Chairman's Blog

Sign up before Easter Sunday and get 10% off! More info and booking here.

Non-members can join the Latin Mass Society while booking and get the members' discount: from anywhere in the world.

The dates are 26-30th August, Thursday evening in Ely to Sunday afternoon in Walsingham. (There's an extra Mass on Monday for those who've stayed the night in the area.)

The LMS Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham is a fantastic experience. Not as grueling as the Chartres Pilgrimage in terms of daily distance, and also pretty flat, it is still a very serious walk over three days with singing, praying, spiritual talks from our chaplains, and the Traditional Mass.

Our singing is led by our wonderful cantors - there is one assigned to each chapter - and we have freshly-made hot evening meals thanks to our superb catering team. And porridge for breakfast!

Follow in the footsteps of England's kings, peasants, sinners and saints: come to Walsingham, and do it the hard way, on foot!

More info and booking here.

 

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I was at school next to a vast church with masses of unused side-altars, and they are an apt symbol of the changes which followed the Second Vatican Council. Why would a priest wish to celebrate Mass on a day when he has no public Mass to say? Why bother? Or else, why not tag along with a crowd of priests putting on a concelebrated Mass, so he can tick the box saying he's attended the community's 'conventual' Mass and the box saying he's celebrated, both at once?

The answer is: out of devotion. Because priests can celebrate Mass (almost) every day, pastoral need is not the only reason why they might want to do so. This devotion will very often be fed more effectively at a 'private' Mass sine populo, than a concelebrated Mass with a crowd of other clergy. 

This is without saying anything of the, ahem, controversial theology of concelebration, a concept which came more or less out of nowhere in Vatican II. And no, newly ordained priests don't concelebrate with the ordaining bishop in the modern sense, in the EF: their ritual concelebration is not intended to be sacramentally efficacious. They follow the words of the Canon in a Missal with the help of another priest, in a charming ritualised lesson, not in an attempt to say Mass 'with the bishop'.

The war on private Masses, which has been waged by vindictive liberal sacristans, Cathedral administrators, and the like over the decades, has now come to St Peter's, where the practice of a millennium has apparantly been brought to a halt by the stroke of a pen. No more 'individual celebrations' will be allowed - except for four each morning in the EF.

That seems like a puzzling qualification. If the 'conservative Novus Ordo' option of celebrating Mass without the people is to be banned from the Basilica, it seems surprising that provision, however inadequate, is being made for the celebration of the Traditional Mass.

Part of the answer may be how at odds with Canon law the powers-that-be are comfortable with being. Canons 902 says:

'They [sc. priests] are completely free to celebrate the Eucharist individually, however, but not while a concelebration is taking place in the same church or oratory.'

But that is generally speaking exactly what has been happening in St Peter's: multiple simultaneous celebrations, very often including concelebrations in one of the larger chapels.

Pressing this provision is unreasonable in St Peter's, in my view, for several reasons: one being that a concelebration happening in (say) St Joseph's Chapel (the big chapel in the north transcept) is invisible and inaudible from most of the rest of the Upper Basilica, let alone the crypt, and another being that these larger celebrations are frequently in the language of visitors to Rome, not necessarily shared by priests wishing to say a private Mass. Again, there is the question of the application of Canon 903, allowing priests to celebrate Mass in churches on demand. Nevertheless, it may be that this Canon is providing the faceless functionary behind this strange decree with some kind of cover.

Unilaterally suspending Summorum Pontificum on the other hand may be thought to be a bit much. Rather than to ban the EF- since it can't be concelebrated - they have contented themselves with restricting it to four Masses a day in a tiny chapel in the crypt.

 

It seems a fair assumption that those who are motivated to stamp out individual celebrations in the OF probably aren't very keen on the EF, but this is a striking result all the same. From now on (while this decree is in force), the only way of celebrating an individual Mass in St Peter's will be by doing so in the EF. The Traditional Mass, thanks to having its own rules, has actually escaped, at least in a limited way, the effects of this decree.

I'm not saying that the paranoia of traditional Catholics is not generally justified, but on this occasion I don't think the Traditional Mass is what this decree has in its sights. What I see here is part of the same pattern with Pope Francis' condemnation of the Reform of the Reform, his slapping down Cardinal Sarah on the subject of celebration ad orientem, and his changes to Canon law allowing the foot-washing of females on Holy Thursday. It is the 'conservative Novus Ordo' which is the target. It is that which represents the prime threat to the progressive project, in the view of the people behind these initiatives. It is that which must be suppressed.

We Catholics attached to the EF need to remind ourselves every now and then how utterly insignificant the Traditional Mass is around the world, as far as most Catholics are concerned. Perhaps a good parallel would be the liturgical adaptations allowed to the Neo-Catechumenate: occasionally a matter requiring some attention, but for most practical purposes of a level of importance indistinguishable from zero.

Long may our opponents continue to take this view. For the 'conservative Novus Ordo' folk, however, I'm afraid the party's over.

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Most people are blissfully unaware of the vast extent of intellectual fakery which inhabits universities around the world. The fact that a great deal of it is paid for by taxpayers is bad enough, but sometimes it rises to levels which raise a different kind of question. This is the case with this articleby Alison Phipps, Professor of Gender Studies at Sussex University. She shares this institution with the ‘Gender Critical’ feminist Kathleen Stock whom I wrote about here, but describesher colleague’s views, such as that women should not have share refuges with biological males, as beneath debate (“‘Reasonable debate’ cannot counter unreasonable ideas.”). In the article, Phipps writes that women expressing trauma about sexual violation, a phenomenon she describes as “white tears”, is a tool of oppression.

Phipps’ central idea is summed up in the title of her book: “Me Not You”. In the cover design these words are superimposed on the words “Me Too”. The idea is that when a woman complains about being raped, as happened with the “MeToo” movement, she is drawing attention to her own suffering, and therefore drawing attention away from the suffering of others. If she is relatively privileged, this is an act of oppression against those less privileged than her, who are thereby silenced. 

It is a very strange argument. It is certainly true that when a more “privileged” person is the victim of abuse or injustice, he or she has an opportunity to fight back which other victims may lack. All kinds of resources, contacts, legal assistance and so on may be available to such a victim. Again, an abuser so bold as to tackle a Hollywood star, for example, will almost certainly have been abusing less well-connected victims. Is this a reason for the star to ignore the abuse and remain silent? Of course not. When the most well-resourced victims, the ones with least to fear, finally turned on Harvey Weinstein, they did what many other victims could not so easily do: they brought his abuse to an end.

As a matter of fact, even very humble victims of abuse can sometimes be successful. The gilded career of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund, was shipwrecked by a New York hotel maid. (The criminal prosecution was dropped but he settled a civil suit out of court.) As so often happens, when the appearance of vulnerability is diminished, other victims come forward. In one sense it doesn’t matter who is the first victim to take the plunge with a formal accusation, but I bet the poorer, more isolated, and less well-advised ones fervently hope that the way will be cleared by someone with the best possible chance of success.

Indeed, I would say that to make an accusation can in certain circumstances be a public duty, and this is a duty particularly incumbent on the most privileged. If an abuser can silence even them, then he is truly invulnerable. Many victims of abuse are plagued with the worry that they won’t be believed, but someone whose social status gives them credibility can make the testimony of other victims’ more credible.

In Phipp’s world view, one might imagine that there is a limited amount of outrage to go round, but the “MeToo” movement showed, on the contrary, how outrage can magnify itself: the more outrage is generated, the more, in some cases, there is left over for others. It is certainly not a zero-sum game.

What are the practical implications of Phipps’ view? That those considering complaining about any kind of bad treatment should “check their privilege” and remain silent if they decide that they lack status in the inverted hierarchy of victimhood, which is conceived of at least in part in racial terms. This is not an inversion of the view she is attacking: she is actually doing the same thing as she accuses others of doing: namely, of determining, by reference to an arbitrary and racially-aligned set of criteria, who is to be allowed justice, and who should continue to suffer exploitation and abuse in silence.

In her world, it is to be women, above all, whose abuse will be tolerated, and whose suffering ignored. This is the woke Feminism of the 21 st century, whose advice to women seems to be “suck it up, buttercup”.

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In this issue: • Fr Timothy Finigan shows what we should learn about Lenten penance from Challoner • We report on an LMS gift of a set of faldstool covers to Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane • David Gornall SJ looks at where we are now, fifty-five years after the Second Vatican Council • Charles A. Coulombe remembers John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute.

Thanks to the cooperation of priests in whose parishes the Traditional Mass is celebrated, Mass of Ages is available from more than 120 cathedrals and churches around the country. See HERE for stockists. If you do not live near one of these but would like a copy of the magazine, we would be very happy to send one from the LMS Office. However, due to the high cost of postage, we do ask that you cover the cost of postage. See here for details.

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