What a difference six months of Summorum Pontificum has made to the church! Yes, it certainly has increased the number of masses in the 1962 rite, and made access to it so much easier. That however in itself would be of very little consequence to the church and would only affect a small minority.
The real significance in this motu proprio is that is has made a paradigm shift in the whole way the church has seen itself since the Second Vatican Council. In one bold stroke, Summorum Pontificum has pulled the rug from beneath the entire dissident theological project of the sixties, which at its heart has sought to create an entirely new church and new faith, completely divorced from what has gone before. It has affirmed once and for all that the church cannot condemn its past, and that its' traditions of worship and doctrine were never abrogated.
What was the inspiration behind this new faith and new church? It was the great longing of the Catholic elites in the sixties to be accepted among their secular counterparts in a post Christian society, rather than be a sign of contradiction that is hated and despised by the world: the sign of the cross. And hence this new faith is one that repudiates the cross, repudiates sacrifice and atonement, and ultimately sin itself. Ultimately, it ends up as a therapeutic neo - Gnosticism that entirely denies the natural order of creation, sexuality, ethics and what it is to be human.
The real significance in this motu proprio is that is has made a paradigm shift in the whole way the church has seen itself since the Second Vatican Council. In one bold stroke, Summorum Pontificum has pulled the rug from beneath the entire dissident theological project of the sixties, which at its heart has sought to create an entirely new church and new faith, completely divorced from what has gone before. It has affirmed once and for all that the church cannot condemn its past, and that its' traditions of worship and doctrine were never abrogated.
What was the inspiration behind this new faith and new church? It was the great longing of the Catholic elites in the sixties to be accepted among their secular counterparts in a post Christian society, rather than be a sign of contradiction that is hated and despised by the world: the sign of the cross. And hence this new faith is one that repudiates the cross, repudiates sacrifice and atonement, and ultimately sin itself. Ultimately, it ends up as a therapeutic neo - Gnosticism that entirely denies the natural order of creation, sexuality, ethics and what it is to be human.
acknowledgements and copyright Vernon QuaintanceBut on the feast of the finding of the Holy Cross, the holy sacrifice of the mass has been re-affirmed. On that September day I was in London for the weekend, and I managed to attend the High Mass in the London Oratory for Summorum Pontificum, which you see above. I had been composing in the last two months, and afterwards I managed to complete the mass setting I had been writing for SSAB registration: the Missa Sanctae Crucis which can be downloaded here in pdf format. Alternatively you can listen to a midi file here!
1 comment:
Ah well! At least he got my good side.
All my best!
:)
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