Its up there with the toughest.

Vatican City’s immigration law is one of the strictest in Europe.

Vatican citizenship is a rare status, tightly controlled and highly coveted. According to official records, only 618 individuals hold Vatican citizenship, making it the most exclusive in the world.

Regulations a-plenty.

(ZENIT News / Rome, 08.30.2024).- The Vatican City, though best known as the spiritual and administrative heart of the Roman Catholic Church, is also a unique sovereign state governed by its own civil laws.

Despite its small size and population, this city-state is rigorously safeguarded, both physically and legally, under a set of stringent regulations that define its borders, citizenship, and residency.

It’s been cracking down this year.

The Vatican City State has toughened sanctions for those who try to illegally enter its territory in areas where free access is not allowed.

In a decree issued last month by the Holy See, the monetary sanctions and prison sentences for those who violate the strict security regulations of Vatican City have been considerably increased.

Much?

The document, signed by Cardinal Fernando Vérguez Alzaga, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, provides for monetary fines ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 euros (about $10,200 to $25,700) and prison sentences ranging from one to four years.

These fines will apply especially to those who enter by means of violence, threats, or deception, bypassing border controls or security systems. In addition, those who enter with expired permits or do not meet the established requirements will receive administrative sanctions ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 euros (about $2,060 to $5,145).

Did Pope Francis know about this?

The Pope’s unconditional welcome for migrants does not apply to his own state. Hélène de Lauzun

• — January 16, 2025

While Pope Francis in his media appearances is constantly urging Catholics to open their arms ever wider to migrants, the Vatican papal state has just issued a decree to drastically protect its borders.

He saw it as their duty.

As is the case every twenty-five years, 2025 will be a jubilee year for the Catholic Church, which means that huge numbers of pilgrims will flock to Rome for the occasion.

A few days before Christmas, the Vatican issued designed to impose severe penalties on anyone attempting to enter the world’s smallest state illegally. The existence of this decree was only revealed on January 12th.

Didn’t anyone tell him?

Will his successor, Leo 14, maybe slow down a bit in his criticism of the U.S.?  Or at least explain  his (holier-than-thou?) stance? Ya gotta wonder.

Its architect was explicit on the point.

The Novus Ordo Missae [New Order mass] was introduced in April 1969 by Pope Paul VI. From the start, this new rite was intended to have an ecumenical nature as declared by its chief architect, Fr. Annibale Bugnini in 1965 . . . 

.  . . who made no bones about his slash-and-burn philosophy.

“We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren-that is, for the Protestants.”

From which we gain an idea of where we stand with this general-in-charge of the century’s liturgical wrecking crew.

Pope Paul VI reportedly adopted the Bugnini view:

. . .  the intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to . . . the Mass was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy . . .  there was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic, in the traditional sense, in the Mass and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist service  . . .

This is from “an intimate friend” of the pope,  Jean Guitton, referenced in October 1994, in Christian Order.  Paul VI had 116 of Guitton’s books and had made marginal study notes in 17 of them.

Along with mass-Protestantizing came belief changes, argues Michael Davies, prolific traditionalist writer and defender of the Tridentine Latin mass.

When I began work on this trilogy [Liturgical Revolution] I was concerned at the extent to which the Catholic liturgy was being Protestantized. The more detailed my study of the Revolution, the more evident it has become that it has by-passed Protestantism and its final goal is humanism.

Fighting words, to be sure.

Let’s start with Father Bux interviewed by . . .

MiL: Father Bux, you describe the post-conciliar liturgical reform as a clear deviation from the genuine intentions of Vatican II and Sacrosanctum Concilium. In your opinion, what was the gravest mistake in implementing the reform?

Assuming Father Bux is one who should know and have opinions in the matter, we listen.

FR BUX: Placing the participation of the faithful—now seen as a “right”—above the rights of God, who by His Presence makes it possible for us to enter into relationship with Him.

This is divine worship, cultivating our relationship with the Lord. The liturgy is “sacred” for this reason; otherwise it becomes mere public ceremony, subject to display, spectacle, or entertainment—what in America is called “litur-tainment.”

Pew-sitters come first! Meet their needs, using God as jet plane to comfort, achieve relaxation, calming of nerves and other good things.

This seems a problem, to go by the Novus Ordo readings of the other day:

Matthew 10:34—11:1

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.

How that fits into worship for the worshiper rather than God, God only knows, especially in view of the next words graph out of the Savior’s mouth:

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Preacher who handles that has a challenge, to be sure.

So what of the operation that ruled Father Bux’s opinions not fit for consumption? As in this headline:

The Cancelled Interview of Father Bux

Published on the ‘Messa in Latino’ blog and mainly about his new book, the interview was abruptly taken down by Google along with the blog. . .

Edward Pentin Jul 16, 2025

By Google no less! To whom we turn for info on everything under the sun.

On July 11 Google’s Blogger.com platform removed — without giving any warning or specific reason — the traditional Italian Catholic blog Messa in Latino after Blogger.com had received a complaint about the site.

Now who might that be who complained? Go ahead, guess.

Start with a minion of the successor to the man who shot down Traditional Latin Mass, our current throne-occupier who has made token moves toward tolerating TLM but has held off getting serious about it. We may at least suspect the complaint came from leftovers from Francis, none of whom can have found ought in this time of Leo to make them uncomfortable.

So this . . .

. . . Messa in Latino blog, the most widely read traditional site of its kind in Italy, was taken down shortly after posting an interview with Father Bux, an expert liturgist and former consulter to the then-Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith, Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and the Causes of Saints.

Oh.

Father Bux is on the other side in the war about liturgy, and the current pontiff’s people, knowing what he feels about the matter — as do many — knew what to do: cancel him!

Lock stock etc. The blog and all it contained!

We are not to take their current leader’s friendly manner for anything pacific when it comes to key issues. He cares!

We should have known this without a doubt when we saw the look on Chicago’s Cupich’s face when he accompanied the newly crowned Francis, I mean Leo, in his victory appearance on the porch, along with others.

Cupich offered the world a magnificent ear-to-ear grin which if it were wider would have required medical attention.

As for erasing the Google blog, our above offering tells not the half of it.

From Zenit, the World Seen From Rome:

Google cancels major Catholic blog: closure of traditionalist website sparks widespread debate on digital censorship

which gives us a story behind the story:

In a statement on X, Luigi Casalini, the journalist behind the site, lamented what he called a “grave violation” of free speech. He indicated that legal action is forthcoming, invoking Article 21 of the Italian Constitution, which guarantees the right to freely express opinions and explicitly prohibits censorship.

That, for our purposes, is the story. Behind it?

The sudden disappearance of a long-standing Italian Catholic blog has ignited concerns across Europe about freedom of expression in digital spaces—particularly when religious content becomes entangled with platform policies on hate speech.

Plot thickens?

Early on Saturday, July 12, visitors to «messainlatino.it» (MiL), a prominent website known for defending the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass and for its critical tone toward modern theological trends, were met with a brief and cryptic message: “Blog removed.”

Pow!

The blog, hosted on Google’s Blogger platform since 2007, is now inaccessible, its archive of over 22,000 posts abruptly erased from public view. No detailed explanation has been offered by Google, aside from a general reference to its community guidelines concerning hate speech.

Oh.

For many Catholics in Italy and beyond, «Messainlatino» had become more than a niche website. It was a liturgical chronicle, a rallying point for those seeking to preserve the Tridentine rite, and a place where conservative theological perspectives were given unapologetic voice.

A sort of Magna Carta in progress.

In June 2025 alone, as anticipation grew around potential liturgical reforms under the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, the blog drew over a million visits—a clear sign of its reach and resonance.

People were encouraged.

Now, critics are questioning whether this removal was a measured response to policy violations, or a troubling instance of ideological gatekeeping under the guise of content moderation.

Getting out of hand, you know.

In a statement on X, Luigi Casalini, the journalist behind the site, lamented what he called a “grave violation” of free speech.

He indicated that legal action is forthcoming, invoking Article 21 of the Italian Constitution, which guarantees the right to freely express opinions and explicitly prohibits censorship.

There’s hope.

Casalini is not alone in his outrage. Catholic intellectuals and journalists have described the shutdown as a significant blow—not only to traditionalist Catholics, but to pluralism within the Church.

Something honored in the breach under Francis, who ruled like born with a silver shovel in his hands, the better to get rid of nay-sayers.

Stefano Fontana, writing for the International Observatory Cardinal Van Thuân, emphasized the scale of the loss: this was not a temporary suspension, but a digital erasure.

Down with the nay-sayers. One complaint and the blog and its material, highly regarded as a Traditionalist voice, made to disappear. Something fishy here.

Fontana argued that «Messainlatino» had served as a consistent voice in Vatican reporting and was an important outlet for commentary on papal documents such as «Traditionis Custodes», which restricted the celebration of the older liturgical form.

More to come, we must expect.

Meanwhile, on another scene, from a former avant-garde liberation theologian, Father Clodovis Boff, came An Open Letter to the Bishops of Latin America which has had “a high resonance.”

Former liberation theology leader calls on Latin American bishops to focus on Christ

By Monasa Narjara Sao Paulo, Brazil, Jul 12, 2025

Friar Clodovis Boff has written an open letter to the bishops of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops’ Council (CELAM, by its Spanish acronym), who recently met in assembly, asking: “What good news did I read there? Forgive my frankness: None. You, bishops of CELAM, always repeat the same old story: social issues, social issues, and social issues. And this has been going on for more than 50 years.”

He’s had it.

“Dear older brothers, don’t you see that this music is getting old?” asked the priest, who belongs to the Order of the Servants of Mary (Servites), in reaction to the final document of the 40th Ordinary General Assembly of CELAM, held at the end of May in the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

He socks it to them.

“When will you give us good news about God, Christ, and his Spirit? About grace and salvation? About conversion of heart and meditating on the Word? About prayer and adoration, devotion to the mother of the Lord, and other such themes? In short, when will you send us a truly religious, spiritual message?”

Nicely said indeed.

We note that he’s been there, done that and knows whereof he speaks. We note also, if we may, that he gets at the heart of the new (approach to) religion promoted by the likes of the late Pope Francis, if not of his successor.

His is a shot at more than his South and Central American brothers, but also to pushers of the social gospel syndrome in Europe and North America.

Serious stuff, including some surprises at the end . . .

Summer Storms

“It’s dark on the Left now. They’ve reached that predictable moment where inflicting pain is all they have left.“ — Sasha Stone

James Howard Kunstler

Theories on the Epstein mess fly around like a murmuration of starlings wheeling across an angry summer sky. The birds are just birds. They are not the storm clouds in the background. Mark the difference.

You can rightly say that Mr. Trump has handled this Epstein business rather awkwardly — especially last Wednesday’s little show of vexation in the cabinet meeting, barking, nothing to see. . . just move along. What? You’ve been watching the Epstein psychodrama unspool for nearly twenty years, so how can it possibly come to this?

. . . .

Blessings for Sin, Stoles for Heretics, and Silence for Tradition: Leo XIV’s Church Is Francis’s Church

From Spain to San Diego, Leo XIV’s episcopal appointments and silent toleration of sacrilege reveal a Church that blesses sin, imitates heresy, and buries tradition, while calling it pastoral care.

Chris Jackson

Let’s start in Spain. On June 27, Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop José Antonio Satué Huerto to the Diocese of Málaga. Satué is no stranger to ecclesial bureaucracy. He’s worked in the Congregation for Clergy, been close to Cardinal Omella, and played inquisitor in the Gaztelueta case. But his most notable credential is this: he was an enthusiastic supporter of Fiducia Supplicans, the 2023 Vatican document that authorized blessings for homosexual “couples.

. . . .

Old Rite That Francis Forbade to Be Published. Because They Went Against His Will

In early July, in different ways but almost concurrently, two expert vaticanistas, the American Diane Montagna and the Italian Saverio Gaeta, made public for the first time the main results of a survey ordered by Pope Francis in 2020 in dioceses around the world on the celebration of the Mass in the old rite.

 Sandro Magister

Vatican says leaked documents were only part of information Pope Francis used to restrict Latin Mass

By NICOLE WINFIELD

Updated 6:28 AM CDT, July 3, 2025

ROME (AP) — Leaked documents seemingly undermining Pope Francis’ stated reason for restricting the old Latin Mass provided an incomplete reconstruction of the evidence that informed his 2021 decision to crack down on the spread of the ancient liturgy, the Vatican said Thursday.

New Evidence Confirms CDF Report, Erodes Vatican Narrative on Traditional Latin Mass Restrictions

A response to the Vatican’s July 3 statement on the newly released documentation concerning Traditionis Custodes

Diane Montagna Jul 10, 2025

Previously undisclosed documents raise serious questions about the stated rationale for Pope Francis’ 2021 decree restricting the Traditional Latin Mass.

Diane Montagna

VATICAN CITY, July 10, 2025 — More evidence has come to light confirming the authenticity of the sections I published last week from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s final report on its 2020 survey of bishops concerning the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI’s 2007 apostolic letter liberalizing the traditional Roman liturgy.

The sections I published on July 1 comprised the CDF report’s overall assessment of the survey results and a collection of quotations from bishops that were meant to give Pope Francis an overall representation of their responses.

Since publishing that story, I have obtained the Vatican protocol number for the CDF final report. Additionally, I have obtained the introduction to its Second Part, which confirms that the overall assessment constituted the official “opinion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” to which Pope Francis refers in Traditionis Custodes.

When Wolves Wear Vestments: The Synodal Siege Within the Church

Bishop Joseph Strickland

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

There are moments in the Church’s history when the sheep must look up – not because of storms from the world, but because the shepherds themselves have fallen silent … or worse, have joined the wolves.

St Paul once warned the Church in Ephesus with piercing clarity:

“I know that, after my departure, ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29).

And those wolves have come. They wear vestments. They speak of mercy, but they mock truth. They preach inclusion, but they exclude fidelity to the Deposit of Faith. They bless what God has called sin.

We are living through a siege – not from without, but from within. This is the hour of betrayal not unlike the garden of Gethsemane. But this time the betrayers wear miters and carry croziers. . . . .

Report on McCarrick Scandal Hit a Wall of Silence

July 10, 2025   Sexual Abuse from National Catholic Reporter by Peter Feuerherd

It was a story that got away from the National Catholic Reporter.

NCR tried and was unable to confirm the long-rumored abuse allegations against Theodore McCarrick, then a cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C., before they became national news.

One of the reporters who investigated was my late brother, Joe Feuerherd, former editor and publisher of National Catholic Reporter.

This is the story behind that story.

. . . .

No More Lavender Mafia!

Bishop Joseph Strickland

Jul 10, 2025

With the appointment of Fr. Thomas Hennen, bishop-elect, as bishop of Baker, Oregon, we face a troubling reality: instead of correcting the trajectory set by Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV is doubling down on it – deepening the ambiguity that has plagued the Church.

Fr. Hennen is not merely a well-meaning pastor – he was intimately involved in drafting pastoral guidelines that blur the clear lines of Catholic teaching on sexuality and gender.

His work with Davenport’s LGBTQ+ directive may carry the veneer of welcoming language, but in substance it echoes the rhetorical strategies of gender ideology, undermining Catholic clarity and weakening the call to chastity. When who we are as men and women becomes negotiable, the Gospel becomes negotiable.

. . . .

Hokay, now come the blockbusters. Remember, you read it here . . . .

Diocese Banishes Latin Mass to Undersea Cave Accessible Only by Scuba Gear

Bishop Brown Also Considered Coal Mine and on a Plane’s Wings for Single TLM Location

James R. Green and Everett Polinski  Jan 30, 2025

Charlotte, NC – Bishop Sam Brown of the Diocese of Charlotte placed new restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass within his diocese today.

While it will be allowed to continue once a week for now at one location within his diocese, as Bishop Brown commented on the diocese’s website today, it will be moved from its current location in a gym in the most rural part of his diocese: “I will extend the courtesy of allowing the celebration of the Extraordinary Form for one more year, it will only be allowed in one location each Sunday, in an undersea cave off of the Atlantic coast accessible only by scuba gear.

“It’s only two hundred feet underwater, a very very generously easy location to swim to, and while the priest and all attendees will have to wear scuba gear to attend the TLM, Traditionalists should be thankful that we didn’t decide to put the diocesan-approved Latin Mass at the bottom of the Marianas Trench,” Bishop Brown added. “We’re being very generous here, and I want to be clear that I want no complaints about this location. Ok?”

Traditionalist Catholics are mixed about the Bishop’s announcement. While most are glad that Bishop Brown, known for his close friendship with leftist German Cardinal Gunter Schuster, is still allowing the Latin Mass within his diocese, some have “concerns” over the practicality of them bringing their families to the new weekly Latin Mass. “I can’t buy scuba gear for my six-month-old baby,” said one concerned father of fifteen whom IIT interviewed from Charlotte, NC (he asked us to keep his name anonymous).

. . . .

To Alleviate Bishops’ Scrutiny, Traditionalists Rebrand TLMs as “Undocumented Masses”

No Mass is Illegal

Everett Polinski Jul 13, 2025

As we’ve been at the forefront of reporting here on Irkutsk Ice Truckers, bishops have been cracking down both on Latin Masses as well as any other instances of tradition they’ve found within their dioceses under the heavy hand of Traditiones Custodes. But some people within the diocese of one of the largest enemies of tradition, Bishop Martin’s Charlotte, think they have a solution.

Liberal bishops like Martin, who feel threatened by tradition, are usually great friends of mass migration, happy to look the other way at illegal immigration, fight the construction of Trump’s border wall, and protest I.C.E. Following the stereotypical liberal lines, no one is illegal, they say, only “undocumented.”

Mr. Pius Tentherson of Charlotte, NC, father of twenty-one, a professional cribbage player, and an expert on medieval horticultural astronomy, thinks that this gives traditionalists like him an opening.

“If Traditiones Custodes has to be the ‘law’ and if strictly implemented, it takes away the ability for Latin Masses, why don’t we just ask priests to keep saying them but call them ‘undocumented Masses’ and our parishes ‘marginalized undocumented communities’? Surely Bishop Martin will stand up for those like us on the margins of the Church and give us access to ‘spiritually-reproductive health services’?”

Fr. Matthias VonSchaffer, Tentherson’s pastor at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, whose TLM is due to be shut down by the bishop within a few months under the regulation, isn’t fully convinced, but thinks it’s an idea worth looking into.

“We would have to somehow equate Bugnini and the liturgical revolutionaries with I.C.E. and start violently protesting in the streets to get enough attention to get Martin to support us, but if Tentherson can get enough of his friends to do this, I’d support him. I just can’t be seen as the one launching the movement, or I’ll be banished to the hinterlands of the diocese.”

. . . .

Bp. Martin and Cdl. Roche Claim Parish is Two Weeks Away from Acquiring an Altar Rail

Everett Polinski Jun 28

In a major warning to the leftist Church establishment, Cardinal Roche, the head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship warned that spies for Charlotte’s Bishop Martin have uncovered dangerous plans that one of his parishes, St. Ann Catholic Church in Charlotte is “two weeks away from acquiring and weaponizing an altar rail” and dozens of others are pondering similar steps.

Although the Bishop tried to pre-emptively strike the production facility in the church’s parish hall, traditionalists resisted the attack and saved most of their work, and remain 90% of the way through the wood enrichment and polishing process, leaving them only “days away from installing the deadly (to modernism) device should they wish to go ahead with completing it.”

Read full story

To Prevent “Disunity” in His Diocese, Bishop Will Ban Catholicism

“Catholicism is Divisive” He Complains

Everett Polinski May 28, 2025

Bishop Sam Brown of the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., has had terrible issues with disunity among the Catholics in his diocese. Unfortunately, many of the people of his diocese aren’t terribly onboard with the bishop on the latest trends in liturgical dance, “pride Masses”, and inculturation.

The problem, from the perspective of the bishop, runs deep. It appears that many people in his diocese don’t like the latest trends and instead prefer something called “Catholicism” and attending things called “sacraments.”

These innovations from Chicago, for example, are not popular amongst the “divisive” people in his diocese:

“These are dangerous, divisive people and they are destroying the peace and harmony of our beautiful synodal community here in our diocese,” Bishop Martin told his priests in a memo issued today.

“In order to keep our diocese safe from a dangerous spread of tradition, we’re going to have to ban this thing called ‘Catholicism’ and especially these things called ‘Sacraments.’ Definitely the ‘Mass.’ That’s really really dangerous and divisive. It might make people think of a really divisive Divine person who became man, Jesus Christ.”

Read full story

— more to come (mostly) about the world of things Catholic —

All my life’s buried here, / Heap earth upon it.
͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­

	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Today’s Poem: Requiescat All my life’s buried here, / Heap earth upon it. Joseph Bottum Jul 14 READ IN APP Upgrade to paid Give a gift subscription Henri Blanc-Fontaine, Souvenir de La Grave, 1855 (Wikimedia Commons)

Much obliged to him, started a welcome train of thought for this pew-sitter . .

Question too often is, what works for some worshipers, not for others. Not to mention what offers unwelcome adaptations, even leading to sacrilegious behavior or more often to mockery of the sacred.

Joe also made mention of his novitiate days, when the happy few of them gathered around the altar table in a sort of sacred intimacy. More power to them of course. Many the good thing that stems from such unity of purpose.

Put me in mind of my novitiate days, Milford O., in early 50’s, when one of us, having sat after communion to relieve an ache or pain, was called in by the rector, a WW2 chaplaincy veteran, and chewed out for his irreverence.

No gathering around (in a half-circle) the altar table if only because there was no such thing. Nor happy few, instead the 50-new-ones-a-year on their knees for 15 minutes after mass in the domestic chapel across the haul from a big dining hall.

So it went in those days long long ago. Foreign country really. Can hardly criticize Joe or any of his contemporaries for not doing or even recognizing such behavior or practice. Nor can this survivor deny his recalling it with respect and offering it by way of commentary on his welcome coverage.

That said, there is a problem here. It’s making the mass a vehicle aimed at comforting worshipers. God knows it does that. But via what and ignoring what about its history and its endorsement by the church Jesus made — as God the Son become man, suffering for love of His Father to free God’s creatures from sin with the absolutely necessary help of the Holy Spirit.

That said, some more offered by Brother Joe:

He gives samples:

My novice master often opened Mass with a short disquisition about the saint of the day. He was a good storyteller. I learned about saints I knew nothing about. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

If he had folded it into the homily, it would have been too long. The beginning of Mass was the right place.

Makes sense.

(The formula [aka ritual, apparently] even invites this moment of improvisation, noting that the priest “may very briefly introduce the faithful to the Mass of the day” after the sign of the cross and the greeting and before the penitential act.)

Indeed, we weekday mass-goers almost always hear that, or in my case try to make it out, hearing not what it used to be. But the effort by the priest varies considerably, both as to announce the day’s message and to say it so all can understand him.

I love Joe’s branding the good, the bad, and awful. Pew-sitters have a right to do that. And ideally he talks up a good thing, which does not turn out that way — which is why he wrote the piece, of course!

Novice masters, he continues,

who are educating young Jesuits into a life in the church are completely allowed to deliver an opening disquisition on a saint. It’s O.K. Our small group always gathered around the altar during the consecration. It was nice; it fit the circumstances.

Ah yes, by the way, I was reminded of an experience I had some years back by meeting a former pastor we had in the very parish at whose church we and dozens if not hundreds of others gathered in a requiem mass, not for parish members but for the entire church building being shut down for lack of pew-sitters!

The former pastor noted in an after-mass gathering in the very building after the mass that he and I had had a private mass on a weekday many years back when I was the only mass-goer to show up for mass in an altar-boy changing room turned chapel.

I’d walked the half mile down Washington Boulevard, middle of the street, traffic nil in the wake of a tremendous snow storm.

He was about to give up when no one had shown up for 15 minutes — I was late – and we had a one-on-one mass after which I never felt the same abut him. It was a mass to remember, for me and him too, he said the other day.

Joe gave instances when an experience like that can happen:

If, for instance, during the opening moments of a funeral for a high school sophomore you only “say the words”—if you don’t make some acknowledgment to the student’s family and friends of the tragedy in front of you—then there is fair evidence that you are some kind of monster..

I recently attended a funeral mass for a grade and high school classmate was another mass to remember, and that of a friend of a relatively few years in our parish of this day.

The priest needn’t do much, Joe says.

Free yourselves, o priests, from thinking you have to re-create what does not need re-creating.

But . . .

. . . even then, even then! For most of the Mass, just saying the words, letting the spirit ride through the text can be enough. Let people grieve through the contours of the liturgy.

To be sure!

In any case “a congregation can tell the difference between reverence and rigidity.

“They know if you are celebrating Mass with healthy piety or if you are worshipping a fierce Roman god called “Rubric.”

Yuck to that!

He defines a rubric as “the methods of the Mass, the guidebook.”

And likens it to a “pagan worship . . . sometimes, literally, being rigid; focusing more on the proper and mechanical raising of the hands than on what the raising of the hands are doing.”

Yuck.

“Rigidity is tension,” he says. “If you [the priest] are tense, we in the congregation will become tense. Mass will suddenly become all about you.”

Oh boy.

“We will take into ourselves the stress in your body. It will flow out into the sanctuary.”

Look out!

“And if you breathe, O priest, we will breathe. Your peace will become our peace.”

We can only hope so.

And you needn’t improvise.

Even at a children’s Mass you can “just say the words.” Yes, a regular Sunday children’s Mass, the very temple of improvised prayers and gestures! Even here you can follow the text and the text alone and get away with it! You won’t come off as distant and unfeeling.

He’s seen it done.

I recently watched a priest celebrate such a liturgy. He didn’t give opening remarks that showed how young at heart he was; that demonstrated he can speak to the children’s level. He reserved his personalism for the homily. For the prayers of the Mass, he just did the words.

Routine, structure, the same thing that is always said. This is what children want. And they were with him. The kids were engaged the whole way. You could tell. Children feel safe with structure. They like knowing what is coming next. Most of us do.

Count me in.

Structure does not shackle anyone, it frees them. In fact, freedom cannot even exist where there are there no boundaries. Free yourselves, o priests, from thinking you have to re-create what does not need re-creating. Let the words do the work. Let the liturgy do the work. Trust your mere presence to do the work. You are enough.

Yes. And fitting end to satisfying statement.

There goes Francis 2 again, and he’s just getting started.

Fr. Thomas Hennen helped draft LGBT pastoral guidelines that sidestep chastity, affirm “gender minorities,” and speak the language of synodality. Leo XIV didn’t just approve, he promoted him.