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Saturday 23 January 2016

To all Catholic Priests and Faithful: The Case of two Bishops - Bishop Morlino and Archbishop/Cardinal Bergoglio - Which one is more faithful? Which one is more obedient? Where is real humility?

The dust has not settled yet, nor shall it, over the Bishop of Rome's unwise and imprudent change to the rubric of the ritual of the Washing of the Feet on Holy Thursday. Make no mistake, as Bishop or Rome, Jorge Bergoglio has the legal right to make this change, he does not have the moral right. In order to do it, he took it upon himself to redefine the meaning of the ritual. Had Benedict XVI or John Paul II acted in such an arbitrary manner with no respect for the curial process or the blessed post-Vatican II collegiality, there would have been literal hell to pay.  

Priests harassed

To all priests who have for five, ten, twenty, even forty years or more have resisted the feminist ideology and held firm to the rubric, viri selecti, thank you. I have had conversations with a few in the last two days. There is distress and frustration. You have been obedient to the Law of the Church and you were insulted for it by busy-body parishioners, liturgical terrorists and brother priests. You've been placed on the "B-Team" or worse. You've been shuffled off to the far reaches of the Diocese. You've been insulted by your flock.


You did it for Christ!

Your obedience and faithfulness to the liturgy was much more meritorious and will be more fruitful than you can imagine even now. You did the right thing. Fathers, do the right thing still. Do not wash the feet of women. Option it out!


St. Ignatius of Loyola said, 

"A precious crown is reserved in heaven for those who perform all their actions with all the diligence of which they are capable; for it is not sufficient to do our part well; it must be done more than well."
Focus on the Eucharist and Priesthood

Fathers, dispensing with this para-liturgy gives you a golden opportunity. You can take the ten minutes this would take and add it to your homily. Focus more on the Holy Eucharist and the priesthood. 

A call to the Catholic laity

Support your priest to option it out. Do not harass him to do it. Support his decision and admonish those of your fellow parishioners who would harass him for not washing feet. It is a ritual which should never have been put into the Mass to begin with. This was an inevitable as the culture changed and the Church sold out to the world.

The Pope's decision was his to make, it was wrong

The Bishop of Rome has done what he has. It was a bad decision. It was imprudent and it codified disobedience. It legalised his own dissent. It will produce no good. No decision should be made by the Pope without it being a benefit for the salvation of souls. This will save not one soul. There is not good to come from this. It was a political decision. It was a pandering to special interests. Never before has a Pope with such arrogance and lack of consult made such a decision. It seems minor, one little liturgical act on one night of the year, but the implication is much, much greater. 


Comments from Bishops

Not many bishops have commented yet. The Bishop of Madison. Robert C. Morlino, has released an official statement including sound advise to the priests which includes,  the option to "omit the ritual of the washing of the feet altogether." 



When Pope Francis was elected in March 2013, we know that he immediately proceeded that week and again for the next two years, to dispense with liturgical law by washing the feet of women and in fact, non-Christians on Holy Thursday. If Francis really wanted to demonstrate charity, he could have picked any of the other 364 days or nights of the year to do it. It was a media circus - a religious ritual of deep significance turned into a spectacle of false humility.

In my column on this unfortunate decision, which I believe a future Pope will abrogate, I used a photograph. I republish it along with others from the time when he was Archbishop or Cardinal of Buenos Aires to illustrate a point and to show the contrast between two bishops.


Tell me, who is obedient?


Who is truly humble?


The one who obeys and allows for the Law's escape, such as St. Thomas More would have done and optioned it out, or the one who flouts the Law and decides that he knows better?

Who is truly humble and who is displaying narcissism, arrogance, egotism and pride.



 





So there you have it. Three photographs from the time where Jorge Bergoglio was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. An Ordinary. Just as Bishop Morlino. Yet, Bishop Morlino will follow the Law, whilst taking full advantage of its liberality, no doubt and Bergoglio broke it. 


Morlino obedient. Bergoglio, dissident


One more thing. Why can he grovel on the floor to wash feet, but he cannot genuflect to the WORD MADE FLESH truly present on the Altar under the elements of Bread and Wine which have become the WORD's Body and Blood?


Will this be the next rubric he will change?


Rumour has it that March 19, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, will be the day that he will release his Apostolic Exhortation on the Family. Dates are important to some people.



St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, 
Protector of the Holy Family and 
Patron of a Holy Death, 
Intercede for us.

19 comments:

Barona said...

This is simply a brilliant post. Thank-you Vox for articulating so many of our concerns. Thank-you for pointing out the lawlessness in the Church. I recall a number of years ago how Mgr. Vincent Foy told me that though the Church has a Law, it is not used, applied and that we are in a near state of lawlessness.

I agree that so many priests will now feel a monstrous pressure from the neo-modernists. Priests must refuse this innovation. No good ever comes from evil. Even if the change was good (which it is not) no good could come from it, for the biblical principle applies: you cannot do evil that good can come from it.

Catholics should not that this "pastoral" change follows the near exact same imposition of the horror of Holy Communion in the hand.

Fr. Conrad Saldanha said...

Let more and more people write and express. We have reached a new low in the church. Bergoglio has no respect for church law, He first breaks it with impunity and then justifies it and imposes as a rule on others, with a freedom that the liturgy always promised.

The rite is not just liturgical but scriptural and has a rich meaning in the light of various important doctrines of the church, be it the Canon of Scripture, Proclamation of the word, Canon Law, Liturgy, Sacraments, role of women, etc. It's time that the faithful Cardinals and bishops begin to wash the Pope's feet and each other's feet in the light of the true meaning of this ceremony: Read: https://frconrad.wordpress.com/pope-francis-a-closed-letter-now-open/

Anonymous said...

I don't understand, my dear friend Vox, why you restlessly persecute Bergoglio. He has stated many times that you aren't part of the target audience of his reforms. You can keep your addiction to the old forms insofar as you let the youth alone.

Why do you care? If you is able to find a priest to perform the extreme unction for you, it's not much ahead of your time, what Bergoglio does isn't of your business.

A little more time and SSPX won't be a feasible option, my friend. Fellay is a very fella friend of Bergoglio.

Frustrated Jim said...

"There is not good to come from this. It was a political decision. It was a pandering to special interests." Exactly correct!

A priest of our diocese, upon hearing about the Pope's decision, launched into a predictable (progressivist) tirade about the "exclusion of women from the rite" and proceeded to verbally jump up and down like a giddy schoolgirl now that justice has been supposedly served.

In a recent exchange, I pointed out the orientation of the rite to the sacerdotal priesthood and the nature of the event in the Upper Room among Christ and the Apostles. That position was summarily dismissed by a feelings over fact diatribe bordering on the inane. It seems that, in our diocese, history, Tradition and theological precision, not to mention intellectual rigour, are once again being tossed in the trash bin.

It is not particularly pleasant being a lone advocate for Tradition on a diocesan committee populated in large part by a cadre of 1970s dinosaurs who are, each in their own way, enamoured in their propensity to elevate innovation and rupture to the level of papal decree. Unfortunately, Pope Francis has enabled said dinosaurs to behave as if the 1970s have returned.

Vox Cantoris said...

My Dear Anonymous friend at 11:00,

I told you before, you bore me. Why don't you find the parts between your legs, except you probably don't have their masculine effect, to contact me privately so we can have a little head to head.

Be gone, otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 11:00 am, January 23, 2016

why do you desire the death of so many young souls? Why do you want to allow this destruction taking place from Rome?


Vox, don't ask me why, but March 19th came into my mind some time ago, as a special date for reforms or announcements (Bergoglio chooses significant dates for Catholicism to do something against it, as he did on Dec 8).

Anonymous said...

I can't do it, my dear friend Vox. A head to head conversation would be disrespectful to an older man. Very older man.

And you don't identify yourself, right? Why should I?

Let Bergoglio alone, my friend. If he likes trannies, who cares? The Catholic Church is full of men who like other men and boys, anyway. He is only doing the things more transparent.

I like Bergoglio. He amuses me, very much. His enemies much more!

Don't let your liver to explode by such an excessive angry. I assume that yours still works, of course!

Remember: it's not me who is boring you. It's your mythic Church exploding like a balloon before your eyes, which is boring you.

Anonymous said...

Your term, "spectacle of false humility" seems to describe well this ritual act which seems to bring inordinate attention to the priest and serves as a distraction from the more important focus of Our Lord's gifts to His Church of the priesthood and the Eucharist. I have long excluded this from my Holy Thursday liturgy which with the procession and reposition of the Blessed Sacrament at the end makes for a full liturgy as it is. While the novelty seekers may be annoyed I think the faithful in the pews are appreciative.

DJR said...

Remember: it's not me who is boring you. It's your mythic Church exploding like a balloon before your eyes, which is boring you.

The "mythic Church" is not going to explode. It will remain intact, albeit reduced in number.

Although there are tremendous problems in the Church, the Church is still here and still functioning. That's not going to change.

If you don't realize that, then obviously you don't know what is happening in the world.

Anonymous said...

Vox,

I don't doubt your love of Christ or your love for the liturgy for a second. But please... Relax!

The proper response is one that is tempered with charity and proportional to the seriousness of the situation.

Do you not think that this situation calls for an acknowledgement of the Pope's magisterial authority followed by some kind of submission of mind and will? Or at minimum, a good hard prayerful look at Donum Veritatis?

Your last post on the mandatum... the one where you threatened to abandon all works in the OF. It's straight up crazy.

DJR said...

Anonymous said... Do you not think that this situation calls for an acknowledgement of the Pope's magisterial authority followed by some kind of submission of mind and will? Or at minimum, a good hard prayerful look at Donum Veritatis?

Did the situation not call for that very same acknowledgment and submission on the part of then cardinal Jorge Bergoglio when he was acting in disobedience to the rubrics kept in place by Saint Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI for the 20 years before he was pope?

If priests, bishops, and cardinals can disobey directives, give bad example to other clergy and laity alike, and refuse submission of mind and will to rubrics kept in place by popes, I don't see why Vox should feel any special inclination to act differently.

This pope apparently never cared about certain "rules." Why should anyone else?

Why should anyone obey him, when he himself was not obedient?

Anonymous said...

Relax Vox and take a chill pill, such hysteria does little to advance the TLM. Get a woman to wash your feet in a basin of warm scented water and you'll be fine.
Ranting on about this Pope is counterproductive and makes one's supposed regard for the 'Mass of the Ages' seem suspect.
Be glad he hasn't used his power (which he is entitled to do) to insert washing ladies feet into TLM.

Vox Cantoris said...

This blog is about a lot more than the TLM. Thanks for your concern.

Anonymous said...

The Pope washing peoples feet is of no benefit what so ever to the Laity .Its highly symbolic when the feet of seminarians are washed .
Christ did not wash peoples feet ,he washed the feet of the Men chosen to be his Priests,obviously Pope Francis feels Christ's act was lacking something,and he must improve it,which is outrageous pride ,masquerading as humility.

Mark Thomas said...

DJR said..."This pope apparently never cared about certain "rules." Why should anyone else? Why should anyone obey him, when he himself was not obedient?"

DJR, each of us is called to do the right thing. We are responsible for our actions. Whatever our future Pope Francis had done in Argentina in regard to the discussion at hand does not entitle another person to break the "rules" of the Church. Just because somebody else may have been a poor example in this or that way does not entitle us follow suit.

During Mass on Holy Thursday, a Roman Rite priest (Novus Ordo) has the option to wash the feet of women. His Holiness Pope Francis has not decreed that a priest must do so.

A priest is free to opt out of the ceremony in question. He may include women in the ritual in question. Pope Francis has not forced any priest to wash the feet of women on Holy Thursday. A priest has options on Holy Thursday in regard to the foot-washing ritual.

Anyway...whatever the future Pope Francis may have done in Argentina each Holy Thursday does not grant us the right to break Church "rules".

Pax.

Mark Thomas

DJR said...

Mark Thomas said... Anyway...whatever the future Pope Francis may have done in Argentina each Holy Thursday does not grant us the right to break Church "rules".

I agree with you. The pope, however, does not agree with you.

Anonymous said...

For a comical diversion, this topic is brilliantly addressed in an article on "foot washing and pedicures" over at EOTT.

Anonymous said...

This pope is a positive festival of "narcissism, arrogance, egotism and pride." I was very alarmed when he did his "god of surprises" talk about a week ago, and then I was almost relieved when it turned out only to be this stupid thing - which shouldn't be in the Mass in the first place, can be easily reversed, and was already being done by Bergoglio and his followers anyway.

But now he has announced that he's going to go to Sweden in October to commemorate the establishment of the Lutheran heresy, the destruction of Christendom and the coming of the "second Mohammed," as Luther was described at the time. This is a surprise that must not be tolerated.

Online Journalist said...

Thank you blog master for creating and sharing such a brilliant article.

Washing of the feet of the women by the Holy Father is an act of utmost humility and devotional act which will not be criticised by anyone with a normal sense.

But making it a rubric and allowing the priests worldwide to do it is not welcomed by many faithful.