New Book: From Benedict's Peace to Francis's War: Catholics Respond to Traditionis Custodes

A new book from Angelico Press, which includes short pieces by me, and by many very distinguished people as well! Get it from Amazon.co.uk or Angelico direct.

From Benedict’s Peace to Francis’s War: Catholics Respond to the Motu Proprio Traditiones Custodes on the Latin Mass 

Edited by PETER A. KWASNIEWSKI 

406 pages Paper (ISBN 978-1-62138-786-2): $22.95 / £18.00 

Cloth (ISBN 978-1-62138-787-9 ): $32.00 / £24.50 

An anthology of essays and articles by prelates and pastors, theologians and canonists, philosophers and cultural figures—including:  Cardinal Walter Brandmüller • Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke 

Cardinal Gerhard Müller • Cardinal Robert Sarah 

Cardinal Joseph Zen • Archbishop Thomas Gullickson 

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò • Bishop Rob Mutsaerts 

Bishop Athanasius Schneider • Msgr. Charles Pope 

Dom Alcuin Reid • Abbé Claude Barthe 

Fr. John Hunwicke • Michael Brendan Dougherty 

Ross Douthat • Edward Feser • Michael Fiedrowicz 

Peter A. Kwasniewski • Phil Lawler • Martin Mosebach 

George Neumayr • Joseph Shaw • and many others 

 Already on July 16, 2021, the reactions to Pope Francis’s severe restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass in Traditionis Custodes were like a river in full flood: articles, essays, interviews, podcasts—everywhere and from every point of view. An emotional, spiritual, intellectual dam had broken and the waters of discourse poured forth across the world. The sheer volume of writing occasioned by ­Traditionis Custodes is unlike anything seen in the history of papal documents—testimony to a neuralgic subject on which arguments proliferate and passions run high. The two-month period following the release of the motu proprio gave proof that the traditionalist movement was no fringe phenomenon, but something that had gained significant strength and sympathy during the relatively peaceful years from 2007 to 2021 (the “Pax Benedictina” to which the book’s title refers). The purpose of this volume is to gather in one convenient place some of the finest and most appreciated essays and articles published in the period from mid-July through September of this fateful year, 2021—not only from America and England (although these predominate), but also from other nations: France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Poland, Kazakhstan, and China. This book is not, and makes no pretense of being, a presentation of “both sides of the argument.” It offers a variety of critiques of this profoundly unwise and unpastoral decree, which suffers from incoherent doctrinal foundations, grave moral and juridical defects, and impossible ecclesiological implications.

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Interview with InfoCatolica

Procession to St Peters at the 2019 Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage, Rome

The following interview with me has been published, in Spanish translation, on InfoCatolica. This is the English original.

1.       What does it mean to be president of the International Federation Una Voce?

 

The Federation an an umbrella group for lay Catholics attached to the ancient Latin liturgy of the Catholic Church. We do not exercise authority over our members, but they come to us for advice, and we represent their concerns in the Holy See and in the world-wide media.

The Federation’s members elect a Council, currently about 20 people from all over the world, and a President; the Council elects the Treasurer and Secretary and allocates other tasks to its members. Because of the geographical spread of councillors, we communicate mainly by email and have instituted regular Zoom meetings.

The President, generally with a colleague or two, usually travels to Rome once a year to meet Curial officials, clergy, journalists, and others, to keep up with what is going on. As Secretary I have been involved in such trips for some years, and it has been very interesting. As well as concrete information, one gets a feeling for the assumptions and habits of mind which govern the Holy See. This insight is reflected in the way we carry out all our work: whether we want to appeal to these assumptions in our representations to the Holy See, or to modify them, one needs to know what they are.

Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage: 29-31 October

I will be there! The Latin Mass Society is part of the organising board for the pilgrimage.

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The Last Rites and the Emergency Services

My latest on the Voice of the Family Bulletin.

As the United Kingdom has secularised, so the role of Christian ministers has diminished. If you read stories of natural crises from fifty years ago, priests and Anglican vicars are often involved. At the 1966 disaster at Aberfan in Wales, when a heap of spoil from a coal mine engulfed a school, the local vicar was practically the only person regarded as having responsibility for the emotional and spiritual trauma suffered by the people of the town. One of the most memorable images from the “troubles” of Northern Ireland is of a Catholic priest waving a white handkerchief, escorting a group of people carrying an injured man to safety, on “Bloody Sunday” in 1972. Times, sadly, have changed.

As the role of the Church has diminished, so have priests’ opportunities to make a positive difference. Last week a prominent Catholic Member of Parliament, David Amess, was stabbed by (apparently) an Islamist fanatic. As he lay dying, a Catholic priest was refused admission through the police cordon to give him the Last Rites. The priest seemed to accept the explanation: Amess, surrounded as he was by police officers and medics, was in a “crime scene” which couldn’t be disturbed by anyone as trivial as a priest.

Read the whole thing there.

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LMS Oxford Pilgrimage: photos

This pilgrimage was initiated by me as the Local Representative for Oxford of the Latin Mass Society back in 2005. It honours two batches of martyrs: four in 1589, who died on the Town Gallows, and another in 1610, on the Castle Gallows. After Mass we have a procession to one of the two sites of martyrdom: both are (thanks to our efforts) marked with plaques naming the martyrs which have been blessed, by Archbishop Longley (in the Castle) and by his auxiliary bishop Bishop Kenney (the site of the Town Gallows).

The Epistle

In recent years the Mass has been a High Mass in the Dominican Rite in Blackfrairs. This year was the turn of the procession to the Town Gallows. Fr David Rocks was celebrant with Br Matthew Heyene and Br Albert Robertson as deacon and subdeacon; Fr David led the procession.

LMS Pilgrimage in honour of the Chideock martyrs

Chideock, near Dorchester in Dorset, has several Catholic martyrs associated with it: it was throughout penal times a recusant Catholic house with a chaplain who ministered to the local faithful. There were martyrdoms in 1587, 1588 (a martyr in chains); in 1594, and in 1649: more details here.

The Traditional Mass and Diversity

Venerating Our Lady of Walsingham at the end of the
LMS Walking Pilgrimage in August this year.

My latest on 1Peter5

In a recent article in the Illinois Times, Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia, is quoted as follows, of a specific Traditional Mass location:

It’s not an accident that all of these Catholics at the old Mass are white, because one of the things that happened after Vatican II was an ‘inculturation’ of the liturgy. …The Latin Mass is white and European by its definition, because it’s a product of the Catholic Church of the 16th century. So, this is creating serious problems because it is never limited to the liturgy only, but it is always the first step to saying Vatican II was a disaster.

I would far rather ignore these childish accusations, but I fear that if they are repeated frequently enough without rebuttal they will become established as part of the liberal narrative about the Traditional Latin Mass. But in order to shoe-horn the movement for the ancient Mass into the role of the bad guys in some racially-charged political confrontation, Faggioli needs to distort the past and ignore the present. Let’s start with the past.

Read the whole thing there.

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