Here is a link to a recent speech by Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. While it is a Roman speech and, according to Cardinal Arinze himself in the body of the speech, is directed toward the Latin Church's worship, I thought it might provide some support for those of you who are concerned with liturgical innovation for its own sake and the problem of feminist language.

http://adoremus.org/Arinze_StLouis06.html

The second article dovetails with the first in that it takes a look at ritual in liturgy and the implications of both ritual itself and arbitrary change of ritual.

http://adoremus.org/1206LiturgyRitual_JHitchcock.html

Seems we have a lot in common in the Catholic Church whether in the Latin or one of the Byzantine sui juris Churches.

In Christ,

BOB

In Cardinal Arinze's speech, substitute the word "Slavonic" or "Greek" for "Latin" and "Prostopinje"* for "Gregorian Chant" and you'll see how relevant this might be for you, my brethren, struggling with a similar situation.

In Christ,

BOB

*Hope I spelled it right.

Bob,

My guess is that those you might be trying to convince won't be. There are plenty of documents on good liturgics from Rome, but these are only accepted selectively. Likewise Orthodox documents. These people will see what they want to see.

Want a good laugh (or cry)? Find an EC parish which is latinised and ask the pastor why, in light of various Vatican documents, the community hasn't returned to its Eastern roots. Trust me, it's even more fun to ask a bishop.

Dear Ko63ap,

Sample answers to that question:

a) one must be patient - these things take time.

b) our people aren't ready for that.

c) our people won't accept that.

d) that would make our existing problems worse.


you can multiply these ad infinitum.

Fr. Serge

And ad nauseum.

Father Serge:

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!!

Those same answers seem to fit the questions we (Latins) ask our priests and bishops: when will they finally cut out the abuses and order our parishes the way they should be and to celebrate the Liturgy as it should be; when will they rein in the dissenting clergy.

Do you think it might be related to the problem (for bishops) of their mitres fitting too tightly? Or is it simply a case of "let's not rock the boat and threaten the collection take"?

Makes me go back time after time to an instruction my pastor gave me privately just as I was finishing high school and he was heading for retirement (1968): "In the future, you will not be able to trust your parish priest because of the direction the seminaries are going. You'll have to know the Faith and teach it to your children yourself." Scares me to think how prophetic the man was. And everyone reviled him for being too conservative.

Thank you for the counsel you offer in your posts.

Asking for your blessing and your prayers,

In Christ,

BOB

KO63AP:

May the Lord bless you in your pilgrimage.

Well, if misery loves company, we've got each other. Seems that people who really care about what is going on in the Church can now find each other, thanks to the internet. In the past we'd have to suffer in silence and be marginalized since most people take the "spiritual filling station" approach to their Baptismal commitment: I'll come, take what I want for myself, and let the rest navigate their own way--and who cares anyway; go with the flow.

With my last breath, I'll still say that the life of the Church, especially the Liturgy, is too important to leave to the professional liturgists and their camp followers.

Yeah, I agree with you. But I don't know if I'd cry first or be nauseated first, or be enraged first, or simply pass out from trying to do it all at once. No wonder my doctor says my blood pressure is rising as I age.

In Christ,

BOB