Thanks to Jim R for alerting us to this:
The Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul in Providence, Rhode Island, held a Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form this past Sunday. This Mass was requested by Bishop Thomas Tobin as one of the events to commemorate the church’s 125th anniversary, and was the first Solemn Pontifical Mass held there since 1968. The celebrant was His Excellency Salvatore Matano, Bishop of Rochester, New York, assisted by clergy of the diocese of Providence…
|What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.
WOW! AMAZING! Pope Benedict, in his Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, expressed the hope that the Extraordinary Form would also influence the celebration of the Ordinary Form. Bishop Matano’s celebration of the Extraordinary Form gives great hope that the Ordinary Form’s celebration in our diocese will enhanced and, in some cases, resacralized.
As you can tell from the pictures, the Cathedral in Providence is a beautiful, large Neo-Gothic building that has suffered some tasteless wreckovation. However, the beauty of Partick Keely’s design still shines through. (Keely was the architect for the cathedrals in Boston, Albany and Chicago, inter alia.) I mention this to you so you remain hopeful despite the problems with the wreckovation in Rochester…and that the beauty of the Mass properly done, especially in the EF, trumps any lack of taste or wreckovation no matter how poor.
Bishop Matano is the real deal: orthodox, pastoral, self-effacing, and just a plain nice guy. Mazel tov! You deserve him in Rochester.
More pictures at this blog
http://www.ipadre.net/pontifical-solemn-high-mass/nggallery/slideshow