SS. Peter
and Paul Roman Catholic Mission
P. O. Box
7352
York, PA
17404
717-792-2789
June 29, 2011
+Ss. Peter & Paul
Most Reverend
Joseph Patrick McFadden
Bishop, Diocese
of Harrisburg
4800 Union
Deposit Road
Harrisburg, PA
17111-3710
Dear Bishop
McFadden,
The purpose of
this letter is to clarify and reaffirm our positions on liturgical, doctrinal,
and moral questions; and to directly appeal through your office as our ordinary
to Pope Benedict XVI for his formal judgment on these questions from the Chair
of Peter.1
The recent
document Universae Ecclesiae published by the Pontifical
Commission of Ecclesia Dei (PCED) is the instruction on the application of Pope
Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio,
Summorum Pontificum,
which concerns the use of the 1962 Missal.
That Missal has been variously known as the Missal of John XXIII, the Bugnini transitional Missal of 1962, the Indult Missal, and
now, as the “extra-ordinary form” of the Novus Ordo
expressing a single ‘lex orandi/lex credendi’ of the later Bugnini edition, which is now called the “ordinary form” of
the Novus Ordo.
The 1962 Missal can be identified by any number of descriptive names
except, the “received and approved” immemorial Roman rite of the Mass. It is impossible that the 1962 Missal could
be the “received and approved”2
immemorial Roman rite because it is impossible that the immemorial Roman rite
could ever be reduced to the status of an Indult, or
treated as a grant of legal privilege entirely as a matter of Church discipline
subject to the free, independent and arbitrary will of the legislator, or even
worse, as the proper subject matter for experimentation by “liturgical experts”
staffing “liturgical committees.” The 1962 Missal has never been afforded the
standing of immemorial custom by the authorities in Rome and it has proven
itself to be just as unstable and transitory today as it was when first
published in 1962. We agree with Pope
Benedict that there exists no antithesis between the 1962 Missal and the 1970
edition of that rite.
The Masses
offered at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission are offered according to
the immemorial Roman rite of Mass before Rev. Annibale
Bugnini, as secretary for the Commission for
Liturgical Reform, overturned the principles of organic liturgical development
and subjected the “received and approved” Roman rite of Mass to artificial
manmade theories of liturgical innovation.
These theories, that are clearly foreign to the Catholic sense of
liturgical development, are of the same kind used by the Protestants in the 16th
century, and later by the Jansenists in the 17th
and 18th centuries, to employ liturgy as a means of changing
doctrine.3 Since we do not use the 1962 Missal, we are
not subject to the PCED, whose particular competency is to govern the use of
that edition with its anticipated updates in the ongoing “reform of the
reform,” nor are we subject to the restrictive norms established for the use of
that Missal.
We have some
small appreciation for the challenge facing Pope Benedict in his attempt to
correct the Novus Ordo liturgical problems in the
Latin rite, problems which he himself described as “a liturgical collapse,”4 but he is not without a share in
the responsibility for the current state of affairs. Implementing his ‘hermeneutic of
continuity/discontinuity’ by employing a Hegelian dialectic to create a new
liturgical synthesis between the Bugnini Missal of
1962 and the Bugnini Missal of 1970 will only produce
another artificial construct by liturgical innovators. We are not opposed to these “reform of the
reform” corrections and anticipate a general benefit for all Catholics when,
for example, the high altar is restored to its proper position in Catholic
sanctuaries, and such abuses as communion in the hand are ended, but why should
these corrections be paid for by a compromise of immemorial tradition? No one should expect Catholics who have been
faithful to tradition over the last 50 years to willingly subject themselves to
another liturgical edition of “musical chairs” with no idea where they will end
up when the music stops. Liturgical
instability has become the norm. It is
for this reason that we did not consider any suggestion to become an Indult
community by Bishop Rhoades.
Ss. Peter and
Paul Roman Catholic Mission claims that by virtue of our baptism, whose
character both empowers and obligates us to profess our Catholic faith and to
worship God in the external forum, we have the right to the “received and
approved” immemorial traditions of our Church that are perfectly consonant with
that faith we hold in the internal forum and by which our faith is visibly
manifested, most importantly, we possess
the right to have the “received and approved rites customarily used in
the administration of the sacraments” (Council of Trent). We further hold that, although these rights
can be duly regulated by properly constituted authority, they can never be
conditionally exercised by required concessions or compromises of Catholic
faith or morals.
We further
publically avow that we have made every effort to insure that our consciences,
according to Catholic moral principles, have been properly formed and that they
are both true and certain on these questions that pertain to faith and worship;
and have made every effort to conform our actions to our conscience which we as
Catholics are morally obliged to do.
It has been ten
years since we first submitted these questions to the judgment of Bishop
Nicholas Dattilo. From him, we received nothing, not
even stones. The same were submitted to
Bishop Kevin Rhoades requesting a judgment from the Chair of Peter. Our request was refused. That request is now submitted to you. With
all due filial respect, we are not asking this as a grant of favor but as an
obligation imposed by your office. What
we are asking has important implications for Catholics everywhere of every
rite.
There is a long
history of abusing the rights of Catholics to their legitimate traditions,
often, when convenient, with the use of force such as when the Normans, with
papal encouragement, overturned the traditions of the Greek Catholics in
southern Italy. Numerous attempts were
made to destroy the Ambrosian rite. One episode involved the direct suppression
by Pope Nicholas II which was overturned and declared by Pope Alexander II to
have been “unjust.” Outside of Toledo,
they were successful in wiping out every trace of the Mozarabic
Catholic tradition in Spain. History
would have been different if they had not driven eastern European Catholics
into the Orthodox fold. The abuses
committed by the Crusaders with regard to jurisdictional and ecclesiastical
traditions are remembered in detail. It
is ironic that the abuse of authority against non-Latin rite Catholics would
eventually be used against her own ecclesiastical traditions. From the Orthodox perspective, why would they
expect Rome to respect their immemorial traditions when they have no regard for
their own?
This is, in fact,
the greatest obstacle preventing union between the eastern rite Orthodox and
the Catholic Church. If Rome is to have
any credibility on this question they have to begin by the just treatment of
their own before they can ever expect to be taken seriously by others. We are confident that Pope Benedict, who
understands the limitations of papal authority and its relationship to
immemorial tradition, would render a just judgment from the Chair of Peter.5
Lastly, we have
several children and adults who are in need of the sacrament of Confirmation
according the “received and approved” rite.
You are our bishop and it is only proper that our request should be made
to you. This could be done by yourself,
your representative, or, with your authorization, by our priest, Rev. Samuel
Waters. A previous request made to
Bishop Rhoades was refused so we were obliged to receive the sacrament from
Bishop Bernard Fellay of the SSPX. We would prefer your help.
Your welfare is
specifically remembered daily in the Rosary of Reparation before the Blessed
Sacrament and at each Mass offered in Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic
Chapel.
Sincerely in
Christ,
D. M.
Drew
Chairman
Ss.
Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission
1 The holy Roman Church holds the highest and complete primacy and spiritual power over the universal Catholic Church which she truly and humbly recognizes herself to have received with fullness of power from the Lord Himelf in Blessed Peter, the chief or head of the Apostles whose successor is the Roman Pontiff. And just as to defend the truth of Faith she is held before all other things, so if any questions shall arise regarding faith they ought to be defined by her judgment. And to her anyone burdened with affairs pertaining to the ecclesiastical world can appeal; and in all cases looking forward to an ecclesiastical examination, recourse can be had to her judgment.
Second Council of Lyons, Denz. 466
And since the Roman Pontiff is at the head of the universal Church by the divine right of apostolic primacy, We teach and declare also that he is the supreme judge of the faithful, and that in all cases pertaining to ecclesiastical examination recourse can be had to his judgment.
First Vatican Council, Denz. 1830
2 The Tridentine
Profession of Faith of Pope Pius IV, Iniunctum Nobis, prescribes adherence to the “received and
approved rites of the Catholic Church used in the solemn administration of the
sacraments.” The “received and approved
rites” are the rites established by custom, and hence the Council of Trent
refers to them as the “received and approved rites of the Catholic Church
customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments (Sess. VII, can
XIII). Adherence to the customary rites
received and approved by the Church is an infallible defined doctrine: The
Council of Florence defined that “priests…. must confect the body of the Lord,
each one according to the custom of his Church” (Decretum pro Graecis), and therefore the Council
of Trent solemnly condemned as heresy the proposition that “ the received and
approved rites of the Catholic Church customarily used in the solemn
administration of the sacraments may be changed into other new rites by any
ecclesiastical pastor whosoever.”
Fr. Paul Kramer,
B.Ph., S.T.B., M.Div., S.T.L. The Suicide of
Altering the Faith in the Liturgy
3
"Liturgy and faith are interdependent.
That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the
bias of the new [modernist] theology”.
Msgr. Klaus Gamber,
The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, with
introduction by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
4 “[The Novus Ordo] presented
as a new structure, in opposition to the one which had been formed through history."
"I
am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends
in great part on the collapse of the liturgy."
Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, From
My Life: Remembrances 1927-1977
5 “It
seems to me most important that the Catechism, in mentioning the
limitation of the powers of the supreme authority in the Church with regard to
reform, recalls to mind what is the essence of the primacy as outlined by the
First and Second Vatican Councils: The pope is not an absolute monarch whose
will is law; rather, he is the guardian of the authentic Tradition and,
thereby, the premier guarantor of obedience. He cannot do as he likes, and he
is thereby able to oppose those people who, for their part, want to do whatever
comes into their head. His rule is not that of arbitrary power, but that of
obedience in faith. That is why, with respect to the Liturgy, he has the task
of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the
old ones on the junk-pile. The "rite", that form of celebration and
prayer which has ripened in the faith and the life of the Church, is a
condensed form of living Tradition in which the sphere using that rite
expresses the whole of its faith and its prayer, and thus at the same time the
fellowship of generations one with another becomes something we can experience,
fellowship with the people who pray before us and after us. Thus the rite is
something of benefit that is given to the Church, a living form of paradosis, the handing-on of Tradition.”
Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Alcuin Reid, O.S.B.