January 24th, 2008

CU Episode 66: Oh, He’s Gone Crosseyed.

This week, making memories Catholic-tech style, cu picks of the week, a news roundup via the cu metro, and a backchat or two. Hillarity Ensues.

  • Joe

    Ah, yes.. memories. When I was going to high school I was able to attend mass before I left for school ( I lived across the street from the Church and I was attending a high school seminary). Be that as it may, there was one preist there that was able to say Mass ( and it was in Latin) in 12 mins. What a prayerful experience that was ! I think the availability of having mass in latin is a good thing, but ….

  • Fr. Gjengdahl

    Thanks so much guys for continually putting up the “Pick-of-the-Week.” It is great to have all these various updates. I fear that I may becoming addicted to blogs, and you guys just keep feeding that…thanks! Keep up the good work. God bless.

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    With all due respect Joe – The same could be said for the clown Mass in San Francisco or for that poor missionary priest who has been in Zimbabwe for two weeks and is still learning the language – neither are particularly prayerful…

    In reality, if you compare the rites on an even par: both celebrated with reverence, both with attention to the rubrics, both with love, both with well-ordered homilies, both with suitable music then that’s fair, then you can draw a legitimate conclusion of some sort…

    I don’t want to make you a lightning rod Joe, but this kind of argument appears all over the place on the web today. Someone takes a picture of a great an glorious Mass being celebrated and put it next to a picture of some atrocity (old or new form) and tries to make a claim from it – fallacy. I can compare a bad example of an renaissance artist to a really good example of an impressionist and be forced to come down on the side of the fuzzy one (I loathe impressionism, sorry :)

    The old Mass is the Mass of the Saints, there are almost no saints (setting aside modern martyrs) who were not formed by the Traditional Mass – none. That’s something that we can’t overlook. (The Traditional Mass was basically in place by the 8th century or so). It’s not as if we finally figured it out and now we have a Mass that can make us holy… The Mass I celebrated last weekend looks very, very similar to what St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, and St. John Vianney would have prayed every day. In fact, if those men showed up at my Church on Sunday, they’d feel right at home – we can’t say that about the new Mass…

    You are right in saying that the Mass must be well celebrated well – it must – but it’s not a breakthrough in holiness-technology, it’s an innovation, yet to be proven, and let’s continue to pray that priests will all take that great responsibility to heart.

  • Michael

    Fr. Ryan… You just won’t give up on Jesuit bashing, will you?

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    @Michael:
    From my dictionary for ‘Bashing’: The pejorative ‘bashing’ implies excessive or unwarranted criticism on a subject, group or individual.

    I have tried to lay out a series of logical criticisms of a group which has factually and statistically failed to maintain it’s charism and which has consistently and freely denied the Catholic Faith as taught by the 21 ecumenical councils and their own vow of obedience to the Holy Father as laid out by Ignatius himself. I haven’t been excessive or unwarranted. So I wouldn’t call making a measured criticism of a group ‘bashing.’

    An interesting quote (from my blog):
    “The Jesuits have become their only authority, their only critic, their only judge, and this is the antithesis of their purpose.”

    Are you, Michael, saying that I don’t have the right to question them, to question their motives, or to point out statical data about them? I sincerely hope not. You know when someone believes themselves above reproach and answerable only to themselves, they’ve kind of lost touch with the truth…

  • Joe

    Love the feedback – points well taken but the way I was reading it, I felt I struck a nerve with my initial remark.
    I just wonder how much catechesis will be done to support the “flexibity” of using different rites and keeping them as prayerful as possible.
    BTW — no problem about the lightning rod remark either — not the first time,nor do I anticipate it being the last.

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    :) Glad to hear it.
    Pax

  • http://www.cybercatholics.com Joshua

    While Fr. Ryan and I mostly agree on the subject I’d like to point out regarding this statement

    “The old Mass is the Mass of the Saints, there are almost no saints (setting aside modern martyrs) who were not formed by the Traditional Mass – none. That’s something that we can’t overlook. (The Traditional Mass was basically in place by the 8th century or so). It’s not as if we finally figured it out and now we have a Mass that can make us holy… The Mass I celebrated last weekend looks very, very similar to what St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, and St. John Vianney would have prayed every day. In fact, if those men showed up at my Church on Sunday, they’d feel right at home – we can’t say that about the new Mass…”

    While it’s true that the saints that you mention Father would indeed recognize the Extraordinary Form, surely not all of the saints of the Church’s history were formed. Besides the fact that there are Saints who weren’t of the Roman Rite (such as St. John Chrysostom) the saints of the Early Church including St. Peter, St. Paul and all of the saints listed in the Roman Canon itself would be outside the time that the Tridentine Liturgy would have been codified. I’m not exactly sure what that number would be but if you start adding all those early saints and martyrs I suspect you’d have a hefty number on your hands, if not a majority of the canonized. In actuality, the issue at hand isn’t whether the Extraordinary Form or the Ordinary Form formed x number of saints but whether it is indeed forming saints and giving Glory to God as the Mass is intended to do.

    You can celebrate anything badly but if you celebrate the ex form and the ordinary form well then Calvary is still made present and the sacrifice is truly made present on the altar.

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    I love it Josh – thanks for the correction. You’re the king of catching my overstatements…

    Yeah, I really should have said that the Old Mass didn’t really apply pre-4th century or so. While it’s mostly complete form wasn’t around until mid to late 8th century, we know that the Canon was mostly complete by the end of the 4th century.

    That being said, I stand by the main purpose of the argument which was just that the old Mass cannot be considered deficient – it has sanctified untold numbers of saints. I say this because so many people look at me and respond that the old Mass is just so bad. How could anybody experience God or prayer with all the Latin and the “old” music and the priest separated by the rail and so on and so forth. The argument just doesn’t hold water – while it’s foreign to us, the Traditional Mass (the Xform) has still got a heck of a track record.

    Thanks Josh!
    f.rph

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    Oh forgot to mention – My point was not to say that the new Mass can’t make saints… I was arguing that unless someone was born after 1960, they would have been ‘formed’ by the old Mass. It would have been the norm in their life at some level. That being said, There are very few, if any, saints who are presently canonized who were born after 1960.

    I intend no slight to the Ordinary Form – just a part of the argument… No offense intended!
    Peace!
    Fr. Ryan

  • Corey

    I just wanted to mention two unique things which happened at the rally for life the day of the March for life; that is in addition to Matt Maher playing. The president of Pro-life ministries for the USCCB brought a message from the President. It was about his support for life and National Sanctity of human Life day (http://hvcljournal.typepad.com/lifenet/2008/01/president-bush.html). If that wasn’t cool enough the Nuncio was there, and he brought his first communication from the pope to us, the American church, pretty much very cool. A transcript can be found here (http://www.adw.org/news/news.asp?ID=511&Year=2008). So thats my report for the March, sorry no cool audio this year, not even Matt Maher.

    Pax,

    -Corey

  • jason

    BLOGS

    You guys are always mentioned your blogs – particularly Fr. Ryan – but I can’t find a link to them anywhere? A little help!

  • http://www.cybercatholics.com Joshua

    Jason,

    Check the top of the catholicunderground page. In the title bar there’s a menu called “blogs.” There you will find links to all our blogs.

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    Because I am an overwhelmingly helpful person – who has eight minutes until lunch to kill –

    Link to the Blogs – http://www.catholicunderground.com/podcast/blogs-in-the-catholic-underground

    Fr. Chris’s Tumblr – http://digitalcatholic.tumblr.com/

    Joshua’s Blog is currently experiencing a 500 Error which means that AbuAbu the computer God is not pleased with him, but here’s the link anyway – http://deigratia.cybercatholics.com/

    My Blog – http://fatherryan.tumblr.com/

    Peace out

  • Francis

    My wife and I love your podcast! We are part of those 30 somethings that while raised on the Novus Ordo have fallen in love with the Extraordinary form. We started about 3 years ago going to St. Francis de Sales indult parish in Atlanta a couple of times a year. We are parishioners of our local parish but this return to orthodoxy every so often keeps us fed and in fighting shape to help our home parish. My 3 1/2 year old son can’t sit still during a 45 minute Life Teen mass but he can sit through an 1 1/2 hour Tridentine mass with no problem. He understands something special is happening.

    I am also a Catholic school technology teacher and starting formation for the permanent diaconate this year. You guys are a breath of fresh air on days when I am encountering some of our more “hippity-dippity” (my term) members of the church. God bless you all and please pray for my formation. AMDG