A Reminder

A Latin Mass in the traditional form is offered at 3pm every Sunday at the Church of St Joseph in Stokesley.  

The church has a chequered history.  Opened in 1873 to a design provided by George Goldie, it could be described a a small church built to a modest budget.  It suffered from a disastrous fire in the 1970s that destroyed the roof, and much else.  A new roof was provided and the internal arrangements were altered so that the altar was in the middle of the south (liturgical) wall.

In recent years, the original orientation has been restored, which is a huge improvement.

Seen in the Streets of Chicago

This truck, which has been photographed in Chicago, has an uncompromising message.  The gentleman in the red biretta is Cardinal Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, who has imposed Draconian measures to restrict the Latin Mass in his diocese, including banning it on the first Snday of every month.

 

How Things Used To Be

The photograph below was taken in the 1950s, and shows ordination day at the Seminary of Saint Sulpice in Paris.  You can count 66 ordinands in the picture, and there are clearly more outside the view of the camera.

This seminary might have served about five dioceses in the Paris area, which suggests an average of 13 or more ordinations per diocese.  Nowadays, an average French diocese has about two ordinations each year.  A more alarming statistic is that 60% of French Dioceses will have no ordinations this year. 

Fr James Mawdsley

I first came across Fr James Mawdsley around the year 2000.  At that time, he was in the news as a campaigner against the repression of the tribal people of Burma by their government. Many years later I met him in completely unrelated circumstances, and discovered that he was about to start training to become a priest of the Priestly Society of St Peter.  After studying at Wigratzbad, he was ordained in Warrington in 2016, and has served the FSSP, mostly in Austria and Germany.

Recently, he has hit the headlines again.  He has embarked on a new campaign to fight the attempt by Pope Francis to curtail and eventually eliminate the Latin Mass.  In order to be free to take on this cause, and not to cause the FSSP embarrassment, Fr Mawdsley has resigned from the order.

He has now released a video, which can be found on the Remnant and on Fr Z's blog as well as several other places.

Brazilian Archbishop to defy Respona ad Dubia

 Below is a report taken from en.news that states that a Brazilian archbishop will on 19th February be conducting a priestly ordination according to the Pontificale Romanum.  

Archbishop Fernando Guimarães, 75, the Military Ordinary of Brazil, will ordain a priest for the Good Shepherd Institute on February 19 in Brasilia, Brazil.

He will use the Pontificale of 1962 of which Francis and his Liturgy Congregation believe that it is “forbidden.” The Institute announces the ordination of Abbé Thiago de Oliveira Pino “with joy.” The whole Church rejoices with them.

This news, if correct, is important for two reasons.  Firstly, it involves an archbishop disregarding the Responsa ad Dubia issued by Archbishop Roche of the Congregation for Divine Worship.   Secondly, it indicates that Institute of the Good Shephard, one of the three largest orders of traditional priests, intends to continue ordaining priests in the traditional rite.

Candlemas

The Feast of Candlemas, or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary is on Wednesday 2nd February.  There will be a Sung Latin Mass with blessing of candles and procession at 6pm in St Wilfrid's Church, York.

Thursday 13th January

 CANCELLED MASS

Please note that the Latin Mass that usually takes place  at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and St Peter Channel at 7.30pm on Thursdays will NOT take place on Thursday 13th January.  The Mass will resume the following week.

The Tablet

 

Although I do not subscribe to The Tablet, I am always interested to see what it has to say on matters concerning the Latin Mass.  I discovered that last week's edition included three letters (including one from myself) on the subject, all of which were highly critical of the policy coming from the Pope Francis and the Vatican of attempting to extinguish the Mass that so many of us love.  The letters are reproduced below.

I would encourage readers who want to defend the Latin Mass to use every opportunity to promote the cause.  Writing to the Tablet is one way of doing this.

Pope Francis Speaks

 

The following are extracts from the sermon given in St Peter's Basilica by Pope Francis on the Feast of the Epiphany:

"Have we been stuck all too long, nestled inside a conventional, external and formal religiosity that no longer warms our hearts and changes our lives?"

"Do our words and our liturgies ignite in people's hearts a desire to move towards God, or are they a 'dead language' that speaks only of itself and to itself?"

It seems that Pope Francis is continuing to deride the Latin Mass, and is now doing so in his sermons.

Epiphany

Thursday 6th January is the Feast of the Epiphany and a Holyday of Obligation.  In the Middlesbrough Diocese, there will be a Sung Mass at 6pm at St Wilfrid's, York; and a Low Mass at the Church of Our Lady and St Peter Chanel in Hull  The Mass in Hull will be offered for the repose of the soul of Peter Miles, a long time member of the Latin Mass Society, who died before Christmas.