Thursday, June 19, 2008

How Much Resistance to "Latin Mass Training" Will there Be in In Seminaries

I am afraid a lot. Despite what big Cheeses in the Vatican want!!! One of the biggest lessons I learned as a new Catholic that despite the picture of Vatican being an overbearing organization imposing its will all over the place it is often just ignored which has been a source of great frustration to me.

I was struck by DUGOUT CATHOLICISM post here at Seminary Course - Tridentine Mass 101 on this issue. This Priest/ Blogger in the very Catholic Sounding Diocese of Corpus Christi (Can' get more Catholic than that) Texas is only a priest of 5 years. Yet he states in part :

I am interested to see if this instruction is taken seriously by the American seminaries. In the experience of many priests and seminarians the liturgical life in the seminaries were less than faithful, less than Catholic in their abuses.

I will say however, that I was privileged to attend St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, PA. The photo above is from a recent celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite in St. Martin's Chapel at the seminary. I saw photos of the seminary faculty (rector included) participating in the Mass.

Such a scene would have been impossible even during my time at St. Charles. As good of a seminary formation I received at St. Charles, even the thought of a Mass such as the picture above was virtually impossible. The thought of this would have been considered an "issue" in many seminaries, including Holy Trinity in Dallas during the early 90's. Had some of us even made it public that we attended Mass in the "Tridentine Rite" we would have been "subject to dismissal". Committing sexual immorality would have been overlooked, even defended, but attending such a Mass was considered "an evil act"........

This brings up the second other lesson I had to learn quickly in my early Catholic Convert days. That is despite all the talk about being diverse , and open to different people the Father x's and Sister Y's I encountered that were spouting this often were tyrants when dealing with people of a more traditional bent. For all the talk of great role of the Laity in the Post Vatican II Church you were person non gratia.

Things I am glad to say are changing

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