Smasher Lagru

It all depends on who you read and your point of view.

I watched the Pope celebrate Mass and Baptism on EWTN last night.  Since it was the first time I've seen Mass in the Sistine I couldn't tell if it was unusual that the Pope was using the main altar and celebrating ad orientem.  Also used a wonderful throne to one side, which was clearly original (or there a long time) since the sanctuary steps were designed to facilitate its use.

The Pope is, I think, a master communicator - even greater than Pope John Paul - in his use of images and symbols.  So here he celebrated ad orientem, but using the Ordinary Form and in Italian (Eucharistic Prayer 2 which is great if you've got children cos it's short).  And he also used the modern baptismal font from the seventies.

All of this completely confuses "religious commentators" who can't move beyond the two legs good, four legs bad approach.



We all enjoy seeing the human side of the Pope so it was good to note that he got one of the children's name wrong and had to be corrected by the father.  And that mysteriously at some point he also lost his fisherman's ring.  You know the way people fiddle with these things and I recall Bishop Walsh of Down and Connor dropping his during a sermon by Cahal Cardinal Daly.  And another MC who, having been given a bishop's ring to hold at some point during a Mass - the bishop was anointing - the MC put the ring on his own finger and then couldn't get it off again.  And if you've ever got your finger stuck in a bishop's ring that can be very embarrassing. 

I have never been a big fan of the Old Mass/Traditional Latin Mass/Extraordinary Form simply because, well I've only ever been to one which was fine but what tended to put me off was that I knew so many weirdos connected with the Old Mass.  Not just the tweed wearing Peadar types who look and talk like 1950s civil servants but genuine lefebvrists types spouting off about the protestantised novis ordo, free masons and "can you get me an altar stone from the college chapel".

But I completely supported the Motu Proprio on the basis that, well it's from the Pope firstly, and secondly it makes good sense to bring people in from the cold if you can, and thirdly it might help improve the appalling celebration of the Ordinary Form.  and I have been gently shocked by the rebellious reaction of some bishops, including Irish bishops such as Patrick Walsh in Down and Connor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Walsh_%28Bishop%29)

A priest friend of mine, a missionary in South America, back in Ireland for a few weeks, is a celebrator of the Extraordinary Form, which he did almost every day in his home town to the delight of the local Latin Mass Society Tweed wearers.  I presume he passed no test set by a local bishop.

For those awaiting humour in this post - there isn't any (well apart from the picture which is vaguely amusing and refers, in case you don't follow these things, to another document due out explaining what the Pope meant when he said priests didn't need special permission to use the Extraordinary Form) as I am too ill to be funny.  I have what the doctor describes as a three week virus and what Bellatrix calls "your cold".

Head of Vanitas, Maura Hyland, has attacked the comments by Pope Benedict and Smasher Lagru.  "He can't even spell "catechesis" she whinged. "The Ordo makes a tremendous contribution and is based on the lived experience of people - that's why one page has St Patrick's day on 17th March and another page has it on the 15th.  It reflects the confusion that people find in their lives".

Before naming her teddy bear Benedict.



Teddy was not available for comment or for hugs.