Monthly Archives: April 2020

US cardinal dismisses prayer power during pandemic: We can’t just pray and think things will change

We have to wonder why he beats this drum in this way at this time. It’s a harsh way to put down foolishness. Does he know of Catholics who dismiss self-help and ignore danger for the sake of magical prayer? Is this how he sees the day’s challenges?

It’s as if he sees his role as designated apologizer for the supernatural, front man for an organization eager for majority support. A little nuance might work better. It’s unseemly for him to appear so eager to cater to the suspicious or uninformed.

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Blithe Spirit

We have to wonder why he beats this drum in this way at this time. It’s a harsh way to put down foolishness. Does he know of Catholics who dismiss self-help and ignore danger for the sake of magical prayer? Is this how he sees the day’s challenges?

It’s as if he sees his role as designated apologizer for the supernatural, front man for an organization eager for majority support. A little nuance might work better. It’s unseemly for him to appear so eager to cater to the suspicious or uninformed.

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The Last Mass of Paul VI: An Autumn Night’s Dream

The Last Mass of Paul VI: An Autumn Night’s Dream

By Tito Casini, severe critic of post-Vatican 2 changes.

Dom Alcuin Reid:

In 1967, [Casini’s] “provocative tract” La tunica stracciata (“The Torn Tunic”), with a preface by a curial cardinal, virulently took to task the cardinal charged with implementing the reform, Giacomo Lercaro, for ‘a perverted application [of the council] detested alike by Catholics and non-Catholics, believers and unbelievers, in the name of piety, unity, concord, art, poetry and beauty.’

­Lercaro’s adept secretary, Fr. ­Annibale ­Bugnini, would describe Casini’s work as ‘defamatory . . . a poisonous attack on . . . and on . . . renewal generally.”

more more more on this key aspect of post-council changes . . .

Fr. Rutler’s parish in Manhattan

What’s going on, special attn. to final sentence:

HOLY WEEK

Due to the current pandemic, the Archdiocese has directed that there be no public Liturgies. The Masses of Holy Week will be offered in abbreviated form by Father Rutler.

On Palm Sunday, April 5, there will be no distribution of palms, but they will be blessed for possible future use. While Masses of the Triduum cannot be transferred, the Chrism Mass, normally celebrated in the Cathedral, will be translated to later in the year.

The last sentence/notation:

In these days, we pray especially for the soldiers, staff and patients in the emergency field hospital at the Javits Center, which is in our parish, and which Father Rutler is serving as chaplain.

Let us pray for him and his people.

On dishonest defence of post-Vatican 2 sweeping liturgical changes

By the learned and articulate Fr. Hunwicke.

The claim, explicit or implicit, that these things were ‘ordered by the Council’, is a wantonly and grossly mendacious retrojection. It bears the finger-prints of the Father of Lies himself. Most of the Council Fathers expected a very much more modest reform. That is why only four voted against the draft decree. The Fathers certainly did not anticipate the displacement, however optional, of the Roman Canon — a move which is not even hinted at in the Decree.

Sock-em bust-em.