My dear friends and fellow Christians, it is our solemn privilege and especial pleasure to pray for the health and safety of the Supreme Pontiff, especially whilst he travels amidst a nation of infidels and schismatics. The Archbishop of Birmingham, the ordinary in the land of my present and temporary domicile, therefore, encouraged all his subjects to pray a novena beginning before and including the days of Pope Benedict’s sojourn in dangerous lands. I heartily commend his sollicitude on behalf of the Supreme Pontiff, but I question the effeminate taste of the scribe who produced what was given to the whole archdiocese:

Lord, source of eternal life and truth,
Give to your shepherd Pope Benedict XVI
a spirit of courage and right judgment,
a spirit of knowledge and love.

By governing with fidelity those entrusted to
his care may he, as successor to the apostle
Peter and vicar of Christ,
build your Church into a sacrament of unity,
love and peace for all the world.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

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My sister, Catharina Dallasensis, sends along this video, made by students at her beloved University of Dallas. It’s pretty fun to watch, and it should give hope and encouragement to us all that such a school exists in this time of decay and spiritual woe.

The Cornell Society for a Good Time shares this exclusive interview given by David Allen White, author of the recently published, The Horn of the Unicorn (Angelus Press), to Mr. Stephen Heiner of True Restoration. I can only imagine that different readers will find Professor White to be provocative, controversial, infuriating, intriguing and humorous. But since our Society specializes in promoting a rich culture of dialogue – called for by that renowned document of the Second Vatican Council, Molles nunc nos omnes – I hope that our readers will be liberal of their time in sharing their responses to this interview. Over the next week or so, this blog’s contributors will offer their own responses in separate posts.

Dr. White, at the time of this interview we are still dealing with the after effects of Pope Benedict’s Regensberg address. I have two questions: 1) What was your opinion of his remarks, and 2) What does the Muslim response mean?

In a way I was not surprised by the Pope’s remarks insofar as he still views himself as an academic and an intellectual. I seriously believe he pulled out the quotation to prove his scholarly credentials and ignored his other role, if you will, as the leader of the Catholic Church. He did not consider the potential for anger erupting among the Muslim community. The Pope was probably as surprised as everyone else by the reaction of the Muslims to that particular remark that he made, but he shouldn’t have been.
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During all the centuries in which these Emperors were trying to bring the Church under the same subjection as the State their most steadfast opponents were the Popes of Old Rome, their most servile agents the Patriarchs of New Rome. The story, then, of the rise of the See of Constantinople is not a creditable one. It has no splendid traditions from the earliest age; it had none of the lustre of Apostolic origin; its dignity could not be compared with that of the old Patriarchates, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch; it had nothing of the sacred associations of Jerusalem. A new see, in itself of no importance, its claims were pushed solely because of a coincidence that had nothing to do with the Church. It was only because of the presence of the Emperor and through his tyrannical policy that the Church of his city managed to usurp the first place among the Eastern Churches, and at last to lead them all in a campaign against the See of Peter.

At last John IV, the Faster, of Constantinople, thought he could assume the title “Oecumenical Patriarch.” It is well known how St. Gregory the Great sternly forbade him to use this name, which is not even used by the Pope. “Who doubts,” he says, “that the Church of Constantinople is subject to the Apostolic See? Indeed the most pious Lord Emperor and our brother the bishop of that city both eagerly acknowledge this.” Again: “I know of no bishop who is not subject to the Apostolic See.” It is also known how in opposition to this pompous title he assumed for himself with proud humility the title borne ever since by his successors, “Servant of the Servants of God.” Althought the Patriarchs of Constantinople went on using their title till it became, as it still is, their official style, it is noticeable that even Photius never dared call himself Ecumenical Patriarch when writing to the Pope.

The legates then at last prepare a bull of excommunication. They are still on quite good terms with the Emperor, and they are very careful to say nothing against the Byzantine Church. “As far as the pillars of the Empire are concerned, and its wise and honoured citizens, the city is most Christian and Orthodox.” “But we,” they go on, “not bearing the unheard-of offense and injury done to the holy Apostolic and first See, wishing to defend in every way the Catholic faith, by the authority of the holy and undivided Trinity and of the Apostolic See, whose Legates we are…declare this: That Michael, patriarch by abuse, neophyte, who only took a monk’s habit by fear and is now infamous because of many very bad crimes, and with him Leo, called Bishop of Achrida, and the Sacellarius of the said Michael, who with profane feet trampled on the sacrifice of the Latins and all their followers in the aforesaid errors and presumptions shall be Anathema Maranatha…with all heretics, and with the devil and his angels, unless they repent. Amen.”

It was Saturday, July 16, 1054, at the third hour. The Hagia Sophia was full of people, the priests and deacons are vested, the Prothesis of the holy Liturgy has begun. Then the three Latin legates walk up the great church through the people, go in through the Royal Door of the Ikonostasis and lay their bull of excommunication on the altar. As they turn back they say: Videat Deus et iudicet. The schism was complete.

It is always rather dangerous to claim that misfortunes are a judgement of God, and indeed no one could have thought of satisfaction at the most awful calamity that ever happened to Christian Europe. At the same time one realizes how, from the day the Legates turned back from the altar on which they had laid their bull, the Byzantine Church has been cut off from all intercourse with the rest of Christendom, how her enemies gathered round this city nearer and nearer each century, till at last they took it, how they overturned the Latin altars, took away the great church as he had taken away ours, and how since that the successors of the man who would not bow to the Roman Pontiff have had to bow to, have had to receive their vestiture from, the unbaptized tyrant who sits on the throne of Constantine; one realizes this and sees that the words of the Legates were heard and that God has seen and judged.

And we need too, the righter balance that would be restored by reunion with the Orthodox. In spite of our loyalty to our own rite, and in spite of our natural pride in being not only Catholics but Latins and members of the greatest Patriarchate, we have to realize that the Latin Church is not, has never been, the whole Body of Christ…And we need their ideas, their traditions and spirit in the church as well as our own. Their conservatism now means only fossilization; joined to our life it would be sane and useful balance. Their love of liturgy and dislike of innovations has something to teach our people. If we refret the too sudden way in which new devotions spread amongst us, the gradual divorce of people from the real rites of the Church, the slight regard paid to her seasons, the exaggeration of pious fancies above the old and essential things, the abuses in such matters as indulgences, privileges, and special favours against which the Council of Trent already spoke, we should find the remedy of all these things in the solid piety and the unchanging loyalty towards the customs of their fathers among Eastern Christians.

From Adrian Fortescue’s The Orthodox Eastern Church.

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Some days back, one of our regular commenters, Peregrinator in terra, challenged me to make the trip from Oxford to the Isle of Wight in order to visit St. Cecilia’s Abbey. “Then return and try to use the words ‘novus ordo’ or ‘Vatican Council II’ in a less than respectful fashion.” Personally, I like to refer to the Council in a most respectful fashion as the Second Oecumenical Council of the Vatican, but perhaps our readers have realized by now that this sobriquet is used with more than a trace of sarcasm.

I like challenges involving pilgrimages, but short on money and leisure for travel, I had to resort to Catharina Oxoniensis’ memories of the place to consider whether it would be likely to change my opinion about the New Order or the Second Oecumenical Council held at the Vatican.
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With no intention of being comprehensive, I thought I would give our readers a couple of tips.

I most eagerly would like to point our readers to a new book of reflections on the Eucharist by one of the Society’s most Good Timing honorary chaplains, Fr. Bryce Sibley: Fount of Love: Eucharistic Reflections.

But while I’m at it, I thought I might as well also tell people about this site, which sells very nice reproductions of antique holy cards.

If you’re planning (or hoping) to be with Reggie in Rome this summer, you’ll be joined, Deo sinente, by a contingent of the Cornell Society for a Good Time. As for myself, though I imagine that I also speak for some of my colleagues, I can’t imagine having a better time than studying Latin in Rome with one of – and certainly the most famous of – the Pope’s Latin scribes. This post is meant as an explanation, for eveyone who wants to go, of what you need to do to get there. Since I’ve already spent one summer with Reggie, I hope that what I share here will be useful for others who want to join Reggie for the first time.
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Amen dico vobis quia non praeteribit generatio haec donec omnia haec fiant. Caelum et terra transibunt, verba autem mea non praeteribunt.

Amen I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.

St. Hilary: Ut autem fides certa esset futurorum, subiungitur “amen dico vobis, quia non praeteribit generatio haec donec omnia fiant”. “Amen” autem dicendo, professionem veritatis adiunxit.

So that faith might be certain of the things to come, there follows after, “Amen I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.” By saying “Amen”, he adds a declaration of the truth.

St. John Chrysostom: Haec ergo omnia de fine Hierosolymorum dicta sunt, et quae de pseudoprophetis et pseudochristis et alia omnia quae diximus usque ad Christi adventum futura. Quod autem dixit “generatio haec”, non de ea quae tunc erat dixit, sed de ea quae est fidelium: consuevit enim Scriptura generationem non solum a tempore designare, sed a loco, cultu et conversatione; sicut cum dicitur: “haec est generatio quaerentium dominum”. Ex hoc autem ostendit quod Ierusalem peribit, et amplior pars Iudaeorum destruetur; generationem autem fidelium nulla separabit tentatio.
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Today, while we mark the Last Sunday after Pentecost, our Novus Ordo brethren celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. In what appears to be the typical understanding of this feast from the perspective of the New Order, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham said in a recent letter: “This weekend we mark the end of the Church’s year with the Feast of Christ the King. On this day we celebrate the final victory of Christ, who will bring the whole of creation to His heavenly Father at the end of time.” Thus Christ’s kingship is viewed primarily as an eschatological phenomenon. My fellow author and liege lord, Ambrosius, wrote very well one year ago against this understanding of the feast as marking a primarily eschatological reality. I quote his excellent exposition:
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While we here at the Society for a Good Time are as pleased as anyone that the correct translation of pro multis as “for many”, rumors of which we previously reported, will now be compulsory, we thought it might be instructive to take our readers back a bit to remind them of how everyone but traditionalists defended the “for all” translation. And while these folks were right to claim that the phony “for all” translation didn’t invalidate the Mass, they weren’t spending much time pointing out how dumb a translation it was, either.

So, let’s look at a couple of notable examples.

First of all, we turn to ICEL themselves, who explain,

Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic possesses a word for ‘all’. The word rabbim or “multitude” thus served also in the inclusive sense for ‘the whole’, even though the corresponding Greek and Latin appear to have an exclusive sense, i.e., ‘the many’ rather than ‘the all’.

Your tithes at work!

Next, we recall a statement given by Catholics United for the Faith, Iacobus’ favorite organization:

“For all” is a legitimate translation of “pro multis,” and points to the profound truth that through the unique sacrifice of Christ, the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5), salvation “is offered to all” (Catechism, nos. 618, 1368).

We also have Zenit’s Father Edward McNamara, archived by EWTN, recalling the Vatican’s own 1970 justifications for “for all”:

From the Notitiae
The query states:
“In some vernacular versions the words of the formula for the consecration of the wine ‘pro multis’ are translated in the following way: in English ‘for all men’; in Spanish ‘por todos’ and in Italian ‘per tutti.’

“The following is asked:

“a) Is there a good reason, and if there is, what is it, for deciding on such a variation?

“b) Whether the doctrine regarding this matter handed down through the ‘Roman Catechism ordered by Decree of the Council of Trent and edited by St. Pius V’ is to be held outdated?

“c) Whether the versions of the above-mentioned biblical text are to be held less appropriate?

“d) Whether in the approval given to this vernacular variation in the liturgical text something less correct crept in, and which now requires correction or amending?

“Response: The above variation is fully justified:

“a) According to exegetes, the Aramaic word which in Latin is translated ‘pro multis,’ means ‘pro omnibus’: the multitude for whom Christ died is unbounded, which is the same as saying: Christ died for all. St. Augustine will help recall this: ‘You see what He hath given; find out then what He bought. The Blood of Christ was the price. What is equal to this? What, but the whole world? What, but all nations? They are very ungrateful for their price, or very proud, who say that the price is so small that it bought the Africans only; or that they are so great, as that it was given for them alone.’ (Enarr. In Ps. 95, n. 5)

“b) In no way is the doctrine of the ‘Roman Catechism’ to be held outdated: the distinction that the death of Christ was sufficient for all, efficacious only for many, still holds its value.

“c) In the approval given to this vernacular variation in the liturgical text, nothing less than correct has crept in, which would require correction or amendment.”

Followed by a longer argument, which concludes with this unfortunate passage,

“This brings us now to another question: Why therefore in our liturgical version this venerable original ‘pro multis’ should yield to the phrase ‘pro omnibus’? I respond: because of a certain accidental but true inconvenience: the phrase ‘for many’ — as it is said — in our minds (not forewarned) excludes that universality of the redemptive work which for the Semitic mind could be and certainly was connoted in that phrase because of the theological context. However, the allusion to the theology of the Servant of Yahweh, however eloquent for the ancients, among us is clear only to the experts.

“But if on the other hand it is said that the phrase ‘for all’ also has its own inconvenience, because for some it might suggest that all will actually be saved, the danger of such an erroneous understanding is estimated to hardly exist among Catholics.
“Besides, the change which the words of the consecration underwent was not unique nor the first. For the traditional Latin text already combines the Lucan text ‘pro vobis’ with the phrase of Mark and Matthew ‘pro multis.’ And that is not the first change. For already the liturgy of the early Church (Mark-Matthew) seems to have adjusted the saying over the chalice to the formula pronounced over the bread. For originally that formula of the chalice according to Paul (1 Corinthians 11:25) and Luke (22:20) was: ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’ — a formula which was excellent perhaps in depth, but not really in clarity.

“It is clear how the Church of the Apostles was not interested in preserving the very voice of the Lord even in the words of the consecration, certainly cited for the first time as such by Jesus himself.”

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