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.