The Schismatic Six
by Michael Davies
|
In this article, Michael Davies examines the claim made by a conservative priest that at least six dioceses in America are under the control of bishops who are either overtly Modernist or who tolerate Modernism. Mr. Davies considers that the allegation of this priest is amply justified, and can be applied to many dioceses in the USA, and other advanced Western countries. He suggests that conservative priests who wish to uphold the Faith during the present crisis can best do so by offering their help to the apostolate of Archbishop Lefebvre. This judgment is amply confirmed in the articles which follow. They prove that we are indeed in the presence of a schismatic American Church, and that the policy adopted by Archbishop Lefebvre is indeed the only viable means of ensuring that a remnant of true Catholics survive the schism!
|
A mistake which many traditional Catholics make is to confine their reading to traditionalist periodicals. This is not wholly reprehensible, depending upon the periodicals chosen. I hope that all readers of The Angelus also take at least The Remnant, which is the only established traditionalist journal which provides a relatively up-to-date news coverage of events that are of interest to us, and Archbishop Lefebvre has urged us to do all we can to make it more widely known.1
However, the amount of news The Remnant can cover is obviously limited as it appears only fortnightly, and I would suggest supplementing it by the National Catholic Register. As well as providing good news coverage it has many articles and features with which traditionalists will be in sympathy. It will usually be found more effective when we wish to make a point to our non-traditionalist friends if we quote it from the Register rather than The Angelus or The Remnant. Opinions which are not on our wavelength are also expressed in this journal, but, as I have said before, if we refuse to read anything which does not accord with our existing opinion we might just as well read nothing at all.
Those who wish to be really well informed about what is going on in the Church in the U.S.A. today should also subscribe to the Homiletic and Pastoral Review. It is an 80-page monthly journal for priests, but many laymen with an interest in theology also subscribe. It has been established for more than eighty years and probably has the largest circulation of any journal for priests in the English-speaking world.2 Every issue contains a number of very valuable articles, but also one or two which are unlikely to delight us. My favorite feature is the courageous and hard-hitting editorial by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., which appears on page 80 each month. Those who would like a sample copy would do well to send $2 for the December issue which contains the item with which I shall be concerned in this article. It also has a useful article by Alice von Hildebrand which demonstrates that, contrary to the prevailing Liberal consensus, Plato was not "gay," and one by Father Theodore Hall, O.P., lamenting the fact students in Catholic colleges today are "religious illiterates." "So, what's new?" I can imagine many readers asking, "We've known that for years." This is true, but if you wish to convince someone that it is so, perhaps your local pastor, perhaps a friend, perhaps in a letter to a newspaper, perhaps in a call to a radio talk-show, and you are asked: "Who says so?" you can reply: "Fr. Theodore Hall, O.P., S.T.D., says so in the December 1981 issue of the Homiletic and Pastoral Review." And you can then add that there is one Catholic College where the students will not be theologically illiterate, and then put in a plug for St. Mary's College, Kansas. The issue also contains an extremely illuminating (and depressing) analysis of the state of seminary education and the lack of vocations in America by Father Patrick T. Brannan.
But what has prompted me to recommend your investing $2 in the December Homiletic is an article entitled "The Plight of the Papalist Priest," and the related editorial by Father Baker. If you hope to find anything new in it you will be disappointed; what is new is that it appears in the Homiletic. The gist of the article is well summed up in the final three lines of the concluding editorial:
If what the author says is true, is it a sign that an "American Church"—separated and independent of Rome—is just around the corner?
This little quote alone will make it more than worthwhile for you to purchase a copy of the December issue. Have you told your friends, your local pastor, or your bishop, that the way things are going you think that the Catholic Church in America is developing into a schismatic "American Church"? Have they considered you crazy? Well, now when they say: "Who says so?" open a copy of the December Homiletic on p. 80, point to the last three lines, and reply: "Father Keneth Baker, S.J., Editor of the Homiletic and Pastoral Review says so, and here's where he says it!"
The author of the article is a parish priest whose name is not given. Father Baker explains that it is not his normal policy to print unsigned material, but he has accepted the priest's request to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. This, in itself, is an indication of the depths to which the Church in the U.S.A. has sunk (and the same pattern is being followed in other English-speaking countries). A priest like Charles Curran can openly repudiate any and every aspect of Catholic teaching, retain his position as an official teacher of morality in the Catholic University, and be invited as an honored guest to other dioceses to indoctrinate the clergy there (and to other countries—he came to England in August 1981, to bring our clergy "up-to-date"). But if a priest wishes to criticize his bishop for allowing this state of affairs—then, "Slam! Bam! Kapow!!" Let us emphasize the fact that this priest is not a traditionalist, he is not offering the Tridentine Mass or some such heinous offence. Indeed, he goes out of his way to point out that he is not a "Lefebvrist" (though he may well find out that if he wishes to operate as a Catholic priest in the U. S. A. in a few years' time, he will have little option but to become one!). All he and those like him wish to do is to follow the teaching of the Pope; they are, as he puts it, "papist priests." And yet in the U. S. A., in 1981, a priest who wishes to follow the teaching of the Pope, and to complain of bishops who are not doing so, has to put his point of view anonymously for fear of persecution!
The priest in question, I will call him "the Author," explains that he has first-hand knowledge of six American dioceses. He is confident that they are typical of many more. The Author stresses that his case is based on facts obtained from personal experience. He begins by claiming:
For all practical purposes these "control dioceses," as we henceforth refer to them, are dominated by theological Modernism. I would judge that at least two of the Ordinaries (bishops) are themselves willingly Modernists. The true leanings of the other four are harder to discern. Suffice it to say that they have appointed Modernists to all or most of the key positions; they have voiced public praise and support for these officials; they have never—at least publicly—attempted to correct their errors.
I would like the reader to pause here and read through this quotation again, slowly and carefully, reflecting upon precisely what has been alleged. We have heard so many horror stories, and experienced so many horrors, that we are tending to become somewhat blasé, to take these things for granted. Briefly, the Author assures us that he knows from his personal experience that six dioceses in America are no longer Catholic, but have abandoned Catholicism for theological Modernism—described by Pope St. Pius X as "the synthesis of all heresies." Lest anyone should argue that this could not happen, I will cite Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Satis cognitum. In a reference to the divine promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, the Pope writes:
All are agreed that the divine promise must be understood of the Church as a whole, and not any certain parts of it. These can indeed be overcome by the assaults of the powers of hell, as in point of fact has befallen some of them.
Those who have read my book Cranmer's Godly Order will know that during the reign of Henry VIII most of the clergy followed their bishops into schism—not from conviction but from cowardice, or even apathy, and the laity conformed to the same pattern in following the clergy. When everybody's doing it, the safest thing seems to be to do it too! The Author notes a similar pattern in his six control dioceses. He considers that only one-eighth of the priests teach and act fully in accord with the Pope; three-eighths stand in a posture of radical alienation from the papacy; and half the clergy are content to look for the line of least resistance:
About half of the clergy comprise the swing area: a vast mushy no-man's land where the priests will flip-flop wherever and whenever convenience dictates. At present this means conforming to the radical modernist leadership. For some of these men, a nostalgia for Rome surfaces now and then but is quickly submerged. Theirs is the tired refrain: "But this is what the bishop wants and we took a vow of obedience to our bishop."
Thus the average layman living in one of these dioceses will have a pastor who is either an overt Modernist or a mushy-flip-flopper. Even those fortunate enough to have one of the rare papalist priests as their pastor are less fortunate than they may imagine. In this type of diocese, conservative pastors are being systematically and ruthlessly purged. I had lunch with a group of such priests in Kansas City in 1981. And before they are purged, life is made very unpleasant for them. The Author writes:
In his diocesan context the papalist priest is a pariah, the butt of obloquy, of condescending pity, barred from any positions of influence, quarantined to small enclaves, usually isolated rural places where he can do the least "damage."
But the Modernist bureaucracy rarely abandons the attempt to convert, i.e., brainwash the papalist priest. In all six dioceses the Priests' Senate is affiliated to the ultra-radical NFPC (National Federation of Priests Councils), and:
Among the manifold commissions are: "ministry to priests," "continuing education," "justice and peace," etc. These front groups are Senate-appointed and stacked with NFPC types. Hence, invited outside speakers, the itinerant gurus for priestly indoctrination, are consistently dissidents, more or less anti-papal. Priests are urged, at times ordered to attend these harangues at which the bishop sits listening to sundry heresies only to rise at the end to thank and praise the heretic. There are also permanent, on-going structures for intensive "re-education" of the clergy, e.g., Vincent Dwyer's Genesis II.
The most sensitive diocesan offices are in the hands of the Modernists. They are, as was boasted publicly a decade ago, "in lock-tight control" of the religious education establishment. All the staff must be in direct harmony with the director's philosophy. Any papist catechetical books, aids, lectures, etc., are rigidly excluded, in some cases by a list of "disallowed" materials. Only Modernist texts are endorsed. Thus the Index has been revived to destroy the Faith! Diocesan education conventions are brainwashing spectaculars whose roster of speakers and topics are completely predictable.
The one thing for which these contemporary Modernists must be given credit is determination and efficiency. Among the other steps they take to destroy Catholicism in their dioceses, the Author lists:
- staffing liturgical commissions with desacralizing change agents;
- grafting liturgical abuses into regular worship;
- put pressure on pastors to postpone First Confession until after First Communion;
- insist on Communion in the hand for small children;
- compel volunteer CCD teachers to attend brainwashing courses;
- put the diocesan press into Liberal hands;
- feature columns by McBrien, Greeley, Bolser, Curran, et al.;
- force parish priests to feed this poison to their flock by the "full coverage" policy,3
- indoctrinate engaged couples with immoral theology through Family Life offices.
The Author comments with justified bitterness upon the fact that the faithful are compelled to finance the destruction of the Faith by paying for the vast and constantly expanding bureaucracy:
The use of diocesan structures: pastoral councils, parish councils, boards of education at all levels, parish committees (liturgy, especially), as well as the ominous enforcement arm, the personnel board—all these are polypodal tendencies ever sucking, sapping, squeezing and throttling the non-conformists, who must, in turn, extract huge sums from their parishioners to feed the monster.
He also realizes how bleak the future is. He estimates that one-eighth of these contemporary clergy are willing to make a stand for the Faith—and these would be men educated in the pre-conciliar seminaries. It seems unlikely that one-eightieth, or even one-eight-hundredth, of the students being ordained from contemporary seminaries will end up papalists. The Author explains:
To add to our dismay, we realize that the seminaries utilized by our dioceses, some belong to the diocese itself, are now hot beds, seminaria, of Modernism. We send bright-eyed idealist, Catholic youth, into these dens of revolution only to have them come back on vacations and, rarely, for ordination, as programmed anti-papal un-Catholic activists. The few ordained thus build up the youthful base of dissidence far beyond the wildest dreams of the 60's. The only salvation for seminary candidates, unless they can master the art of dissembling, is for the pastor to dissuade them from going . . . Here is a peak of priestly suffering: dissuading a candidate from the seminary in order to save his soul!4
I have quoted sufficiently from the article to make it possible to draw certain general conclusions concerning the state of the Church in the U. S. A. today.
(1) Many (probably most) dioceses are ruled by bishops who are either Modernists or who acquiesce to a Modernist control of their dioceses.
(2) Modernists have a "lock-tight" control of the diocesan bureaucracy.
(3) Priests who are loyal to the Pope have been reduced to a minority of one-eighth of the diocesan clergy.
(4) These priests are isolated, ridiculed, and have no hope of advancement.
(5) Most seminaries are totally Modernist and the students who are ordained are totally programmed Modernists.
(6) Modernist influence is particularly dominant in the fields of liturgy, catechetics, and the diocesan press.
I am sure that most readers of The Angelus will be able to verify this analysis from their own experience. But most serious of all is the fact that, short of an immediate and effective intervention from Rome:
(7) The situation is certain to worsen.
If there is to be a return to orthodoxy within the Church in the U. S. A., it must be episcopally directed. But, deplorable as the present bishops are, their successors are certain to be far worse. Our Author comments:
In Modernist dioceses the papist priest has no chance of being called to effective positions. This is the least of his personal problems, though it dooms the whole diocese to a regime totally alienated from the Holy See. What is pathetic, however, is that given the current practice of prior consultation, there is never a chance that a papist will be voted on for episcopal candidacy by Modernist priests and religious.
We can thus draw two more conclusions:
(8) Many (most) American dioceses are totally alienated from the Holy See.
(9) Given the present process of consultation prior to episcopal appointments there is no possibility of orthodox priests being promoted to the episcopate.
The Author himself recognizes that the only hope of restoration of orthodoxy lies in the appointment of militantly orthodox bishops:
Words of exhortation from Rome will not effect changes so long as the present bishops are in place in the control dioceses. There is simply no way to reform seminaries, religious education offices, marriage tribunals, the diocesan press, liturgical and other abuses, until tough, papally orientated bishops are in position.
This is a judgment with which I heartily concur; but, alas, I see no prospect whatsoever of Rome removing Modernist bishops and appointing Catholic bishops in their place. In April 1980, I wrote an article for The Angelus in which I expressed considerable optimism concerning the present pontiff. This article brought me a good deal of criticism, in some cases even abuse. I could not help forming the impression that some of those who claim to be traditional Catholics would be heartbroken if the Pope succeeded in restoring orthodoxy. I make no apologies concerning this article. The reasons which prompted it amply justified my hopes: the superbly orthodox statements made by the Pope during his visit to the U. S. A., the action taken against Hans Küng, and above all, the Synod of Dutch Bishops. My optimistic assessment of Pope John Paul II was written because I felt it to be the only honest conclusion from the facts. I regret that my optimism has now turned to pessimism. While I am still sure that the Pope himself wishes to restore orthodoxy to the Church, I feel bound to state that his efforts to do so have proved totally ineffective. A priest-friend in Holland, one of the finest theologians in Europe, tells me that his own bishop came back from the Synod, assembled the deans of his diocese, and told them to ignore all the decisions of the Synod as they had been obtained under duress. Since the Synod, the already catastrophic situation of the Church in Holland has deteriorated. It is absolutely certain that, whatever the intentions of Pope John Paul II, the state of the Church has deteriorated gravely in every aspect of her life since he was elected to the papacy. I wish that I did not have to say this, but I do so for the reasons which prompted me to write my article in 1980—a concern for the truth. I know that this conclusion will distress many people; I wish that I could conclude otherwise. If any reader can discover a single instance in which the state of the Church has improved during the present pontificate, I would love to hear of it and would immediately publish it. I will therefore, reluctantly and sadly, draw a tenth conclusion:
(10) There appears to be no hope whatsoever that Rome will take the least step or make the smallest practical gesture apropos Modernist control of the Church in most western countries.
It would be possible to revise this judgment if even a single instance could be cited of Rome upholding the appeal of a "papist priest" against unjust dismissal of his bishop. I know of a number of fine priests who are awaiting the result of their appeal—and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
The Author himself appears resigned to the fact that this situation is likely to continue, which leads us to an eleventh conclusion which really sums up the preceding ten:
(11) There has been an almost total collapse of Authority in the Church in advanced western countries.
What I mean by this is that although orthodox teaching and attempts to curb abuses come from Rome, they are implemented only where the bishops care to do so. Thus, in a country like Poland the Pope's directives are implemented loyally and the Church is thriving, while in a country like Holland, they are totally ignored, and for practical purposes there is no longer a Catholic Church there. In many American dioceses, the Dutch situation is repeated.
What, then, is the conclusion of our Author? It is one which is pessimistic and negative:
If a remedy is not given by corrective action, the papist priest will have no recourse but to meekly and silently retire and live out his life (be it years or decades) without public exercise of his priestly ministry. And why? Simply because in these sorry times he must, in conscience, remain loyal to the Vicar of Christ. He demands the right to believe what the Pope teaches and freely to obey his directives.
Earlier on he had remarked that "papist priests" are "as liberal as the Pope; they are as conservative as the Pope."
With all due respect, I would like to suggest to him that perhaps he is not looking at the current crisis and his duty as a priest from entirely the correct perspective. I cannot accept that the vocation of a Catholic priest amounts to no more than obeying papal directives. The mission of the Church is, as Pope Leo XIII taught in his Encyclical, Satis Cognitum, the same mandate which Christ had received from the Father: "to save that which had perished, that is to say, not some nations or peoples, but the whole human race without distinction of time and place." This is the reason for a principle soundly established within the Church—that the salvation of souls is the supreme law. Under normal circumstances a priest can be certain that he is fulfilling the law simply by conforming to papal directives—but we are not living under normal circumstances. Nor is the situation unprecedented. What would our Author have done during the pontificate of Pope Liberius who signed an ambiguous semi-Arian formula and excommunicated St. Athanasius whose only crime was that, like Archbishop Lefebvre, he was trying to uphold the traditional faith in the face of an almost universal apostacy? Following the principle I have just cited, St. Athanasius fulfilled his vocation as a Catholic bishop to save souls and uphold the faith, even ordaining priests in the dioceses of other bishops to ensure the continuing existence of an orthodox Catholic priesthood. The condition of the Church during the pontificate of Pope Liberius is explained in Appendix I to my book Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre. True Catholic priests then certainly suffered the ostracism and persecution to which our Author refers in his article. St. Basil remarked: "Only one offense is now vigorously punished—an accurate observance of our father's traditions." I wonder how our Author would have reacted to the Arian crisis? Would he have accepted and promoted the first formula of Sirmium (351) because the Pope had signed it? Would he have boasted that he was not an "Athanasianist," and warned his flock against supporting the great saint? Would he have considered himself faithful to the supreme law of the salvation of souls simply by retiring and living out his life "without public exercise of his priestly ministry?"
There can even be a time when a faithful Catholic must disobey papal directives in order to observe the supreme law of the salvation of souls. In Appendix II to the Apologia, I tell the story of Bishop Grosseteste who, in the thirteenth century, refused a perfectly legal directive of Pope Innocent IV to appoint one of his nephews to a canonry in Lincoln Cathedral. The Pope's object was simply to provide an income for a relative who had no intention of ever coming to England. One historian has described the bishop as a "fervent and thoroughgoing papalist," but his grasp of theology and concern for souls was such that he appreciated that Catholicism consists of more than obeying papal directives:
But God forbid, God forbid that this most Holy See and those who preside in it, who are commonly to be obeyed in all their commands, by commanding anything contrary to Christ's precepts and will, should be the cause of a falling away. God forbid that to any who are truly united to Christ, not willing to go in any way against His will, this See and those who preside in it should be a cause of falling away or apparent schism, by commanding men to do what is opposed to Christ's will.
I am not suggesting that Pope John Paul II is "commanding anything contrary to Christ's precepts and will," but there is certainly a great falling away and a real (not apparent) schism in the Church today. Diocesan bishops are frequently promoting or condoning this schism; they persecute priests who try to uphold orthodoxy; and there are no effective actions taken by the Pope to reverse this trend—directives, perhaps, but directives without action to enforce them contribute nothing towards the salvation of souls. I would, then, ask our Author, and other good priests who think like him, whether they have a right to react to the contemporary crisis by what can only be described as "opting out"? They will be able to fortify themselves with a dignified and reverent private Mass each day—but what of their flocks, abandoned to Modernist hirelings? For, make no mistake about it, this is just what our "papist priest" is proposing.
We pray that our beloved Holy Father will somehow find a way to enable us to survive and to illuminate us as to precisely what he wants us to do.
I would beg him to reflect upon the present situation and consider exactly where his duty lies in the present crisis. Is it not to do all in his power to save souls rather than wait for papal directives that may never come? One solution is to adopt the policy followed by St. Athanasius, and followed today by Archbishop Lefebvre, of adhering faithfully to the traditions of our fathers and ministering to the hundreds of thousands of troubled Catholics who find it a moral impossibility to participate in the trite and sometimes sacrilegious liturgies which have become the norm in so many of our churches today, or to send their children to schools where they will not only fail to receive a sound Catholic education, but may be taught heresy and subjected to the corrupting influence of secularist sex-education programs.
The first step any "papist priest" prepared to contemplate such a step should take is to contact Fr. Hector Bolduc, Superior of the South-West District of the Society of St. Pius X.5 Father Bolduc will then explain to him precisely what helping the Society in its apostolate would entail. I am sure that "papist priests" would find that it entailed nothing which is not justified by sound theological and canonical principles. As regards the teaching of faith and morals, there would clearly be no problem; all that would be required is adherence to the traditional teaching which, in many cases, has been reiterated by Pope John Paul II. He would not be required to criticize the Pope, let alone repudiate him. He would be required to use the traditional sacramental rites of the Church. He may have heard of priests in the Society adopting untenable positions; the Archbishop has already expelled some for doing so, but he would certainly find that Father Bolduc would repudiate such un-Catholic fantasies, which, to the best of my knowledge, have never been endorsed by a single theologian of repute anywhere in the English-speaking world. Nor would a "papist priest" be required to join the Society, he could simply co-operate with it. I know one English priest who took this step a few months ago after years of prayer and reflection. He tells that his priestly life is a joy for him once more, and that his only regret is that he did not take the step much sooner.
It is likely that the decision to revert to the Tridentine Mass would be the most difficult decision a "papist priest" would have to make in offering his help to the Society. Would he not be directly disobeying the Pope? My answer to this is that a very strong canonical case can be made for the proposition that every priest of the Roman Rite is entitled to offer the Tridentine Mass in public, and the faithful have the right to be present.6 But under the present circumstances I would also claim that the principle of epikeia could be applied. In order to explain this I will quote from an interview which I gave to Paul Hallett, certainly one of the most respected lay-journalists writing in the Catholic Press in the U. S. A. today. It was printed in the "Dialogue" feature in the National Catholic Register of 11 October 1981. The extracts I quote here have been abbreviated slightly:
P.H. Are you saying, then, that some traditionalists want the Tridentine Mass because what they would otherwise have to accept would be much worse than their resistance to Church authority?
M.D. The situation is complex. Catholics have not had to face it before, at least since the Arian heresy. So the traditional rules are not always adequate for formulating the most effective response to the present crisis. I would say also that for tens of thousands of Catholics in the U.S.A it has become a moral impossiblity for them to attend Mass in their parish churches where they find the Mass celebrated in a manner they find abhorent. Thus the only choice these Catholics have is between attending a Tridentine Mass without the approval of Church authority or not going to Mass at all.7
P.H. In other words you justify attendance at Tridentine Masses on the principle of what is called in moral theology, epikeia, or equity, which assumes that in cases of human—not divine—law, the lawgiver would not prohibit a certain action if he knew all the circumstances in a concrete situation which are said to make the observance of the law impossible.
I will end by repeating the eleven propositions I have already put forward, the first nine of which are conclusions based upon the Author's personal experience of the Church in the U.S.A. Number (10) and (11) are based partly upon his article, and partly upon my own assessment of the state of the Church in advanced Western countries.
(1) Many (probably most) dioceses are ruled by bishops who are either Modernists or who acquiesce to a Modernist control of their diocese.
(2) Modernists have a "lock-tight control" of the diocesan bureaucracy.
(3) Priests who are loyal to the Pope have been reduced to a minority of one-eighth of the diocesan clergy.
(4) These priests are isolated, ridiculed, and have no hope of advancement.
(5) Most seminaries are totally Modernist and the students who are ordained are totally programmed Modernists.
(6) Modernist influence is particularly dominant in the fields of liturgy, catechetics, and the diocesan press.
(7) The situation is certain to worsen.
(8) Many (most) American dioceses are totally alienated from the Holy See.
(9) Given the present process of consultation prior to episcopal appointments, there is no possibility of orthodox priests being promoted to the episcopate.
(10) There appears to be no hope whatsoever that Rome will take the least step or make the smallest practical gesture apropos Modernist control of the Church in most western countries.
(11) There has been an almost total collapse of Authority in the Church.
If these conclusions are accurate, and it is our Author himself who assures us that they are, then it is such a devastating indictment of the post-conciliar Church that our first impulse must be to emulate the Jews who sat down and wept by the waters of Babylon when they remembered what once had been. But Sion was restored. The Church must one day be restored, and it is our duty to help restore her in however humble and limited a way. In order to achieve this end I hope that any priest who feels that he can no longer in conscience exercise his ministry within the official structures of the post-conciliar Church will at least consider participating in Archbishop Lefebvre's apostolate of building up a faithful Remnant, true to Tradition, so that when the present Pope or one of his successors is able to take effective steps to restore orthodoxy, there will be at least some group of true Catholics remaining in the U. S. A. who can give him their support.
1. Available from the Editor at 2539 Morrison Avenue, St. Paul, Minn., 55117, at $7 per year.
2. Available from the Editor at 86 Riverside Dr. New York, NY 10024, $18 yearly, $2 per copy.
3. Pastors must take a copy of the diocesan paper for every Mass-going family and pay for those which are not sold from parish funds.
4. This allegation is fully substantiated in the article by Fr. P. T. Brannan in the same issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review.
5. Father Bolduc may be reached by writing to St. Mary's College, P. O. Drawer 159, St. Marys, KS 66536, or calling (913) 437-6511.
6. A pamphlet by Mr. Davies entitled The Legal Status of the Tridentine Mass is available from The Angelus Press, Box 1187, Dickinson, TX 77539, at $1.00.
7. I could also have mentioned the option of attending a Catholic Eastern rite Mass, but these are often unavailable.
Oremus
|
O God, Who for the overthrowing of the enemies of Thy Church, and for the restoring of the beauty of Thy worship, didst choose blessed Pius as supreme Pontiff; grant that we may be defended by his patronage and so cleave unto Thy service, that overcoming all the snares of our enemies, we may rejoice in Thy eternal peace. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who is God, and liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen. Collect for the Feast of St. Pius V |
Current Issue
