"Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed by this latest development at the conference," said Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima, Washington, who sits on the subcommittee of the bishops' Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Tyson said he was "saddened" that he heard first about the layoffs only when NCR reached out to him for comments, and not from the U.S. bishops' conference leadership itself.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is part of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development.
"Selective staff reductions in CCHD may leave the incorrect impression that CCHD staff is at fault. But the CCHD staff is not at fault," Tyson said. "And after our strong backing of CCHD, the optics of a staff reduction seem to contradict our message of strong support."
Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima, Washington (CNS/Paul Haring)
In a June 25 email to NCR, Chieko Noguchi, executive director of the Office of Public Affairs at the bishops' conference, said, "Staff were notified of changes to the structure of the USCCB's Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development. This reorganization will allow the Conference to align resources more closely with recent funding trends."
Noguchi confirmed this included the loss of jobs, but added, "Since this is a personnel matter, I'm not able to share further information at this time."
Sir, On July 6, 1971, The Times printed an appeal to Pope Paul VI in defence of the Latin Mass signed by Catholic and non-Catholic artists and writers, including Agatha Christie, Graham Greene and Yehudi Menuhin. This became known as the "Agatha Christie letter", because it was reportedly her name that prompted the Pope to issue an indult, or permission, for celebration of the Latin Mass in England and Wales. The letter argued that "the rite in question, in its magnificent Latin text, has also inspired priceless achievements ... by poets, philosophers, musicians, architects, painters and sculptors in all countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture." Recently there have been worrying reports from Rome that the Latin Mass is to be banished from nearly every Catholic church. This is a painful and confusing prospect, especially for the growing number of young Catholics whose faith has been nurtured by it. The traditional liturgy is a "cathedral" of text and gesture, developing as those venerable buildings did over many centuries. Not everyone appreciates its value and that is fine; but to destroy it seems an unnecessary and insensitive act in a world where history can all too easily slip away forgotten. The old rite's ability to encourage silence and contemplation is a treasure not easily replicated, and, when gone, impossible to reconstruct. This appeal, like its predecessor, is "entirely ecumenical and non-political". The signatories include Catholics and non-Catholics, believers and non-believers. We implore the Holy See to reconsider any further restriction of access to this magnificent spiritual and cultural heritage.
Robert Agostinelli; Lord Alton of Liverpool; Lord Bailey of Paddington; Lord Bamford; Lord Berkeley of Knighton; Sophie Bevan; lan Bostridfe; Nina Campbell; Meghan Cassidy; Sir Nicholas Coleridge; Dame Imogen Cooper; Lord Fellowes of West Stafford; Sir Rocco Forte; Lady Antonia Fraser; Martin Fuller; Lady Getty; John Gilhooly; Dame Jane Glover; Michael Gove; Susan Hampshire; Lord Hesketh; Tom Holland; Sir Stephen Hough; Tristram Hunt; Steven Isserlis; Bianca Jagger; Igor Levit; Lord Lloyd-Webber; Julian Lloyd Webber; Dame Felicity Lott; Sir James MacMillan; Princess Michael of Kent; Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest; Lord Moore of Etchingham; Fraser Nelson; Alex Polizzi; Mishka Rushdie Momen; Sir András Schiff; Lord Skidelsky; Lord Smith of Finsbury; Sir Paul Smith; Rory Stewart; Lord Stirrup; Dame Kiri Te Kanawa; Dame Mitsuko Uchida; Nina Campbell; Meghan Cassidy; Sir Nicholas Coleridge; Ryan Wigglesworth; AN Wilson; Adam Zamoyski
Paul Vaughn, a pro-life father of 11, escaped prison time on Tuesday after he was sentenced in Nashville over his participation in a peaceful protest at a Tennessee abortion facility March 2021.
The Biden administration had asked for one year of prison time, but U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger decided to impose no prison time or fine, sentencing Vaughn to three years of supervised release. Vaughn was convicted of violating the FACE Act and in participating in a conspiracy against rights.
The Biden Justice Department brought charges against Vaughn and 10 other pro-lifers present at a sit-in at the Carafem Health Center Clinic in Mt. Juliet.
When given an opportunity to speak, Vaughn said that the “reason I am engaged in activities is because I care for my country.”
He added that it was between the judge and God whether he should be “locked up.” Vaughn also maintained that he had never broken the FACE Act, a Clinton-era law that has been used to go after pro-lifers protesting and sidewalk counseling outside of abortion facilities.
Loup Besmond de Senneville reports on La-Croix.com (July 1) that according to "several sources" there is no document in preparation against the Mass of the Roman Rite.
Such rumors were first spread by the usually well-informed blog Rorate-Caeli.blogspot.com on June 17. They are said to have come from one official in the Dicastery for Divine Worship.
The rumors initially spoke of a total "prohibition" of the Roman Rite, then of an exception for institutes dedicated to the Roman Rite.
La-Croix.com responds: "No such document is currently being prepared by the Dicastery for Divine Worship."
"It's all just talk," said a senior Vatican official. The same official denounced the rumors as "fantasy".
Another source said the rumors were completely unfounded.
Let me be perfectly clear, as the politicians like to say: I have no vested interest in promoting the traditional Latin Mass. In fact, I was brought up Episcopalian and so, if overcome by a fit of nostalgia, I would pine for the King James Version of the Bible and liturgy modeled on the unsurpassably elegant English of the old Book of Common Prayer. Moreover, I entered the Catholic Church after the close of the Second Vatican Council and didn’t experience a Tridentine Mass until I was thirty or so years into my priesthood, serving as Director of Spiritual Formation in a seminary.
That Mass was offered once a semester, as I recall, so that the seminarians would be familiar with it. I can’t say how many were transported by the experience. I wasn’t. I sometimes joke that the Holy Spirit’s primary motive in permitting the almost complete abandonment of Latin liturgy in favor of the vernacular was to make possible my ordination, for I have grave doubts that I could ever have mastered Latin. And even now, if suddenly Latin Masses were restored and mandated, I would probably have to slip into invisibility and seek permission to offer private Masses in English.
I am certainly, then, no strident advocate or promoter of the traditional Latin Mass and even more certainly no questioner of the validity or efficacy of the Mass I’ve been celebrating daily for nearly fifty years. That said, I can affirm without hesitation that some of the finest, most dedicated, most pastoral, most faithful priests I have known over the course of these many decades, priests of all ages, have loved the traditional Latin Mass and have wished, and continue to wish, that it were made available to the faithful whose experience of it has been very different from my own.
Many of these faithful are young, and among them quite a few feel the tug of a religious vocation. Some few of these may be extreme in their criticism of the Novus Ordo and in their desire, should they be ordained, to serve only those whose liturgical vision coincides with theirs. But they are the exception, not the rule.
So I ask myself, how is that in a Church of multiple approved liturgical rites and many cultural adaptations of liturgical practice, a Church that is willing to reach out without reserve to Communist China (which brutally persecutes religious minorities), and to the LGBTQ community, which recently showed its utter disdain for all things Catholic by turning a funeral liturgy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City into a circus, the Vatican cannot find it in its compassionate and accompanying heart to allow Catholics who love the traditional Latin Mass, which existed for centuries, to worship in the way they wish, with the Church’s blessing.
Doing so might even contribute to easing the strain of having to celebrate Masses in dozens of languages on any given Sunday in the same diocese.
Mass at St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Vienna) by Jindřich Tomec, 1920s [private collection]
Years ago, an elderly woman in a parish where I was the pastor approached me with tears in her eyes. I hadn’t seen her in quite a while, and she wanted to explain. She loved our parish, she said, but especially after the death of her husband, she was emotionally drained, grieving, and trying to feel as at home with the Novus Ordo as she had with the Tridentine Mass. And so she had found a parish where she did feel at home and comforted. She continued to support our parish, but on Sundays would go off to another church, one I’m pretty sure was not at the time approved by Rome.
What does the Vatican have to say to such a person, “Let her eat cake”? Granted, she was elderly and emotionally attached to something she had actually known and loved most of her life. Granted, this is not the case with most of those currently enamored of the traditional Latin Mass. Nevertheless, many of these Catholics are experiencing God, His grace, and His transcendent love at this Mass in a way they do not at the Novus Ordo (in the way, I repeat, that I do). Why impugn their motives? Why mock them? Why ostracize them?
The FBI apparently considers traditional Catholics a serious threat to what is left of our democracy. If that’s what they call keeping us safe, I feel very unsafe indeed. The Vatican, in a world of moral chaos, massive defections from church-going among rank-and-file Catholics, and even greater loss of faith in fundamental Catholic truth, seems poised to expend its limited and dwindling moral capital on marginalizing Catholics desiring the traditional Latin Mass, reaching out to those who openly despise all we stand for, and jabbering about climate change and other trendy issues. If this is what passes for wisdom, then sign me up as a fool.
Not long ago, in an interview with EWTN’s Colm Flynn, Dr. Jordan Peterson worried aloud that the Catholic Church had lost faith in its fundamental message. I’d like to think that isn’t true, but it certainly seems that something has been lost. Could it be courage? After all, it’s a lot easier to bully a little guy who is no threat to anyone than to stand up to real bullies who have on their side most of the media, including the entertainment industry, and so much of the West’s intelligentsia.
Be that as it may, here’s one ex-Episcopalian, who loves celebrating the Novus Ordo, but who wishes well to all the traditional Latin Mass lovers. At least when it comes to something like this, call me “pro-choice.”
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Card. Burke: "Prophétis meis"
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Non relíquit hóminem nocére eis: et corrípuit pro eis reges.
Nolíte tángere christos meos: et in prophétis meis nolíte malignári.
-- Sanctae Mariae in Sabbat...
