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Entry: Better to Blow Out One Candle than Curse the Light Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/better_to_blow_out_one_candle_than_curse_the_light#15973 Post contents: <I>It took an outright rebellion by the great African missionary Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to save the ancient western rite from the memory hole</I> I think not. Four years before the schism,<I> Quattuor Abhinc Annos</I>, 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. <B>Isn't this Liturgy of John XXIII the one in which you priests were trained and ordained at Ecône?'</B> <I>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. </I> Further - <I>"...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)</I> You write..<I>...the Roman rite to equal status with the new one crafted in 1970 (by an ecumenical committee)</I> On July 4, 1976, the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship unequivocally declared: <B>"The Protestant observers did not participate in the composition of the texts of the new Missal." </B>(Documentation Catholique #58, 1976, page 649). <I>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</I> 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. Sent at: 2008 07 08