Better to Blow Out One Candle than Curse the Light
While none of my blood is (sadly) Italian, my arrival in Rome was the closest experience to a homecoming I think I shall ever have. I expect that feelings will stir as I visit the island, Unije, from which my grandfather sailed for NYC in 1916—and again at the tomb of my ancestral sovereigns in Vienna. But not even the hallowed ghosts of the most benevolent secular government ever to reign over Christian souls evoke the same devotion as the actual seat of the Vicars of Christ, which I have been privileged to visit for this year’s seasons of Carnival, Lent, and Easter. I am staying a few hundred feet from the Janiculum wall—which the Latin inscription informs me was restored in 1869 by the Blessed Pius IX, the last pope to govern Rome. One must-see spot on my itinerary is the Porta Pia, which the anticlerical armies of Garibaldi breached with dynamite, and Pio Nono ordered the Swiss Guard and the Papal Zouaves to lay down their arms.
I’ve already been privileged to visit some historic sites, accompanying Thomas More College students on tours led by my learned colleague Dr. Paul Connell. We’ve explored the tangled, dusty streets of Trastevere—the Greenwich Village of Rome, now sadly as gentrified as Bleecker Street—in search of Rome’s most historic churches. The loveliest so far has been Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the oldest Christian sites in Rome. The historical record tells that ground on this site began to exude a precious oil some 30 years before the birth of Christ—and that local Jews (who made up much of the population in ancient Trastevere) took this as a sign that the Messiah was nigh. Enough of them accepted the good news St. Peter brought to Rome that a Christian community sprang up around the site; the inscriptions from their tombs and catacombs, rudely inscribed in Latin and Greek, are plastered into the facade of the present church, a structure of medieval origin that is ornate with Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo art. Best of all, its artworks are intertwined with the theme of oil--replete with virgins wise and foolish, all holding lamps.
The most significant spot in Trastevere, and perhaps in Rome, for those who care about the civilization of the West is a tiny chapel that dates from the 6th or 7th century called San Benedetto in Piscinula. Inside this badly battered, much restored little church is a crawlspace not much bigger than a coffin. It was in this monastic cell that St. Benedict lived during his time in Rome, before he removed to Subiaco, where he would compose the Rule of his religious order. Wiser men than I, such as the philosopher Alasdair Macintyre, have said that the only hope of restoration in the West will come from men like Benedict. It was monks of Benedict’s order who replanted the vines and restored the agricultural basis for life in a Europe rent by invasions of barbarian and Arab alike. One of the many inventions of the Benedictines was the liquor which bears their name. I wrote last year of Benedictine(s): “As the drink combines the leaves and blooms of field and fen to infuse a spirit, so St. Benedict yoked regular work and prayer to help men fuse with the Spirit. While the monks of the East might scorn and scourge the flesh, Benedict sought only to discipline it, to prune its passions and point it toward the Light. Monks of Benedict’s order weren’t known for burning pagan books—but patiently recopying them, in the confidence that the traces of wisdom they contained could nurture the growing body of Christendom.”
If I were to try to locate the Benedicts in Rome today, I’d have to leave Trastevere and head northeast, to another battered hole-in-the-wall parish called S. Gregorio dei Muratori. This church is served by the priests of the Fraternity of St. Peter—clerics who helped keep alive in the face of popular scorn and bureaucratic opposition the Church’s ancient Roman liturgy, which was cast off like an aging wife by an imprudent Pope Paul VI in 1970. It took an outright rebellion by the great African missionary Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to save the ancient western rite from the memory hole. In 1988, when Pope John Paul II offered an olive branch to Lefebvre and his priests, it was rejected—except for a small group of priests who couldn’t endorse Lefebvre’s decision to ordain bishops without papal permission. These priests formed the Fraternity of St. Peter, and they accepted the deal which John Paul (at the urging of then-cardinal Ratzinger) had offered Lefebvre. It wasn’t particularly sweet—especially since few bishops around the world wanted much to do with priests they regarded as right-wing cranks. Meanwhile, the FSSP priests found themselves denounced as “traitors” and “dupes” by traditionalists who refused to make a deal with a Vatican they considered hopelessly compromised. Several of my friends pursued studies with the FSSP, whose program for anglophone seminarians was poorly organized at the time. Indeed, when the first crowd of hopeful young Americans arrived at Wigratzbad in (I believe) 1990, all the theology courses were either in German or French—but there were no language courses offered in either tongue. Recriminations over the split with Archbishop Lefebvre divided the seminarians into factions, and the food was awful even for Germany. As one would-be priest told me at the time: “All we have is meat and starch. I’ve been eating knudel for weeks. Every single person here has gained 20 pounds and is terminally constipated. No wonder we’re not getting along.”
It took some years to iron out such wrinkles. Now the Fraternity has a thriving English-language seminary in Denton, Nebraska, and serves around the world. What is more, its dogged insistence on retaining the reverent liturgy which (with few changes over the centuries) helped form saints from Benedict up through Padre Pio was vindicated in September, 2007 by Pope Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum—which restored the old (“extraordinary”) form of the Roman rite to equal status with the new one crafted in 1970 (by an ecumenical committee). Interest in the old rite is spreading among the young, and youthful priests are taking lessons in Latin and proper rubrics. The bewildering scandal created in the 1970s by (let’s take these words one at a time) a Vatican… punishing… priests...for cleaving… to ancient… prayers seems likely to end—as the good Pope Benedict pursues a peace treaty with the still unreconciled traditionalists of the Society of St. Pius X.
This matters to more than Catholics. The Church is a bellwether of the fortunes of everything important to conservatives—family life, localism, education, you name it and the Church is crucial to its survival or disappearance. A wit in the 1920s once reassured the world that Bolshevism could not spread so long as it was restrained by “the German General Staff, the British House of Lords, the Academie Française, and the Holy See.” There isn’t much fight left in 1), 2) and 3), and since 1970 it has been unclear on which side much of the Church was playing. While the Church of Christ does not exist to save Western or any other civilization, such conservation is typically a happy side effect. It was Gregory the Great who saved the city of Rome from ruin in the Dark Ages and St. Benedict who passed along the light of learning all over Europe. Just now, I believe it is the priest of the FSSP who are handing on “the permanent things.” That’s why I was happy to join them this Sunday past for Solemn Mass at their hole in the wall. Just as the vast vineyards, libraries, and universities of the West crawled one day out of that cell in Trastevere, so the flame that these good priests have been tending at San Gregorio has relit every lamp in the Vatican.
Comments
John Paul II said repeatedly that “migration” is a human right.
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Mr. Zmirak, you bring back fond memories of Rome. I too have had the pleasure of visiting San Gregorio dei Muratori, Santa Maria in Trastevere, and San Benedetto in Piscinula. If I may offer some tips, I recommend the Capuchin bone church, not least of all because the earth there was transported from Jerusalem and because the heroic Zouaves of Porta Pia are buried there. Sant’ Andrea della Valle is one of the most beautiful churches in Rome, and one of the paintings in the apse shows the translation of St. Andrew’s head from Turkish-occupied Greece to Rome (the deposed heir to the Byzantine throne, who was loyal to the Union with Rome, had given it to Pope Pius II for safekeeping). There is also another Traditional Latin Mass offered by the Institute of Christ of the King-Sovereign Priest at the church of Gesu e Maria on the Via del Corso. Lastly, in case you want a pleasant (well, it’s pleasant in the summer at least) walk through the Italian countryside, there is a pedestrian-friendly road, parallel to the Via Appia Antica, that goes north from the Catacombs of San Callisto to the church of the Quo Vadis. Speaking of which, you don’t want to miss the Basilica of St. Cecilia, who originally was buried at San Callisto. But I could go on for pages . . . enjoy your pilgrimage!
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One more: San Clemente, where St. Cyril of “Cyril and Methodius” fame is buried.
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Mr. Zmirak,
Make sure you visit the church of the SACRO CUORE DEL SUFFRAGIO where you will find the Museo delle Anime dei Defunti o del Purgatorio.
Lungotevere Prati, 12 Chiesa del Sacro Cuore del Suffragio
Rome , 00193
+39 0668806517
http://www.romasegreta.it/prati/sacrocuoredelsuffragio.htm
It’s a small church along the Tevere River. Inside there is a small and not well known museum about the souls of the purgatory.
A priori this museum seems a little bit scary, but you’ll find a mystical atmosphere. You can find handprints and marks left by deceased folks among other things.
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Wow, H.A., that sounds like the sort of thing Charles Coulombe would love!
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The RC church is working hard to help sneak wets into the country. Catholic church as conservative? You lie boy.
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John Paul II said repeatedly that “migration” is a human right.
How is this relevant to this thread?
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This report bring back to me many memories. Thanks especially for your report on the FSSP!
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It took an outright rebellion by the great African missionary Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to save the ancient western rite from the memory hole
I think not.
Four years before the schism, Quattuor Abhinc Annos, was issued. It is often referred to as the First Indult.
http://www.catholicliturgy.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/DocumentContents/Index/2/SubIndex/11/DocumentIndex/395
As for Mos. Lefevbre, at his seminary at Econe, there was indifference concerning the Liturgy - the later myth-making machine polemics of the schism notwithstanding.
Isn’t this Liturgy of John XXIII the one in which you priests were trained
and ordained at Ecône?’
The answer is no. We received no appreciable liturgical training whatever at Ecône, and until the September of 1976 the Mass was that of the early years
of Paul VI. (Indeed, concelebration was permitted in our first statutes.) The
celebrant sat on the side and listened to readings, or himself performed them
at lecterns facing the people. The only reason the readings were done in
Latin and not in French, we were told, is that the seminary is an international
one! (Interestingly enough, the Ordinances of the Society, signed by
Archbishop Lefebvre and currently in force, allow for the reading of the
Epistle and the Gospel in the vernacular - without reading them first in Latin.)
“It would be difficult to say what liturgy was followed at Ecône, because
the rubrics were a mishmash of different elements, one priest saying Mass
somewhat differently from the next. No one set of rubrics was systematically
observed or taught. As a matter of fact, no rubrics were taught at all.
“The best I can say is that over the years a certain eclectic blend of
rubrics developed based on the double principle of what the Archbishop liked, and what one did in France.
“These rubrics range rather freely from the Liturgy of St. Pius X to that of
Paul VI in 1968. It is simply the ‘Rite of Ecône,’ a law unto itself…
“As for our seminary training, we were never taught how to celebrate Mass.
Preparation for this rather important part of the priestly life was to be seen
to in our spare time and on our own. The majority of the seminarians there
seem never to have applied themselves to a rigid or systematic study of the
rubrics, as may be seen from the way in which they celebrate Mass today ...
“At one time we were taught to reject the Vatican Council II entirely...”
The Roman Catholic, by Fr Daniel L. Dolan, June 1983.
Further - “...Lefebvre himself used the ‘mass’ of Paul VI in St. Peter’s Basilica at the altar-tomb of his ‘patron’ Pope St. Pius X, because, he said, by celebrating the traditional Mass he would give scandal. He used the ‘mass’ of Paul VI even at Econe, and was finally persuaded by his staff priests that It was inconsistent with his ‘aim’ to train priests for the traditional Mass.... “...So this ‘mass’ of Paul VI, they tell me, is what Lefebvre celebrated at the tomb of St. Pius V, at Econe until talked out of it, and when in hospital
at Bogota (concelebration with Aulagnier)
You write.....the Roman rite to equal status with the new one crafted in 1970 (by an ecumenical committee)
On July 4, 1976, the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship unequivocally
declared: “The Protestant observers did not participate in the composition of the texts of the new Missal.” (Documentation Catholique #58, 1976, page 649).
The bewildering scandal created in the 1970s by (let’s take these words one at a time) a Vatican… punishing… priests...for cleaving… to ancient… prayers seems likely to end—as the good Pope Benedict pursues a peace treaty with the still unreconciled traditionalists of the Society of St. Pius X
That is not a fair summary at all. That is NOT why they were “punished.”
Mr. Z. I love your posts but I think that when it comes to the sspx, lefevbre, and some soi disant traditionalists, you are creating a mirage rather than summarising the facts.
FWIW, I was a regular communicant at The Indult in Portland, Maine and was friends with the former celebrant, a Jesuit who got permission to leave his Order and join the FSSP.
When I moved to FL, I regularly went to The Indult at St. Robert Bellarmine’s in Miami - a 90 minute drive; each way.
As for the SSPX reconciling, ain’;t gonna happen. A woman named Miko will be Pope before any reconciliation occurs. The SSPX has no intention of a reconciliation. When they go to Rome they seek the Pope’s surrender. There’s no way in hell the Pope reconciles with a schism which continues to insist the Jews as a race are cursed, that Vatican Two was heretical, and that the Normative Mass is evil.
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As for the SSPX reconciling, ain’;t gonna happen.
I’ve learned painfully and recently to get out of the crystal ball business. I rue my predictions of Nurse Ratched’s inevitability. We can certainly see and state trends, which, I confess, often have a bad habit of falling apart right when one needs them the most. And if Cleo teaches anything, she teaches that what everyone thought was going to happen, most often didn’t happen. Case in point: First Manassas and June-July 1914. I respectfully urge Non Spartacus to leave that business too.
Everyone: Negotiations are now going on between the SSPX and The Holy See. This is thus a particularly delicate time. To aid the process of negotiation, if not reconciliation, we all should lower our voices. It is enough to thank the SSPX for keeping the Mass of Bl. John XXIII alive. And pray.
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“Mr. Z. I love your posts but I think that when it comes to the sspx, lefevbre, and some soi disant traditionalists, you are creating a mirage...”
I somewhat agree and this is my point of partial disagreement with Z’s way of religion, and others including Dr Cathey and Sid. Guys - I mean JZ and you other traditionalist Catholics - do you realise that one of the main reasons why many Christians like me, including practicing and/or ambivalent Catholics, have reservations about the RC church is because of the apparently heavy burden it seems to impose of arcane, labyrinthine theology?
Isn’t there some kind of equivalent of a “Zen” subcommunity in the RC church? Some kind of “minimalist” tradition which emphasises simplicity and immediate, practical experience instead of arcane ponderous theology?
And would you think I’m totally nuts if I suggested it might be useful - especially
in these times - for some Catholics to learn and adapt some Oriental ways of thinking - provided that they don’t conflict with essential matters of faith - such as the intellectual disciplines of Zen Buddhism, in order to, well, to Christianise those Oriental traditions and thereby to bring more lost Western Christians (who succumb to the tempting half-truths of Oriental religions) back into OUR flock, as well as the new a growing flocks of Christians in the Far East?
I’m just asking. Please just consider these thoughts a few “theses” nailed to good JZ’s cyber-door, for discussion instead of (as the Church foolishly did to Luther’s theses) categorical refusal to think about them?
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Coda to my above comment: The primitive church adapted and “converted” (one could even say metaphorically “baptised") many of the pagan customs and holidays of the several major peoples of the Roman Empire.
For example, St Valentine’s Day is a Christianised adaptation of what used to be a day of socially mandated orgies. And JZ’s Celtic ancestors and mine used to behave very badly around what is now the eve of All Saints. Then there were all of those rites of Human Sacrifice and wailing for the dead and resurrected son/lover of the Goddess (Venus and/or the Moon), around the summer solstice. Etc etc.
And then there are all of those ancient Eygptian symbols which the Church converted, like Osiris (and the Pharaoh)
holding a shepherd’s crook in one hand and a flail in the other - the dual role of moral guidance and enforcement of law - and that’s the background of Jesus saying his “winnowing fan is in his hand” while his Good Shepherd’s crook is in the other. The Bishop’s shepherd’s crook is
a symbolic descendant of the “conversion” of ancient Egyptian symbols to Christianity. Because it makes perfect sense to use the symbols to which people are accustomed, as means of evangelising the Gospel to them.
St Paul wrote (I forget where) about the old pagan religions, something like, “What you used to worship in ignorance, now we understand in truth”, or something like that.
So I ask again, why shouldn’t today’s Church adapt, and convert and “baptise” some symbols and old wisdom of Far Eastern religions, in order to evangelise the Far East? Not to mention bringing back many Western Christians who have gotten lost in Far Eastern religions, to make it clear to them that all AUTHENTIC wisdom and truths of the Far East come ultimately from Christ?
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So I ask again, why shouldn’t today’s Church adapt, and convert and “baptise” some symbols and old wisdom of Far Eastern religions, in order to evangelise the Far East? Not to mention bringing back many Western Christians who have gotten lost in Far Eastern religions, to make it clear to them that all AUTHENTIC wisdom and truths of the Far East come ultimately from Christ?
Mr. Ball. In fact, that is what H.M. Church has always done. However, don’t expect the More-Catholic-Than-The-Pope’rs to admit it - or even know it. (If they were alive back in the day they’d have been the first to denounce it)
Pope Alexander VII, for instance, ordered Propaganda Fide, in 1659, to issue Instruction to the Vicars Apostolic of Tonkin and Cochina ("The Christian Faith” Neuner and Dupuis, P. 342)
“The S, (Sacred) Congregation was also anxious to respect the traditions and customs of those countries, thus carrying on the early tradition of the Church to assume into Christianity whatever was good in the ways of the people and gradually to eradicate what was not compatible with it.”
I won’t post the entire directive but I will note it instructed - If,in carrying out the orders of the S. Congregation, you met or fprsee difficulties to the extent these orders will not be accepted without revolt, avoid at all costs imposing them on the pwersons concerned against their will...Do not in any way attempt, and do not on any pretext persuade these peole to change their rites, habits, and customs, unless they are openly opposed to religion and good morals. For what could be more absurd than to bring to France, Spain, Italy or any other European country over to China? It is not your country but the faith you must bring...
I could add more but I must be off to work.
Mr. Cundiff. Let the SSPX shut-up first. They never do.
The fact is that for far too many soi disant tradationalists, it is still a matter of Us (trads) vs Them (the rest of the Catholic Church)
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