Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Pope to issue specific instructions to bishops on implementing Summorum Pontificum

Apparently, some bishops think they're dealing with a softie. Pope Benedict is not happy with the reaction of some bishops to Summorum Pontificum, so he's spelling out his intentions for the document. Isn't he a grand shepherd?
Implementation, however, has been uneven, with some bishops issuing rules that "practically annul or twist the intention of the Pope," Msgr. Albert Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Divine Cult and Discipline of Sacraments, said recently, according to the Vatican's missionary news agency FIDES.
Such reactions amounted to a "crisis of obedience" toward the pontiff, he was quoted as saying, although he stressed that most bishops and other prelates had accepted the Pope's will "with the required sense of reverence and obedience."
Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, said the forthcoming instruction would lay out criteria for the Pope's document to be correctly applied, according to an interview published Thursday in the Italian religious affairs weekly Famiglia Cristiana. He gave no date for its publication.
He complained that reactions to the pontiff's document had been uneven.
"Some have even gone so far as to accuse the Pope of having reneged on Council teaching," Bertone was quoted as saying. "On the other hand, there are those who have interpreted the (document) as authorization to return exclusively to the pre-Council rite. Both positions are wrong, and are exaggerated episodes that don't correspond to the pope's intention."

HT The Canadian Press
I agree with the quote from Fr. Z in the article, there is a renewal of interest in the Latin Mass on Long Island, with young priests learning to say it for the first time, altar boys and schola members in training, as the faithful flock to the Traditional Mass. I don't see any danger of going back to this form entirely where I live, however.

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