Return of the Fanon

When celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ,on the 21st of October 2012, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI wore a Papal Vestment called a Fanon. This garment had fallen into disuse, but, along with many others, it appears Pope Benedict may be bringing it back. 

Another sign of Pope Benedict's (not so) closeted Traditionalism. To show my respect for His Holiness' traditionalist choices of apparel, below are images of Popes wearing the Fanon to show how Pope Benedict XVI is in keeping with sound tradition in regards to his Vestments.

Pope Leo XIII (Reigned 1878 - 1903)

Pope St. Pius X (Reigned 1903 - 1914)

Pope Benedict XVI (Reigned 1914 - 1922)

Pope Pius XI (Reigned 1922 - 1939)

Venerable Pope Pius XII (Reigned 1939 - 1958)

Blessed Pope John XIII (Reigned 1958 - 1963)

Servant of God Pope Paul VI (Reigned 1963 - 1978)

Blessed Pope John Paul II (Reigned 1978 - 2005)

Pope Benedict XVI (Reigned 2005 - )

And so; the heresy begins!

The Year of Faith has begun. And the tone has already been decisively set. The photo to the left shows the Holy Father embracing the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury. Any Catholic, especially in England, who understands their history can only be repulsed by this image.

The Church will argue this is simply echoing the fact that there were non-Catholic observers at the Council and Dr Williams' presence is simply continuing this tradition. This next picture (below) however is the smoking gun which shows how the Church is sliding into further Heresy. Here is the same Dr Williams addressing the Synod of Bishops. This is not observation, this is participation. Those notable Catholic martyrs against Protestantism, Saints Thomas Moore and John Fisher, would be spinning in their graves; had they had not been humiliated and deprived them by their Protestant executioners.

 Now, by allowing Dr Williams to address the Synod, the Church is giving the rubber stamp to the Protestant Anglican Community. This is, so-called, 'Ecumenism', at its worst. As Archbishop Lefebvre wrote in 1987, "it is clear that we cannot combine contradictory principles. We cannot unite truth and error so as to form one thing, except by adopting the error and rejecting all or part of the truth". Dr Williams is a man who's church Ordains women, ordains practising homosexuals and would permit them into the Episcopate, approves of foetal murder and he personally has voiced the opinion that Sharia Law could operate on British soil. The Catholic Church now stands shoulder to shoulder with him; the Pope embraces him as a brother.

This is Error. Error truly in the tradition of Vatican II. Welcome to the Year of Faith; shame it’s not the Catholic Faith.

Tradition and the future

An interesting, and balanced, interview with a Priest of the FSSP about the Extraordinary Form and why it is appealing to Catholics of the 21st Century. 

The Latin Language in the Liturgy

One of the core issues in opposition to the Pauline Liturgical reform has been that “No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass”[i]. In this piece, I will attempt to elucidate and critique some of the reasons behind Paul VI's decision to move towards vernacular masses

He acknowledges the “the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin”[ii] and that it is “the speech of the Christian centuries”[iii] which brought “the prayer of our forefathers and our saints to our lips and gave us the comfort of feeling faithful to our spiritual past”[iv].Paul VI poses this; “We are giving up something of priceless worth. But Why?”[v], “The answer [he himself states] will seem banal, prosaic”[vi]. To avoid repetition I will analyse Paul VI’s reasoning concurrently as I present it.

He states his core principle of Liturgical reform “Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed”[vii]. I would agree, words without meaning are empty. However does this mean that the silken garments need to be discarded, to be trampled underfoot?

It is not wrong “that Catholics feel the need of a greater understanding of the sacred texts, from which they draw spiritual nourishment, and that they want to be more intimately involved in the action taking place in front of them”[viii]. It is their right and indeed obligation to understand the Catholic faith they profess. If the laity cannot understand what the prayers mean they will be robbed of great opportunities to unite themselves with the prayers of the Mass. This is the understanding of Prayer.

However, one must ask; is Latin even an obstacle? Paul VI states that as a result of the “greater simplicity of the ceremonies”[ix] “[t]he spiritual aspect [of the Mass] will be found to have greater richness”[x]. “If the divine Language kept [the Church] apart from”[xi] the people then it would be right and just to remove it. But did it? Archbishop Lefebvre, with a lifetime’s pastoral experience, stated “Union with God can be achieved as much by beautiful, heavenly music as by the general ambiance of the liturgical action: the sanctity and religious feel of the place, or it architectural beauty, or the fervour of the Christian community, or the dignity and devotion of the celebrant, or symbolic decorations, or the fragrance of the incense”[xii]. Simplifying the ceremonies has the opposite effect to enticing the laity to deeper spiritual communion. The laity “come away tired from a Mass which strives to bring itself down to the level of mankind instead of raising them to God”[xiii].

Is not the Pauline Mass robbing the Laity of their chance to Unite with God in the splendour of the Liturgy?Does not burdening the laity with the liturgy’s linguistic and semantic intricacies actually provide a barrier to true prayer, uniting one’s self with God? “If too much attention is given to the meaning of the words, they can even be an obstacle”[xiv].

The picture to the left is not merely for decoration. It quite proficiently answers the question I have just discussed. If I could choose a caption for this picture it would be ‘Susum Cordia’. The Mass is about raising your heart, not your mind, to God.

Paul VI states that his desired outcome for the new rite of Mass is that there will be “participation by every single one present, and an outpouring of spirit in communal charity”[xv] and with that “[t]he soul’s relationship with Christ and with the bretheren thus attains a new and vital intensity”[xvi]. With the Latin Tridentine Mass, every member of the faithful was free to participate as they required. If they wanted to actively assist with the prayers of the Priest they were able to by following the rite of Mass in their Missals, if they wanted to make private devotions which united them closely with God then they could. Now the faithful have had their sacred space intruded on by the so-called ‘active participation’. There is no longer any room for personality in the Mass. Perhaps it is a curious new form of authoritarian neo-Montanism; Rome wants every member of the faithful to think and feel exactly the same thing. With this Pauline Mass, however, what most people feel is nothing.

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[i] Pope Paul VI, Changes in Mass for greater Apostolate, Address to General Audience, 26-11-1969, Paragraph 8

[ii]  IBID

[iii] IBID

[iv] IBID, Paragraph 2

[v] IBID, Paragraph 9

[vi] IBID, Paragraph 10

[vii] IBID, Paragraph 11

[viii] Archbishop M. Lefebvre, Open Letter to confused Catholics, Chapter ‘You’re a Dinosaur’

[ix] Pope Paul VI, Changes in Mass for greater Apostolate, Address to General Audience, 26-11-1969, Paragraph 15

[x] IBID

[xi] IBID, Paragraph 12

[xii] Archbishop M. Lefebvre, Open Letter to confused Catholics, Chapter ‘You’re a Dinosaur’

[xiii] Archbishop M. Lefebvre, Open Letter to confused Catholics, Chapter ‘What they are doing to the Mass’

[xiv] IBID

[xv] Paragraph 16

[xvi] Paragraph 16

Popes celebrating the Tridentine Mass

Venerable Pius XII (R. 1939-1958)

Blessed John XXIII (R. 1958-1963)

Servant of God Paul VI (R. 1963-1978)

Albino Luciani, future
John Paul I (R. 1978)
(Picture not of Mass but taken before liturgical reforms)

Karol Wojtyła, future
Blessed John Paul II (R.1978-2005)

Joseph Ratzinger, future
Benedict XVI (R. 2005-) 

A brief apologia.

In my last article it may appear I am being disrespectful to Pope Paul VI. I wish to explicitly state I am not. I am firmly of the opinion that the Servant of God Papa Montini was a good man, both by virtue of his noble character and the Holy Office he occupied. I acknowledge fully the integrity and validity of his Papacy and Magisterium in the unbroken tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. I do however believe that while his pronouncements were valid, they were not sound. The decisions he made, especially regarding the Liturgy, were valid with the information and advice presented to him. However the advice and information presented were not necessarily, with the benefit of hindsight and retrospective theological discussion, correct. The Pontiff was not in error, but the pronouncements he made are flawed.

Abandoning the Altars

There is no denying the fact that Mass attendance in the post-Conciliar Church has plummeted. My question is thus; whose fault is it that Christ is left abandoned on the Altars?

I am going to be radical! I do not think it is the Laity’s fault, nor the fault of the Priesthood, not even the tenaciously erroneous Council’s Sacrosanctum Concilium. It is, quite simply, the fault of the Mass of Paul VI. My thesis is this; the Pauline Mass, promulgated in 1969, is so offensive to the Church, to Priests and Laity alike, that the Altars are left abandoned. 

Pope Paul VI

For generations, the faithful believed that Christ’s humiliation to the elements was enough for him to suffer and that the Church should raise their earthly liturgy to the highest language and art, but not the Modernists. No. Their ‘Cult of Man’ demanded further humiliation, to bring Christ that bit lower. Archbishop Lefebvre stated, the Modernists wanted the Eucharist “reduced to an everyday act, in commonplace surroundings, with commonplace utensils, attitudes and clothing”, and in the Pauline Mass they got what they wanted. Some further Lefebvre, the Pauline mass is “a Mass which strives to bring itself down to the level of mankind rather than raising [the laity] up to God”. The 1992 Catechism states "The Eucharist is 'the source and summit of the Christian life'", yet the Mass that the Church gives the laity today would have them not climb the mountain to reach the summit, to reach God, but have the mountain demolished so that God is dragged down to them.

The Pauline mass fails to elevate the people to God, rather it humiliates God and treats the Sacrifice like an everyday act. Saint Josemaría Escrivá said of the Mass in 1972 “Jesus has perhaps never been as badly treated as he is now in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar”. To any Catholic, with any sense of love for God, this Pauline Mass can only be offensive, therefore to preserve their sensibilities the laity keep, nay run away from the altar.