I have been following the story about the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate with some interest though not with great, focused attention to detail. Nor am I jumping to conclusions, even if I am concerned and watchful about Pope Benedict’s legacy in terms of both Summorum Pontificam and Anglicanorum coetibus.
Sandro Magister reports on concerns four scholars have raised about the disciplinary measure quashing the right of priests in the FFI to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass.
In reality, the freedom to celebrate the Mass in the ancient rite that Pope Joseph Ratzinger had guaranteed for all with the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum” no longer has universal extension today, because it has been revoked by his successor for one religious congregation and consequently also for the faithful who attended its Masses.
With reverberations that are rippling through the whole Church.
Many lovers of tradition are afraid, in fact, that this restriction placed on one of the pillars of the pontificate of Benedict XVI will soon become a more general impediment.
-snip-
The Franciscans of the Immaculate have obeyed. But there are some who have not surrendered, and have sent to the Vatican a thorough critique of the decree with which the congregation for religious – with the explicit approval of the pope – intimated to the friars the ban on celebrating the Mass in the ancient rite.
The authors of this critical analysis are four renowned Catholic scholars: Roberto de Mattei, a historian and the author of a substantial reconstruction of Vatican Council II in the traditionalist vein, Mario Palmaro, a philosopher of law, Andrea Sandri, an expert in constitutional law, and Giovanni Turco, a philosopher. The first two teach at the European University of Rome, the third at the Catholic University of Milan, the fourth at the University of Udine.
The article includes portions of the analysis by the above authors.
Foolishness to the world 
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I, too, am worried about what this move might mean for the wider Church.
Another thought about the TLM not related to the above post…… for all those trads who threw spittle flecked nutties when Benedict XVI re-wrote the Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews, well if he had left it alone do you really think that HH Pope Francis would have left it alone??? Trads will begrudgingly admit that Benedict’s new prayer is vastly superior to its Novus Ordo counterpart. Do you REALLY think HH Pope Francis would have gone to the trouble of writing a new prayer, one more amenable to trads, as BXVI did? Or would he have simply cut&pasted the Novus Ordo one into the TLM? I, for one, am extremely grateful to Pope Benedict for his Good Friday prayer revision.
At least as regards to the Ordinariates, Pope Francis has significantly widened the doors into the Ordinariate and the symbolic gesture of allowing “baptized pagans” entry is that this is no mere club for former Anglicans but it’s for the whole Church. That fact alone gives me considerable comfort.
Unless a “modern English” faction within the Ordinariates (I’m sure one must exist) petition the CDW and bring on another intervention…..
sorry, it should be:
…and the symbolic SIGNIFICANCE of allowing “baptized pagans”…….
I am a little confused here, as I was under the impression that it was Pope Benedict who had ordered the investigation and that all that Pope Francis has done is follow the recommendations.
I am, have always been, and will always be a loyal servant of the Church – I have never attacked the Pope, whomsoever the Holy Spirit has seen fit to anoint, and am somewhat sickened, as I believe Deborah is, by some of the attacks on the Holy Father.
Whilst I am interested in the details of the critique of the decision concerning the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, I feel the commentary around it is ill-informed prejudice and does nothing to advance the case of the loyal Friars.
Deborah,
You wrote: Sandro Magister reports on concerns four scholars have raised about the disciplinary measure quashing the right of priests in the FFI to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass.
There is a lot of distortion and disregard of fact in this article. Here are a few very significant points.
>> 1. Pope Benedict XVI initiated an investigation of certain problems affecting the communal life of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, under the auspices of the Congregation for Religious, well before he resigned/abdicated the papal office. That investigation identified the attitudes surrounding use the Tridentine form of the liturgy as a major cause or contributor to the problems affecting communal life of the order, and accordingly recommended the action in question. Pope Francis simply gave his assent to the recommendation when the congregation presented it to him. Thus, far from contradicting what Pope Benedict XVI had done, in this matter Pope Francis simply followed through on what Pope Benedict XVI began. Here, I should also point out that Pope Francis reappointed the officials, members and consultors who had served in the Congregation for Religious under Pope Benedict XVI, sustaining continuity in the handling of this matter.
>> 2. As I have remarked in discussion of previous posts on this subject, is a serious mistake to assume that a step taken to address a specific situation in a religious order is in any way a harbinger of a new direction in ecclesial law. As a general principal of ecclesial law, one does not suppress approved use due to abuse by a few. Rather, one initiates limited restrictions to correct the abuse. In this case, the Congregation for Religious did just that, imposing a restriction only on the order within which the use/abuse was causing a major problem in the communal life. This fact that the restriction came from the Congregation for Religious rather than from the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which normally oversees the implementation of Summorum pontificam, is further evidence of this fact.
From your quotation: The Franciscans of the Immaculate have obeyed. But there are some who have not surrendered, and have sent to the Vatican a thorough critique of the decree with which the congregation for religious – with the explicit approval of the pope – intimated to the friars the ban on celebrating the Mass in the ancient rite.
Yes, and what’s really amazing about this critique is that it totally ignores the issue at hand — that is, the problems in the communal life of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate that were so serious as to draw the Vatican’s direct intervention. It is extremely unusual for the Vatican to initiate an investigation of the communal life of a religious order, and even more rare for an investigation to lead to this sort of intervention. The fact that the Vatican perceived this sort of intervention to be necessary, and even urgent, is prima face evidence of just how serious the problems were.
That said, if some of the most radical of Traditionalists misconstrue this as a shot across the bow and a warning to check their “holier and more Catholic than thou” attitudes of supposed superiority at the door, I won’t complain.
Norm.
In other words, the restriction or suppression of the extraordinary form for this particular group of Franciscans is a move to help restore or repair the religious life of the group, and not a move to restrict the old Mass as such. In other words, whatever is identified as a cause of strife and disharmony and destructiveness to the foundational vocation of religious for these Franciscans is a cause for action; it just so happens that in this case the use of the extraordinary form was such a cause. It could have been anything else. It just so happens that in this particular community, the old Mass was not helping. The very act of submission by the community is itself a restorative and reparative act and contribution to a holier religious life, so it is a beneficial move on a couple of fronts. In other words, this is not an example of Mass policy, so much as religious life policy!