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Thursday, July 16, 2015

Frodo Tells a Fib


Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich just gave an interview with (of all things) Laura Ingraham's new website LifeZette. It was somewhat wide-ranging and part of it was actually quite strange (more on that in another post). But what jumped out at me the most was the Archbishop saying something that could be most accurately described by using the L word. Or to be more charitable, it was a fib.
What role do traditional communities, like parishes that celebrate the Tridentine Mass, have in attracting people? 
People come at their own expression of faith in different ways, and I’m respectful of that. I’ve never tried to interfere in how people relate to God. The church does allow for a wide expression of the faith. People who are more “traditional,” as you call them, celebrate the liturgy much differently than, say, in Africa. We should be respectful of people’s own religious piety if it is life-giving for them. 
I would also challenge whether or not a group can really call themselves “traditional” if they cannot take the period that’s in recent history and call themselves “traditional” when we are a 2,000-year-old church. Maybe there has to be another name for that. All of these various expressions of the faith are within the tradition.
There's a fair amount to unpack there, but I'm not inclined to do that now. The most important takeaway is,
People come at their own expression of faith in different ways, and I’m respectful of that. I’ve never tried to interfere in how people relate to God...We should be respectful of people’s own religious piety if it is life-giving for them.
In fact, one of the most notorious and well-known actions to suppress Traditional worship was made by Cupich in 2002. From the Rapid City Journal:
Bishop bans Latin services 
March 27, 2002 11:00 pm • Mary Garrigan, Journal Staff Writer 
RAPID CITY - A standoff between Latin-rite Catholics in Rapid City and their bishop has left the Latin Mass congregation of St. Michael's choosing to celebrate Good Friday services on the sidewalk instead of in church. 
Members of the Latin Mass community, which has met in Rapid City for the past 12 years at Immaculate Conception Church on Fifth Street, say Bishop Blase Cupich has barred them from celebrating Good Friday and Easter vigil services at the church in an attempt to mainstream them into the English-language Mass. 
"We've been prohibited by the bishop from celebrating the Easter Triduum liturgies and locked out of our church from noon on Holy Thursday until 8 a.m. on Easter morning," Dan Carda, 58, of Piedmont, said. Carda is a Latin Mass adherent who refuses to participate in the new-order English-language Mass that was mandated by the Second Vatican Council. 
Instead, Carda and some of the other 220 members of St. Michael's congregation will gather at 3 p.m. today for Good Friday services on the sidewalk in front of the church. 
Cupich sees his decision to not allow Good Friday Latin services at ICC as an invitation to unity, not a denial. 
"We're just looking for an opportunity on an annual basis for us to all worship together, for one moment of unity as a Catholic church," 
Cupich said. "I'm looking for one time each year to do that, and it seems the day the Lord died for us all would be a good day to do it. That's all that this is about."
We'll let Cupich have the last word, at least for this excerpt. Read the rest here. Whatever you think of Cupich's justification for his actions (no traditionalist I've ever met thinks much of them), they do seem to contradict his recent words.  

Have you ever been locked out of your own church by your own bishop for the Easter Triduum? Does that count as interference? By the way, they did celebrate that service on the sidewalk. I'm sure it was the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.
I’ve never tried to interfere in how people relate to God...
Blase Cupich is a liar.

This man hates the Traditional Mass. He despises it. Catholics celebrated it for four-hundred years, and before that in a substantially similar form for a thousand more.

He hates that Church. And if you love that Church and therefore the Catholic Church as you do, then, sorry to say it, but I think he hates you.

And of course he hates everything about how Mass was celebrated by the vast majority of Catholics who ever lived--Communion on the tongue, priests leading their parishioners in facing the Altar of God...

In a discussion about Cupich a few months ago, someone wrote,
In his first Mass as our new Pastor in Omaha, Father Cupich publicly chastised our teenage daughter for genuflecting, as was her practice, along with many others in our parish, before receiving the Blessed Sacrament. He said loudly so that all in the communion line could hear: “don’t do that in my church again”.
What would you think if a priest yelled at your daughter for kneeling to God?

It's not your Church, Archbishop Cupich. It's Christ's Church.

I shall be calmer about this in the morning.

And you will still be Frodo.

17 comments:

  1. A real winner, this one.

    But we survived Bernardin, so we'll survive Cupich. Question is, how much will survive though...

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    1. I think much of what Cupich does or does not do will depend on Francis. So in the end I'm more worried about him.

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    2. Cupich is fairly young, so whatever he might do, he'll have plenty of time to do it - a full decade.

      At a guess, the least I can say is that Chicago's priest shortage is going to get considerably worse, based on his track record in his previous dioceses. But I guess that's what female lay administrators are for.

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    3. Did we survive Bernadin? Aren't most of his boys still in power?

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  2. "I’ve never tried to interfere in how people relate to God." That was not a lie...He didn't have to try...it just comes naturally

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  3. What can be expected when the Church is being run by freemasons, homosexuals, feminists..etc. Pray them all away and ask Our Lady to help us.

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  4. There are lies, damn lies..... and heretics in episcopal sheepskin....

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  5. he might be 65,but can do a lot of damage in the next 10 yrs. Pray our Lord takes him

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  6. Not so sure the Roman Catholic Church is being seen so much as Christ's Church nowadays as a 'FrancisChurch"...

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  7. It's Francis church, alright. How pleasing can the holy sacrifice of the Mass with the stench of his name in the liturgy? Or with any concilliar pope's name in the liturgy? They've all promulgated the heretical new Mass and all the other errors of Vat 2 (can someone say Assisi). Francis is just the slimiest usurper of Peter's chair since 1968.

    Seattle kim

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  8. I'll bet Archbishop Cupich didn't tell the Spanish or Vietnamese Catholics that they had to to go to the English Novus Ordo or nothing for Easter and Good Friday that year.

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  9. Contra Garrigan, Vatican 2 did NOT mandate the Novus Ordo Mass. Vatican 2 called for Mass to be in LATIN accompanied by GREGORIAN CHANT with occasional polyphony and hymns accompanied by the ORGAN. Sorry, just so tired of this . . .

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    1. Thank you for clarifying that. It is an important issue.

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