Traditional Latin Mass - the Third Sunday after Easter (1962 Missal)

Dominica III Post Pascha (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
30 April 2023

 IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (From the Gospel of the Mass).

It is a particular providence that we hear these words today from our Blessed Lord in the Gospel because I need to speak today about the status of things regarding the Traditional Latin Mass at this parish.  I guess that most of you likely already know this information, but I need to share with you that in accord with what Rome is requiring of our Archbishop, the previously granted dispensation to have the Mass of the 1962 Missal here at St. Monica will not be able to continue after the monthly Sunday Low Mass in June.  That means we have today and then two more monthly Sunday Low Masses remaining here.  The last monthly Sunday Low Mass will be on June 25.  I want you to have this information now so that you can prepare.

I have much to say about this topic, much more than I can say in the course of the typical time frame of a sermon, so I will try to highlight only those things that I think are most important to share.  I will certainly be happy to discuss the matter in more detail privately or in small groups should you have other questions.  I encourage you to contact me if you have questions or to have greater clarity on the state of things here.

I find there can be quite a bit of erroneous information that goes around and quite a few assumptions that are not accurate when we have a charged topic like this one.  So, I want to state first that no one should suffer under the false idea that our Archbishop hasn’t done enough or that he is trying to shut down the Mass of the 1962 Missal.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I have had numerous meetings with him and ongoing communications over many months now.  We have been trying together to find ways around what Rome is doing.  We thought we had a solution with the dispensation he granted to this parish back in August 2021 to host the Traditional Latin Mass.  But that has since changed with further actions from Rome in December 2021 and more recently in late February of this year.  It is that most recent action from Rome that finally meant we were out of options since Rome is claiming that a diocesan bishop does not have the authority to grant such a dispensation, but that only Rome can do so.  While Rome might, and has, granted some dispensations, they are always limited in scope and have an expiration date of at most two years.  Thus, there is no long term solution even when Rome grants a dispensation.  I can attest to you that from the beginning of this debacle Archbishop Coakley has been nothing but gracious and generous.  His initial dispensation tells you what you need to know about his stance in all this.  Only with Rome’s subsequent and ongoing local interference has the situation become what it is.  In other words, and I want to state clearly, the blame for this falls squarely on the Pope and the Cardinal in charge of the Dicastery of Divine Worship.  I have personally seen the Archbishop’s reactions over the course of these many months.  I think I have a good read on him because I have known him since before he was a bishop and we have an excellent relationship.  He has been frustrated by Rome’s actions.  And when it became clear in early 2023 that Rome was doubling and tripling down on its aggression, I can tell you his look went from frustrated to grieved over what Rome is requiring.  Neither of us is happy about what is going on.  When this drama first began I thought it was really just me who would be faced with difficult questions of obedience.  But I have come to understand in an entirely new way just what a difficult position the Archbishop, too, is in.  Rome is demanding compliance and actually following up with expectations that the bishops report back to Rome with how they are implementing the demands.  In fact, the only reason that we are still having this Mass here right now is because the Archbishop has agreed to basically ignore Rome’s demands while we tried to find solutions and hoped for a different outcome.  If Rome had its way, I would have had to stop this Mass after this past December.

As I have said before, and I am not at all concerned about what anyone thinks of me, I believe the original document, Traditionis Custodes, that started all this ugliness to be unjust, despicable, a form of spiritual abuse from the Universal Pastor, and deserving of being ignored.  I would not want to have to face God as Judge if I were responsible for that document.  And I pray daily and sincerely for the Holy Father, and you should too.  I am personally comfortable with ignoring Rome’s aggression and just going on with life here.  But even I would admit that such a move would be challenging to sustain since Rome’s actions are so widely and publicly known.  To just ignore Rome’s demands would result in endless questions and uncomfortable conversations when others would inevitably ask how it is that the Mass continues here.  Would I lie and say we have permission?  Would I seem to be promoting open defiance of the Holy Father?  I think it is relevant to note in this dilemma that at least those who prefer the Mass of the 1962 Missal have local places to which they are already attached for full-service parish life.  I know that won’t help my own parishioners or me, but it still would remain possible for people here to attend on whatever occasion a Mass of the 1962 Missal where it is still permitted.  I am not saying that I am happy with this conclusion.  It is deeply unsatisfactory to me.  But it does seem relevant to note that what Rome is doing and what is now happening here does not mean that people have no option nearby for the 1962 Missal.

I realize that some among you might think I should do something different.  Perhaps you might be inclined to fault me for not fighting on.  I wouldn’t necessarily blame you for thinking so.  However, I have come to a few considerations that I hope you can at least appreciate.  Firstly, when it comes down to it, the only real personal relationship of obedience I have is to my Archbishop.  I made a promise to him.  Upon ordination a priest does not make such a promise to the pope.  It is through my obedience to the bishop of the diocese that I have connection to the Universal Church and to the Pope.  I cannot betray that obedience to my Archbishop and I would risk leading others astray were I to do so.  While this situation is difficult for me, seeing the care and generosity of the archbishop over these many months makes my obedience in this regard now a little less bitter to take.  I am not changing my opinion with regards to Rome’s actions, but I know that the Archbishop and I have tried numerous and creative things to avoid this.  Secondly, the devil and the demons can only mimic good things.  They can’t be truly good; they can only appear to be good by lying and by imitating what is good, even though what they actually do is to pervert that which is good.  In fact, that is so much a part of demonic activity: it twists and perverts what is good and true.  I suggest that obedience is one of the few things that the devil cannot emulate.  He can’t even come close.  No, his very existence is disobedience.  While he might ultimately submit to Christ and have to obey, as in the case of being expelled in an exorcism, the fact is he can’t emulate obedience.  He can only be forced – after much effort – to be obedient by being cast out.  Again, while it is very distasteful for me to conclude this, I think it is true: I cannot risk putting myself in a camp with the evil one by means of disobedience.  I need to take on obedience, even and especially when difficult, and to do so freely because it is one place the evil one surely cannot be.  He cannot be obedient.  Thirdly, in arriving at these conclusions, I am confident that the Lord is holding out much grace, albeit through suffering and the cross, that I do not see now or cannot see, but that I will be able to notice in time.  I am confident the Lord’s grace will work on my many defects and wear down my pride for his purposes.  I believe he will hold out the offer of this rich grace for you too, provided you likewise participate in what he is doing in the midst of this way of the cross.  I believe there are many great battles ahead.  Like other times in history, there is great upheaval in the world and in our beloved Church.  The Lord needs living members of his Body, he needs saints, to face off with the world and to bring it Good News!

These are the most important reasons in my thought process to share with you for how I have concluded that I will have to give up, for now, offering the Mass of the 1962 Missal publicly at my parish.  I can still say the Mass, and I will do so privately in my little prayer room on my day off.  I can still say it where it is still permitted, like at a Fraternity parish.  I can even say it at a non-parish church or some secret venue, as a hostile world may someday require.  But I can’t say it here anymore after June, as ridiculous as that is.  Part of the personal difficulty for me in this is that I feel as if I have failed you and failed the boys of the St. John Bosco Institute school.  I don’t think that is literally true.  But I feel as if I have.  In the tortured ways of man’s psychology in a fallen nature, we adults each know well that many a time how you feel about something and what is actually true do not always match up.  You know the second half of the Confiteor: “Ideo precor beatam Mariam” and other saints are mentioned, and then “et te Pater.”  It has become a gut punch for me, and difficult to hear, when my altar boys pray the second half of the Confiteor because I feel as if I am a father who has failed them and you.  That beseeching in the Confiteor has become a bit haunting to me: “et te Pater,” … “and you Father” I ask you to pray for me to the Lord our God.  While it is now the Cross for you and for me, we have two more uninterrupted Sundays together.  I promise I do and I will pray for you.  Et vos fratres, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum!

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.