Sunday, September 30, 2007

Modernism in the Church

Rorate Caeli has an excerpt from the magnificent book by Father Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P. (1914 -1975) Les Mystères du Royaume de la Grâce - The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Grace.
That modernism has infiltrated the Church can be seen from the democratization of the sacred liturgy. I experienced that today at Mass, at a parish not our own. There were so many lay people coming and going from the sanctuary all during Mass, to the tunes of 70's pop music. Meanwhile, the pastor made fun of the "Tridentine Mass" as being old-fashioned, which was ridiculous, since we were being afflicted with outdated guitar music, played by people older than I am. It would have been laughable, except that the priest sacrilegiously referred to the traditional Latin Mass as the "pre-game show at the football game." He obviously sees his 70's pop liturgy as the highest expression of worship. I withdrew to the ladies' room until the unfortunate homily mercifully came to an end.

The following is what Fr. Calmel has to say about modernism in the Church:


I spoke about the artifice of modernism. Let us be more precise. It is not a common and ordinary artifice. It is a satanic artifice. It comes in a slanted way that we do not expect. Modernism does not attack on a frontline. Modernism does not deny audibly that the Church is mediator of truth and grace and that she is endowed with hierarchical powers. But modernism creeps into the place where some means of ecclesiastical institution, which can be changed in a certain measure, meets the deposit of Divine institution, of which they are the indispensable instruments.

[....]

The modernist argument for modernism is this: that which is in the Church from ecclesiastical institution must be said, to be merely and only human. The conclusion that we must draw is that it can become anything in order to meet the requests of history. But speaking like this, is first forgetting that even in a profane city, the human and earthly elements which constitute the city – the human and earthly elements being the political common good and the organization of powers – cannot become anything and cannot be carried off by any historical movement. It is forgetting that there is a nature of city and that the kind of city created by the Revolution of 1789 and carried on by Communism to its fulfillment is a kind of city against nature.
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5 comments:

CatechismClass.com said...

How sad that an ordained priest would see such little value in the beautiful Extraordinary form of the Holy Mass. Clearly this poor soul is in great need of catechesis regarding what the TLM is all about and the spiritual benefits that are begging to be obtained by celebrating and attending it!

elena maria vidal said...

Isn't that the truth, Shannon. There is nothing worse than obtuseness combined with arrogance.

David L Alexander said...

"I withdrew to the ladies' room until the unfortunate homily mercifully came to an end."

How sad that an ordained priest would see such little value in... any Mass at all, regardless of which set of books is used. I would have walked past the restroom, and right out the door. I simply couldn't sit through such a travesty!

Anonymous said...

Did you see yesterday that Benedict XVI has finally gotten rid of that modernist liturgical innovator, who had been private secretary to the so called "chief architect of the liturgical reforms following Vatican II"? He also hung around JPII during his entire pontificate, and was responsible for coordinating all the papal liturgies since 1987. Which explains a lot.


The new chief liturgist for the Vatican is Father Guido Marini (coincidently and confusingly with the same last name as the out-going innovator, Archbishop Piero Marini). Unfortunately he is not retiring, as it seems that he has been appointed by Benedict as president of the International Eucharistic Congress pontifical committee. (Don't know if that is such a good thing.)

Hopefully the reverence of the pontifical Masses under the direction of this new liturgist will filter on down through the entire body of the Church to our own Masses at our little parishes.

Anonymous said...

+JMJ+

That's interesting news, Georgette! Does this mean we'll never be scandalised by female altar servers again? :D