Q&A

I am going to begin a section of this site which I hope to later develop into a small booklet. The Idea is to create a Q&A compendium for the Tridentine so if you have questions or think of a good question or know someone who has questions feel free to either leave them in the comments or send them to Questions.Credo@gmail.com

Professor Panel

The Professor Panel went very well lastnight and I would like to invite you all to attend next weeks talk at 9 pm in the international lounge. we started with 41 people and more people came in later so it was very successful. It is my hopes to have the panel online by the end of next week and CD’s will be provided for those who would like them at the next Lecture or upon request. I request a small donation of a dollar to make up coast for the CD’s. If you cant afford to do so don’t worry about it I will still provide the CD’s for you.

God bless and take care.

SSPX and The Good Friday prayer

The following does not reflect the opinion of the entire SSPX only one religious order within the organization. (Comments emphasis )

“…the Transalpine Redemptorists, a religious order which has always been closely linked with the SSPX, have made their official position known [about the revision of the Good Friday prayer by Pope Benedict XVI]:

‘In what concerns the Solemn Prayers of the Good Friday Liturgy, the Transalpine Redemptorists will obey with submission the newly promulgated Prayer for the Jews as ordered by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on February 4th 2008.[Considering this is a group within the SSPX this is a delightful surprise. And while as noted above this does not reflect the whole of the SSPX it does show that there are elements within the organization who are open to the Holy Father and His wisdom. could the “Extra canonical” status of this group come to an end soon?]

Fr. Michael Mary, C.SS.R.
Vicar General
8 February, 2008′

TLM Mass @ 6

News Flash.
This Just in.

El Presidente Mark has just announced that The Good Msgr. Schmitz will conduct a TLM Mass in Christ the King on Feb. 28th at 6:00 Pm. If you are a member of the Society you are expected to be there and we are looking forward to your presence. If you know someone that would like to attend feel free to invite them along we will be pleased to have any guest who would like to attend as well.

God bless you all and have a nice day
Citizen Cane

Ten Commandments of Confession

Monday, February 04, 2008

Fr. Philip’s Ten Commandments of Confession

Fr. Philip Neri’s Ten Commandments for a Good Lenten Confession:

1. Thou shall know that thy presence in the confessional is the wondrous work of the Holy Spirit. That’s right. If you find yourself in the Box with Father, you are there first because the Holy Spirit prompted you to go. You agreed to follow that prompt, but like all forms of prayer and charitable work, the human person requires a little graced nudge. So, go into your confession confident that you are there by the grace of God to be reconcile to Him!

2. Thou shall not waste your time or Father’s time with obsessive-compulsive sacramental trivia such as, “OK, Father…so I was still a little drunk but I had to pee so I got up and I wasn’t all the way awake yet and I did it but is that a sin still?” Or, “Father, canon 1765.4 forbids X and I heard recently that Blessed Mary spoke to a woman in Mobile, AL and she said that X is OK and she has the bishop imprimatur!” Hint: if you find yourself discussing the distinction between a valid sacrament and a merely licit sacrament, you must RUN to the nearest park and lay in the sun.

3. Thou shall simply and clearly state your sins without excuse, explanation, or decoration. It is rather pointless to confess your sins with flourish or verbal decoration. Also, the priest really doesn’t need to know why you committed a particular sin. He’ll ask you if more info is needed.

4. Thou shall not use weasel words, dodges, or euphemisms when confessing individual sins. “Impure with self” is not a sin. Masturbation is a sin. “I watched inappropriate images on the computer and abused myself.” Do we confess inappropriate behaviors or sin? In other words, you watched porn and masturbated. Just say so.

5. Thou shall keep Penitent Drama to a minimum. Confessions can be quiet dramatic and even confusing. But confession time is not the right time to show everyone in line outside what a horrible sinner you have been and what a wonderful saint you are now. Also, Father doesn’t need to hear twenty-minutes of highly detailed narrative building up to the actual sin. This is attention-seeking behavior and a waste of precious time.

6. Thou shall not use the “face to face” option as an excuse to chit-chat with Father. Confession is not about story time nor is this option a chance to ask Father for advise on a complicated spiritual issue. Make an appointment with him for that. You have a whole lotta people waiting to see their confessor in the Box.

7. Thou shall confess thine own sins and no one else’s. This seems to be a particular problem among mothers and grandmothers of wayward children and grandchildren. Having failed to persuade said wayward child into the Box, mother or grandmother try to sneak the child’s sin past the priest. There is no vicarious confession in the church.

8. Thou shall not request of Father a confession only a few minutes before Mass begin. The time right before Mass is usually very chaotic in the sacristy and in the church. Father is preoccupied with setting up the sacramentary, placing his homily on the ambo; adjusting the speed of his fav fan, and just generally trying his best to prepare for Mass.

9. Thou shall ask questions about your assigned penance if you do not understand it. Do not leave the Box wondering what it is you are supposed to do for your penance. Just ask Father to clarify quickly his assignment. He will welcome this because it shows you are serious about the sacrament.

10. Thou shall not make a false confession in order to test Father’s orthodoxy nor record the sacrament without Father’s express approval. Yes, this has happened to me and it is a violation of just about everything we believe is holy in the Church, and I believe it constitutes a mortal sin.

Solutions to EMHC

(from a board I read)

——————

HOLY GLOVES!

The priest can bless the gloves and make them holy. Then, extraordinary ministers of the Holy Communion can adminster the Eucharist without actually touching it.

But, these gloves might become desired by people with ill intent. Maybe they should have an expiration date

“blessed until 04/08/2008”

————————-

Not to bad of an Idea I really like the Idea of an expiration date.

Why I am mad about the Good Friday prayer change

I am mad! really mad! really really mad! Now some of you might be going aha! Look the radical traditionalist is showing his mad(nutso) side its just a simple change

1962 Prayer

Let us also pray for the Jews: that our Lord and God take away the veil from their hearts; that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ to be our Lord.

Almighty eternal God, who also does not the Jews from Your mercy: graciously hear the prayers which we are conveying on behalf of the blindness of that people; so that once the light of Your Truth has been recognized, which is Christ, they may be rescued from their darkness.

New Prayer

Let us also pray for the Jews: that our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men.

Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Your Church, all Israel may be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Now some are going But Citizen Cane the Prayer is EXACTLY the same in intent and theology. It still doesn’t change the fact that I am so mad that they changed the prayer. I mean I just bought my missal! It wouldn’t be so bad if I had not ordered it Thursday got it Monday and he changed it Tuesday! Thats it I am not buying another missal too bad I will just have to write it on a card and stick it in the missal I am not buying a new one i just bought this one.

Just my luck.  🙂

And it Makes Hippies really mad. Or… Facing God.

Conversi ad Dominum

This call by Saint Augustine, Turn to the Lord ! is the “battle cry” of a growing movement to restore the facing towards East / toward the Lord, ie facing in the same direction as the congregation, at least as far as the Liturgy of the Eucharist (speaking of the Novus Ordo) is concerned. Pope Benedict XVI. is the most popular exponent of this great movement. He wrote the introduction to the seminally important book Turning Towards the Lord by Father Uwe Lang of the London Oratory. Next to its link, some more great books. Turns out Father Lang is a regular Closed Cafeteria reader – he admitted to it in a very nice email 🙂

And also The Heresy of Formlessness (Ignatius)

In addition to the high quality of the people in favor of what is generally referred to as AD ORIENTEM, there is the fact that “Call to Action” types usually loathe it. While turning towards East is desirable, it’s often not possible. However, turning together towards the Lord is the essential element. This mainly applies to the liturgy of the Eucharist, so scared parishioners would still have the priest face them for quite a bit! 😛

I’ll write about the historical background of this another time, for this post the focus will be on theological arguments.

First, an excerpt from Pope Benedict’s foreword to Father Lang’s Turning Towards the Lord

To the ordinary churchgoer, the two most obvious effects of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council seem to be the disappearance of Latin and the turning of the altars towards the people. Those who read the relevant texts will be astonished to learn that neither is in fact found in the decrees of the Council.

It is true that later GIRMs expressed that facing the people was “desirable” but it has never been made mandatory, according to Pope Benedict. In addition, by now it is painfully obvious that the “spirit of those liturgists” has failed. A reform is clearly necessary. Some say that in olden days the focus was wholly on the sacrificial character of the Mass. Well, be that as it may, to me it seems far more fatal that today, especially among the “spirit of Vatican II” crowd, the meal character is by far the most emphasized aspect.

Now for some fascinating, highly instructive quotes that Father Lang cites in his truly convincing book:

The direction of prayer should point towards the transcendent addressee of prayer. Hence the question of the focal point of the presidential prayer needs to be considered seriously…If the common direction of presider and congregation, in turning at prayer towards Christ, who has been exalted and is to come again, disappeared completely, it would be a regrettable spiritual loss.
– Andreas Heinz –

Father Lang himself writes

The constant face-to-face position of priest and people expresses a symbolism of its own and suggests a closed circle. The ideal of the Christian Church is not a circular building with altar, ambo, and sedilia in the centre. It is not mere accident that samples of this type are hardly found before the second half of the twentieth century; the celebratio versus populum tends to diminish the transcendent dimension of the Eucharist to such an extent that it generates the notion of a closed society. The communal character of the liturgy is no doubt important, but it is only one aspect of the liturgy.

The danger is that the congregation can become complacent and entertain a misconceived autonomy, thus disconnecting itself from the other assemblies of the faithful and from the invisible assembly of the saints in heaven, so that the community would just be in dialogue with itself. This betrays not only a deficient ecclesiology but also an erroneous concept of God. Half a century ago, Henri de Lubac warned Christians to be on guard “against the present tendency to absorb God into the human community.” Today, we are threatened by what Aidan Nichols calls ‘cultic immanentism’, ‘the danger of a congregation’s covert self-reference in a horizontal, humanistic world.”

As a glimpse on the historical treatise of this subject, here Pope Benedict in Spirit of the Liturgy

In no meal of the early Christian era did the president of the banqueting assembly every face the other participants. They were all sitting, or reclining, on the convex side of a C-shaped table, or of a table having approximately the shape of a horse shoe. The other side was always left empty for the service. Nowhere in Christian antiquity could have arisen the idea of having to ‘face the people’ to preside at a meal

In addition, the popular depicting of the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci is incorrect – the place of honor was the seat on the right. This was also the way it was depicted in churches and Catholic art before that time.

Monsignor Klaus Gamber, considered by Pope Benedict to have been a liturgist of unsurpassed quality, wrote in The Modern Rite

According to the Catholic conception of the Mass, it is more than just a communal meal in memory of Jesus of Nazareth. The decisive element is not the way that the community spirit is made effective and experienced, even though that should not be underestimated, but the community coming to offer service to God. The point of reference must always be God, and not man. For that reason, from the outset, the turning towards him in prayer by all those present and no turning to face each other by priest and people. We must draw the necessary conclusions and see the celebration “turned towards the people” for what it really is, an invention of Martin Luther.

Zing! It really is very instructive that the most ‘progressive’ and dissenting people are opposed to ad orientem the most.

Again, Fr. Lang:

Pastoral experience over the last four decades can teach us that the understanding of the Mass as both the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Church has diminished considerabl, if not faded away, among the faithful. I do not want to suggest that the sweeping triumph of the celebration versus populum is the only reason for this deplorable development. But the emphasis on the meal aspect of the Eucharist that complemented the celebrant priest’s turning towards the people has been overdone and has failed to proclaim the Eucharist as a ‘visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands)’ – Council of Trent.

Max Thurian wrote in Notitiae, the organ of the Congregation for Divine Worship

The whole celebration is often conducted as if it were a conversation and dialogue in which there is no longer any room for adoration, contemplation and silence. The fact that the celebrants and faithful constantly face each other closes the liturgy in on itself. On the other hand, a sound celebration, which takes into account the pre-eminence of the altar, the discretion of the celebrants’ ministry, the orientation of everyone towards the Lord and the adoration of his presence signified in the symbols and realised by the sacrament, confers on the liturgy that contemplative atmosphere without which it risks being a tiresome religious disquisition, a useless community distraction, a sort of rigmarole.

Yes! I’ve been calling this type of liturgy the ‘spirituality of accounts’, and I just found out that there is a German book called “The Council of the Accountants”. This author, by the way, also dislikes putting the celebrant’s chair right behind the altar.

Another pest wrought on the Church following Vatican II was the disfiguring of historic churches by putting those unfortunate people’s altarts in front of the gorgeous high altars. If lucky, they matched them in style, something that often didn’t happen. And, often the high altar was torn out completely and replaced with a slab. If only we could sacrifice those people on their people’s altar !

From an editorial in Notititae, Congregation for Divine Worship:

The principle of there being only one altar is theologically more important than the practice of celebrating facing the people.

As a photographer it doubly outrages me. My definition of the people’s altar: the thing in the way of the beautiful high altar. Something newer churches woefully lack – a high altar. All we get is a table. Whoopee. And if you’re really out of luck, hippie Jesus is waving from the cross above. Such degeneration in so short a time would be unbelievable had it not really happened. It’s as if these accountants of faith had gotten together and said, “let’s see, how can we screw ourselves as hard as possible.”

I’ll end this post with the more civilized words of Father Lang:

Reclaiming the common direction of prayer seems most desirable for the liturgical life, and hence, for the welfare of the Church. In this liturgical gesture the Church turns to her source of life, the risen and ascended Lord, whose return she desires and expects.

(and it makes the old hippies really mad)

posted by Gerald Augustinus

May God Have Mercy

Propaganda

Main Entry:

pro·pa·gan·da

Pronunciation:

\ˌprä-pə-ˈgan-də, ˌprō-\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

New Latin, from Congregatio de propaganda fide Congregation for propagating the faith, organization established by Pope Gregory XV died 1623

Date:

1718

1capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions

2: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

3: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

The Propagandist of an Organization (or as the more P.C. among us might call it the “Press Relations man” or for the Truly P.C. the Press Relations Person.) is extremely important. The Reason for this is because if you don’t have a good propagandist then your cause dies. The Responsibility of the propagandist is not only to bring new members into an organization but also to keep the members it has in the organization.

Now I already hear the objection “But Cane…”(Here I interrupt) “Citizen Cane” I correct. “But Citizen Cane don’t you know Propaganda is bad the Nazi’s used it”. Here I will admit the Nazi’s did use it, and so did the British the Irish the Americans and everyone else who ever lived. In fact your very objection is a form of Propaganda it is an attempt to influence my thought in such a way that I stop using the term propaganda. the origin of the word “to Propagate” which literally means to have children or to have offspring (Pro pangere). There are many different ways to have offspring, there is of course the classic method of procreation however we are not limited to such primal means. I have and create many children of thought, sometimes I do this deliberately sometimes this is done through common and constant contact. But no matter how it begins it always begins the same way, that is it begins with one person listening to what I have to say and then internalizing it.

I will here confess that it normally begins with someone pinning me as “out of his mind”, but this tends to be due to the rather old nature of my thinking. (Lament: aw the days when continuity of thought was once common) all propaganda is spread the same way and it is made effective or ineffective by the same things be it economical, patriotic, socio-political, or religious. You have the age old tried and true method of coercion. Now the only problem with this is well… its not a true converting so it does little to no good with the exception of keeping civil order… not only that but it tends to be rather messy and usually the leaders normally end up beheaded or shot.

Then you have brainwashing. Now brainwashing is a rather sticky matter not for the least of which reasons is it is nearly impossible to define, to live is to be brainwashed into this camp or that. So for simplicities sake I will give two workable definitions the first is the most accurate “Brainwashing is that activity which uses propaganda to influences others to think in a way which I(insert yourself) do not like”. The second I think is more practical “Brainwashing is that activity which is done by another to cause or attempt to cause someone to do something which left alone they would find immoral or destructive in a negative way”.

A third (but not only other option) is through the use of rhetoric, as well as clearly defined and strong arguments. This is not only the most effective but it grants the disciple the power of freewill. Here the point is not to coerce but rather to present multiple options and then give various proofs and rebuttals for or against this position or that. The Art or rhetoric having been lost toward the middle part of the last century (with the last great rhetorician being Ronald Regan [if you liked him or not]) recovering this way of thinking and arguing is not easy. The arguments of today are based much more on emotion not logic “I feel” “In side” “emotionally”, these are the terms we use instead of “I think” or “I know”.

Here are some rules and tips on how to be a good Propagandist.

1) know your opponents arguments. You should Know their argument better than they do and you should know it so well that you can anticipate what they are going to say next. on OCCASION to let them know that you are not just trying to over power them with your own though and beliefs present there next stage in the argument to them. so for example some minutes into the debate you know are really making head way but they are not listening to you they are just arguing. Take advantage of the situation by saying something like “Your next argument is going to XYZ” and now that you have shocked the day lights out of them and have their attention go “and this is where XYZ is lacking ABC”

2) Know your own side. there is nothing more annoying than to be in a debate with someone who does not know what they believe or who cannot express their own beliefs. Now the first few times you might not be that good at articulating your position don’t let this scare you it takes experience to learn. So here is the best hint I can give you; find a friend or a like minded individual to practice with. argue both sides. When I began I would find someone who held my position (say Pro-Life) and began to debate with them (I would not let them know I was Pro-Life or they would not present the best case they could). during the conversations I would make mental notes as to where I could strengthen my Pro-choice arguments and where I could strengthen my Pro-Life arguments, as well as noting what tips I should give my opponent when the conversation was done so they could improve their argument(Help a friend).

3) Know more than the other guy. Now this you have to be careful with because it depends on your opponent as to how you want to play this if your opponent is more gentle overpowering them with a hammer is not going to help you. But if they are more stubborn you wont really get anywhere anyway because they have already determined that they are right and you are wrong. Remember though that sometimes it is not as important that you win individual conflicts with individuals. For example if I am in a debate with someone who is not listening sometimes I will continue the debate for the benefit of those who are hearing us. By reducing their arguments to rubble and they continuing to hold this position is just goes to show exactly how insane an untenable their position really is.(If you can save the one save the one if you can save the one save him but sometimes Simon Magus will not convert and it is the crowd you save)

4) Know when to cut your losses, and know when to admit your wrong. Sometimes admitting defeat only makes your position (not your argument stronger). If you did a poor job defending your position say so openly and promise to do better next time. Take mental

notes and read read read.

5) Most important is number 5 on the list. Pray and pray often. what does it profit me if I convert the world and am lost?