and written according to the norms established by Pope St. Pius V and confirmed by the Council of Trent –thus the name “Tridentine.”

Ok, this one deals with the Mass. The question is, is this report reliable? And why July 7th?

July 7th is a Saturday. There is no feast on the New calender that day. However, on the Traditional calender (if you go by that one) it is the feast of Cyril and Methodius, great apostles to Moravia, Bohemia, and Bulgaria. It is also the feast, historically, of Blesseds Ralph Milner and Roger Dickenson, who died in 1591, both martyrs of the English persecution. Check here for more saints of that date.

So the questions remain. But should we get so excited about this? Will it change anything?

Motu Proprio

It CAME!!!!!!

Ha, fooled you.

A Motu Proprio did come out today, however, but not the kind that traditionalists have been looking for. It was not one granting universal permission to say the Traditional Mass, nor anything else like that. It was about electing popes. Or at least how to go about doing it.
Pope Benedict has changed the way that popes are elected from what John Paul II instituted, the whole after three days there is a day of prayer and reflection, to the traditional not stopping until a 2/3 majority is reached. Here's the article:

Holy Father changes rules for electing new pope

Vatican City, Jun 26, 2007 / 09:02 am (CNA).- It was announced today that the Holy Father, Benedict XVI has brought back the traditional method for electing a new Pope. Under Pope John Paul II, the procedure was changed to a series of ballots punctuated with time for reflection and prayer if a pontiff was not chosen within the first three days.

The change back to the traditional rules was made public today in a "Motu Proprio," written in Latin. In the letter, Benedict XVI restores the traditional norm concerning the majority required for the valid election of the Supreme Pontiff to two thirds of the cardinals present.

In 1996, John Paul II changed the standard in the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici gregis. Under John Paul II’s rules, a new Pope was validly elected by two thirds during the first three days of voting.

However, after three days of voting without an election, there would be a day dedicated to reflection and prayer, without voting. Thereafter, voting would resume for seven additional ballots, another pause for reflection, another seven ballots, another pause and yet another seven ballots. After which an absolute majority was to decide how to proceed, either for a vote by absolute majority or with balloting between two candidates. This was to happen only in the event that the cardinals arrived at the 33rd or 34th ballot without a positive result.

Cathedral vs. Mosque

Now the first thought I had after hearing about this was "well, at least the cathedral isn't being torn down. That might anger a few people, tearing down a centuries old church, a historical landmark of the highest degree.

Oh wait, I forgot to give you guys the story. Alright, here's the summation, based of the article in The Washington Times:

The population of Muslims in Cologne, Germany is on the rise, and theses followers of Muhammad want a decent place to worship. They want to build a mosque, a big one, like the one in Berlin. That is not the controversy. That little detail lies in the fact that the mosque would be built right next to the cathedral, within two miles of each other actually, pretty close when you think about it. And it is gonna be big. Seating capacity will be 2,000 and the minarets, the fun top parts of the mosque, are 170 feet each. That's pretty big.

They designers are basing the mosque off the one in Berlin, seen here:



The Islamic community has been crying out for a decent place of worship for the last 40 years, and this might be their chance to get out of their basements and move into the public

So why is this causing so much controversy? And why would the the political world care about it? Isn't this a matter of religion, not the State?
Ah, there's the rub. Religion and the State.
You can't have an official State religion, right? That would be mean to all the other religions. So the State should stay out of religious things, right? Well, how do you enforce religious equality while not getting involved with religion? Such is the situation in Germany and throughout the world. I offer not a solution here, but am simply stating a fact.
So what will come of this, and what does it show? Well, for one thing, it shows something that Hillaire Belloc wrote about in his The Great Heresies (I could be wrong about the title) is coming true: a warning of instability as Muslims take over Europe. It happens every time two cultures meet. One fights against the conquerors, and the other is left with two choices: assimilate into the culture, such as what happened with the Romans and Alexander the Great, or try to force the culture into the lives of the conquered, allowing no wiggle room.
What will happen? Could this be another step towards the destruction of Catholic Germany? Hopefully not, but who knows. Only time can tell.

Ryan and my parish

Well, we've lost another to the big golden ring. Ryan has been wed to Maria. The execution took place on Saturday, and they could not have been happier. Ryan had that ridiculously goofy grin that paints his face when life goes his way. Maria had that delighted smile that I'm sure Ryan fell in love with weeks before I even knew who she was. The wedding was beautiful. The reception was great. Everything was lovely, and for a moment everything was going great.
I had to leave the reception early. The next day was the 50th anniversary Mass for my Parish. The Main celebrant was Archbishop Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington. It went well enough. There wasn't anything too shocking. Nothing spectacular either. My mom had tried to bring about some traditional, well, not even traditional, just bare-bones what the GIRM requires, things back to the parish for the Mass, and she was shot down.

Sigh

So it went well enough, as I said. I've determined what my church's sanctuary looked like before the liturgical changes. Its my pleasure to announce that, as far as I can tell, the altar of sacrifice still used to this day is the same one used in the past 50 years. Rather than blowing out the altar and tearing it out of the wall, moving it closer, as had been done in other places, the people who re-did the inside of my church just blew the wall out. . . and built it up again. Rather than moving the altar, they moved the back wall. The tabernacle had not been in the previous wall; rather it was more or less sitting on the altar, and put into the back wall after the new construction.

That made me smile.

So Ryan and Maria's life together has begun (and will continue, mind you. Marriage isn't one of those one day things), and my Parish continues, soon with a new pastor. Hopefully everything will go better with him than with Fr. De, but you never know. If not, it will give me something to blog about.

“The Most Humble Man on Earth”

I finally wrote it this morning. I know I promised I would write it last semester, during finals week, and then the day after finals, but that never happened. I blame billiards.

So tell me what you think. Its supposed to be funny, so tell me if it is.

“The Most Humble Man on Earth”

By Matthew B. Rose

I’m the most humble man on earth.

Of all men stripped of noble birth

And left to wander the streets at night,

With only a forsaken birth right,

I am the most humble.

I am more holy than a pious priest

Who wages wars with spiritual beasts,

And says his prayers at night before bed,

And strikes his breast, and bows his head,

For he lacks my great humility,

For I am the most humble.

I am mightier than the greatest king,

President, sultan, or other such thing,

Who leads his country from sin and vice,

Hearing whispers of others’ advice,

And shows the advisor as the man

Who thought up that awesome saving plan;

Such great men are mere pish-pash,

Since I am much more humble.

I am more beautiful than the moon,

Reflected near in a child’s spoon.

For the moon steals from the sun

And from theft his light becomes

The source for light in dark night,

And takes the sun’s greater might

And shoves it in his burning face.

Such things cause my heart to race,

For I know I’m more humble.

So for all those whose hearts descend,

Frowning because I am so grand,

Rest assured when you see me pass,

That you are only next to last,

And that you have been greatly blest

And can tonight in your bed rest,

Because you saw my humble face,

That which God could never replace,

That face of incredible birth,

Of the most humble man on earth.

Past weekend

This has nothing to do with bad news.

So this past weekend was a busy one for me. Do you want to hear about it?

Then go away from this post. Jeeez, some people.

Friday
Friday was the first day of the IHM homeschooling conference. This is typically the day that I go with my mom and dad and spend $100 on books. Well, I didn't spend that much, but I did get to see some Christendomites as well as buy some books:
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Jesus of Nazareth - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Peter the Apostle - William T. Walsh
The Chapel Veil: Symbol of the Spouse - Elizabeth Black and Emily Griswold
Witness to Hope - George Weigel
Some other books too, but I forgot their names.

Saturday
Saturday was the annual Softball tournament for the Archdiocese at my parish. Its for teens only, so I didn't play. Our team did come in second place though, again. I got a chance to talk with some of the adults around, which was very interesting. One of the grandparents of one of the teens wants me to write his life story, he says I have a good grasp of the English language, and that I came from a good Catholic upbringing. My parents were happy about that.

Sunday
Sunday was, as you all know, the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi (unless you only go to Trad Masses, in which case it was the second Sunday after Pentecost. Not as exciting, but you guys had the feast last Thursday. If you couldn't make it, stinks for you). Once again my parish had a Eucharistic procession. There were some differences from the past couple of years. For starters, Fr. PV was in charge, since the previous priest that had run it for the past couple of years had been sent to another parish. He only had us go out to the Marian grotto, where he had set up a table for benedictions, which is where that was held. He had not said the Mass that preceded the procession (the Pastor, Fr. De, said it, but did not attend the procession), but rather came out at the end to bear Our Lord. I was serving, and it was a good thing too, since the only other servers were my brother and another boy, neither of which were assigned to serve. My brother and I were asked to help because of the procession, and the other guy was thrown up there at the last minute. So we were the servers. For the procession I was incensor; that went well. I got to do the incense like we do it at Christendom, which was fun. It went over well.

That was the weekend. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Now another one is around the corner, waiting to be had.

More Good and Bad news

You'll be happy to know that this has nothing to do with Ireland. I know you guys are getting sick of it.

So I had my sister order a 500GB external hard drive for me from Overstock.com, a really good site normally. Well, it came yesterday. I was really excited as I opened the box.
There was the hard drive, light and the size of a book, just as described;
There was the cord that plugs into the computer itself;
There were even little sticky pads to help keep the thing from sliding around on the desk.
Exciting eh? Well, there was one thing missing.
When you have an electronic thing such as an external hard drive, it usually comes with a cord to plug it into a wall. Electronics that require more voltage, such as laptops or hard drives, have 2 parts to their power cords, one part plugs into the electronic piece itself, the other part connects the wall to the adapter, thus to the electronic device. The part that plugs into the hard drive itself was in the shipped box.

The part that plugs into the wall was not. Rather it was one for a different machine. The two parts did not fit together.

So I told Emily she needs to return it, which she is willing to do. But first, I'm gonna search around work to see if we here have anything that works. I'm hoping we do.

I'll keep you updated.

Goodnewsbadnews

Good news/Bad News

Bad: Senator Santorum has pulled himself and his family out of the Ireland trip. They are not going. I don't get to go to Ireland with a senator.

Good: Guess who was first on the waiting list?
Emily, my sister.
I get to go to Ireland with my sister.

That should be fun.

Surreal, for real

Alright, two surreal moments in one day is not fair. You shouldn't get me that excited about something. Alright, first A, then B

A) "Grampa, I have had a letter from Russia. . . " Siobhan shipped out more info on the Ireland trip. So now I have an exciting clump of papers to tell you about, but the real surreal thing involves who is going on the trip.
Now lets see here, ah, here's the list. Alright, now who's going on this thing. Lets see here. I'm only gonna put the names I recognize:
Julian Ahlquist, Matt Bowman, Dr. and Mr. Burns, Fr. Heisler, Nikole Hill, Lisa Hudson, Dr. & Mrs. Keats, Bobby Lancaster, Katherine Melton, Flannery O'Connor, Dr., Mrs., Dubh, & Bridget O'Donnell, Me, Catherine Trojack. . .
And Senator Rick Santorum's entire family. Like there are 8 of them going (blame him if you wanted seats, but were rejected).
So surreal moment #1 is that I'm going to spend 2 weeks in Ireland with Senator Santorum. I think that's pretty darn surreal.

B) So my mom gets the Angelus Press catalog. No, we're not SSPX. They just sell some really good books. They sell, along with works from their own press, other books from other publishers. For example, in the catalog that we received yesterday, there were several Dr. Carroll books in there. Well anyway, so I was flipping around, seeing all the fun books describing why the SSPX is not in schism, and why Archbishop Lefebvre is really a saint, when I stumbled across this short (23 pages) book for $3.25: The Chapel Veil: Symbol of the Spouse. The title wasn't what caught my eye (of all the things traditional Catholics argue for the restoration of, chapel veils is low on my concerned list) but rather the authors, two young women: Elizabeth Black and Emily Griswold.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Um, I believe I know those people. I believe I went to school with them, and Lo! they have a published work. That's pretty surreal, isn't it?

Will it work?

That is the question that arises in the minds of many Catholics as rumors of the Motu Propio that may come out soon(er or later). Will this decree preserve the Church and unite her with those in schism? I'm not gonna lie, I'm in support of the Traditional Mass, but I don't know if the Motu Propio is going to be coming out soon or not.
However, I could be wrong. My good friend Chris, who is Somewhere, has posted on his blog about the Motu Propio quite frequently, most often in the form of copying and pasting the whole article into the post. Well, I'm no better than him, so here's an article from CNA:

Cardinal Bertone announces Latin Mass to be universally authorized “soon”
(http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=9531)

VATICAN CITY, June 4 (CNA) - In an interview published this Sunday by the
Italian Catholic daily “Avvenire”, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, announced that the Motu Propio authorizing the universal
celebration of the Mass of St. Pius V—known as the Tridentine Mass—will be made
public “soon.”

During the interview, Cardinal Bertone, said the Motu Propio that would be
signed by Pope Benedict XVI would authorize any priest to celebrate the
Tridentine Mass without the need for prior approval by the local bishop.

The Vatican secretary of State said Catholics “will not have to wait long” for
the publication of the Motu Propio, adding that the Pope “has written an
accompanying letter that explains the reasons for the decision and why he hopes
the authorization will be calmly accepted.”

Cardinal Bertone did not say whether the Motu Propio would open the possibility
for the return to communion with the Rome of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius
X, founded by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated by the
Vatican on June 30, 1988 after ordaining four bishops without the Pope’s
consent. The cardinal also said the Pope’s letter to Catholics in China would
also be published soon, and that it has “already been approved by the Pope and
is being translated into various languages.

Will this solve all the problems, like fully reuniting the SSPX with the Church of Rome, or bringing back other schismatics? Will it satisfy those people I know at school who would probably rather skip Mass on Sunday than go to a Novus Ordo?

I've decided that later this summer, maybe sooner than later, I will post my Apologetics presentation in defense of the Novus Ordo's validity. Will my comments be outdated by then? Who knows.

Until then, God's will be done.