Many of you will recall the foolishness of the “What if we just said ‘wait’?” petition. For those of you who don’t, it was a pathetic cry of progressive “liturgists” and “lay ministers” (not to mention disobedient priests and religious) denouncing the reform of the Roman Missal. Well, now we have an accurate translation which will, in spite of their pouting, be implemented this coming November.

There is, however, another petition which you are mightily encouraged to sign. Before we get into that, I should give you some background on what’s going on.

Early in his pontificate, Pope Benedict issued the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum which lifted any and all restrictions on the liturgical practices of the pre-Conciliar Church. This meant that priests and seminarians (and lay people) could now recite the Divine Office instead or in addition to the Liturgy of the Hours. It also meant that no bishop has the power to deny his flock a Mass in the Extraordinary Form should they desire it. This extended to all aspects of pre-Vatican II liturgy, including marriages, baptisms, ordinations, confirmations, etc. Since that time, there has been a rapid and profound flourishing of traditional liturgy all across the globe.

However, there are elements at work who seek to restrict the impact of Summorum Pontificum. The primary castration of Pope Benedict’s beautiful idea of “mutual enrichment” is the ban on priestly ordinations in the Extraordinary Form. There are, of course, logical exceptions, such as the ordinations of the FSSP, the Institute of Christ the King, possibly St. John Cantius in Chicago, and other orders and apostolates devoted to traditional liturgy. There are a handful of bishops nationwide who have stressed to their seminarians that they ought to be bi-ritual. In other words, they should be able and willing to offer Mass in either the Ordinary (Novus Ordo) Form or the Extraordinary (Traditional Latin Mass) Form. Many of these bishops celebrated their seminarians’ ordinations in the Extraordinary Form, something which will now be banned for diocesan bishops unless they receive direct permission from Pope Benedict himself.

Those who are issuing this ammendment to the motu proprio say that they do so to better define it. Perhaps they are telling the truth. After all, it will not be released until the 22nd of this month. However, in the meantime, a petition has been started to ask Pope Benedict to defend his original document, and not permit the Church to be subjected to this backsliding. Sign your name to the petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/motuproprioappeal/

The bulk of Summorum Pontificum will be untouched. The liturgical renewal and the reform of the reform will, God-willing, continue. However, we mustn’t be complacent about this. Pray and labor for the sake of the liturgy, in both of its forms, that, no matter what language or what rite, or what “form,” the Mass may always be a fitting sacrifice to God.

Below is a video showing (from a Hollywood production) ordination in the Extraordinary Form.

Tags: Latin Mass, Liturgy, Pope Benedict

This entry was posted on Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 2:36 PM . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.