From modernist monstrosity to traditional altar in 15 mins. Courtesy of the FSSP in France.

As Fr. Z would say, some Trad nuptial Mass eye-candy (though ours is clearly better). The celebrant is the Society’s honorary chaplain. The venue is Founders Chapel at the University of San Diego, June 9, 2007. Photo credit to studio m / michael spengler photography.

Sometimes I run across something that just stops me in my tracks. This story recently appeared in our ephemeris links and is so remarkable that I thought it should be publicized a bit more. On WDTPRS, Fr. Zuhlsdorf recently posted on Joseph Cardinal Zen (of Hong Kong) and in the comments to that post Stephen Morgan related a story about a priest he had known in Hong Kong:

Twelve years ago, when my daughter was baptised in Hong Kong, the priest who baptised her, Fr Bernard Tohill, SDB, had returned that morning from a short trip into the mainland. He had been asked to go and offer Mass in a small village about 300 miles into China for a community that had been without the Mass since 1949. He had relearned how to say the old Mass and was expecting be be saying Mass for about a dozen people.
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I’m generally not one to get behind commercial boycotts, but this has me quite agahst. My cell phone provider — Sprint — has decided to lease space on their network to, of all people, Planned Parenthood. You can thus now sign up for Planned Parenthood Wireless, and have 10% of your cell phone charges go to help kill babies. Obviously, this has Clara and me very concerned and we’re looking to switch providers. I really hate this in no small part because I have actually liked Sprint (for the data services), but we obviously cannot remain with them in good conscience. The key question, though, is how we can make it clear that this is the reason we are leaving. If you, or anybody you know, has Sprint you should probably be looking to move.

We have a question that I has hoped some of our readers might be able to help us with. It is perhaps known to some of you that a Nuptial Mass is forthcoming with regards to certain persons associated with this blog. What we’re interested in is the status of the Solemnization of Matrimony ceremony that appears in both the Angelus and Baronius Press 1962 Missals. Our FSSP priest offhandedly claimed that this ceremony was authorized only for use in Britain, and not in the United States. Indeed it is a much nicer ceremony (more ornate, more genteel, more English(?)) than the one found in the famous white Nuptial Mass Booklet Missals put out by the Ecclesia Dei Coalition. My question is simple: is this, in fact, correct? Is this form of Solemnization of Matrimony not approved for use in the US? And if so, isn’t it strange that the Baronius Missal (i.e. the FSSP’s “official” pew missal), which carries the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, contains a ceremony that cannot be used in his diocese? Obviously, we will use the American ceremony if it is the only one permitted, but we just wanted to make sure that is the case.

I don’t know how many of our readers read mere comments, the blog for the admittedly sometimes annoying “ecumenical” Touchstone Magazine, so I fear many may have missed Anthony Esolen’s brilliant series of posts on what he calls ten “natural law” (i.e. not explicitly religious) arguments against homosexual “marriage.” Esolen is an English professor at Providence College, translator of Dante and Tasso, and while apparently not a Trad, his heart often seems to be in the right place concerning liturgical issues. Unfortunately, the posts are not conveniently collected together on one page, so you can find them as follows:

Ten Arguments for Sanity, 1-2

Ten Arguments for Sanity, 3-4

Ten Arguments for Sanity, 5-6

Ten Arguments for Sanity, 7-8

Ten Arguments for Sanity, 9-10

At my Latin Mass today the priest asked how many of us had read Deus Caritas est. He counted off five or six. Then he noted that when he had asked the same question at the last two Novus Masses he had celebrated nobody had read it. He turned excitedly to another elderly priest who was in choir and said excitedly something like, “wow Father, these old Mass Catholics are really on the cutting edge with the Pope, aren’t they?!” The other priest did not respond, but the celebrant assured us that he would have to tell the bishop about this. I like that, those Old Mass Catholics on the cutting edge with the Pope!

Today is of course the 33rd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. It struck me as particularly apt that the Epistle for this Third Sunday after Epiphany was Romans 12. We all know the numbers–50+ million of our contemporaries murdered. For indeed every contributor to this blog is of the first generation to escape this large-scale state sanctioned murder; we are now entering our adult lives; we are heir to this regime of death.This issue cuts to the heart of what it means for us to live in this society; how far are we complicit when we enjoy its (manifest and manifold) benefits? Locke argued that we grant tacit consent to be governed by our enjoyment of the goods of a social structure ensured by that government. I think there are significant difficulties with this notion, but nonetheless it has a certain intuitive pull. What does it mean for us to be Christians in such an objectively disordered society? At what point is a society so unjust that Christians simply cannot sustain that society in good conscience? These are not rhetorical questions; I seriously do not know how to think or what to do. Neither, of course, does everything point in the same direction–this society has been, and continues to be, the chief protector of many of the deepest values of our Western heritage. In some ways Tradition gives us guidance, but in other ways it does not. As I struggle with the question, however, in the back of my mind I know that revenge is the Lord’s; I wonder how long before we’re repaid?

Mater Misericordiae, ora pro nobis

I thought I’d post a reminder that this week is the Ember Week for Advent. The Ember Days were established for the entire Church by Pope St. Gregory VII and are days of fasting and abstinence which mark each of the seasons. Despite some taking solace in their displacement following the Council, I think we would all do well to observe the Ember Days, especially in light of the excesses inherent the modern corruption of Advent and the increasing loss of recognition that it is a penitential season.

The pre-Councilar norms: partial abstinence and fast for Wednesday and Saturday, complete abstinence and fast for Friday. For an explanation of what that entails have a look here

I just ran across this on vatican.va. It’s an Urbis et Orbis degree proclaiming a plenary indulgence under the normal conditions for the faithful:

if they participate in a sacred rite in its honour or at least offer an open witness of Marian devotion before an image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, displayed for public veneration, adding the recitation of the Our Father and the Creed and exclamatory invocations to Mary Immaculate, such as “You are All Fair, Mary, and in you there is no stain of original sin!”, or “O Queen, conceived without original sin, pray for us!”.

It is true that the indulgence is given in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the close of Vatican II. Whatever one might think of the Council, at the very least we traddies can certainly celebrate its closure.

So since you’re going to Mass anyway today, claim this indulgence!

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