It was with great reluctance that I watched (part of) this video on the history of the $$PX in England. I was reluctant because whenever I look at images of liturgical celebrations under traditionalist auspices from years ago, or old liturgical books, I am assailed by contrary feelings of regret and loathing. The reason being that they shew up, not in black and white as the decrees of the Roman dicasteries do and which anyone with a little Latin can read, but in technicolour the utter stupidity, tribalism, and the fundamental treachery to religious integrity which pervades over the modern traditionalist movement and its adherents - well-represented by people like Gabriel Sanchez.
Look at these screenshots, from Holy Week 1983, and tell me that the Society of [St] Pius X celebrated Holy Week 1962 fashion at Sts Joseph and Padarn before Lefebvre sold out to the Papacy in 1984.
The celebrant clearly blessing palms at the Epistle corner in a violet cope, contrary to the rubrics of the 1962 missal which state that he should do so facing the congregation, at a table separate from the altar, in a red cope.
Eh, what's this? Not just folded chasubles, but black folded chasubles, reserved for the morning of Good Friday! You can't use those anymore! They're forbidden!
There are other images in the video, people I recognise who took part in these rites and whom I wouldn't want to meet again, knowing their hearts and minds. I called this post stupidity and tribalism because this is the essence of the traditionalist movement post-Quattuor Abhinc Annos. The pope waved his magic wand and the traditionalists lost their way when they did obeisance to him. It was a case of: "put aside your dissidence and become respectable, and you can only really do that by being more like me, your rightful lord and master." So they cheaply discarded the tradition they upheld to that point and consigned their cause to the dustbin of history, in almost perfect imitation of what Rome herself did consecutively throughout the 20th century, in 1911, 1920, 1942, 1956, pick any year. The consecrations that took place four years later are of almost no importance. Lefebvre himself was a charlatan with no integrity, which is not a malicious assertion but based on what I have been told by people who knew him, and can be seen from his treatment of those who opposed his aliturgical will in 1983.
And modern, mainstream traditionalists just love the Lefebvrists and revere the man himself. Why? Is it a contest on who can be the most sycophantic or faithless? I have been accused of ignorance by them for pointing things like the above screenshots out, not to mention articles I have written such as this one, in which I have, with watertight research, demolished the reason for their existence. They themselves will not discuss these things. And in my experience, if you do bring these things up among them, you're erased, declared an unperson. These people prefer not to remember the days when they had substance. God only knows why. Perhaps they prefer tat and superstition to tradition and faith, but I'd like to know how any of them sleep at night.
I just read your post of Dec 8, 2014. Truly excellent and so well researched and documented.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who is an Antiochian Orthodox priest of the western rite. I find it interesting that in the US they are using the 1956 Roman Missal as the basis for their liturgy although with some unfortunate additions.
I watched the video but it did not have quite the same effect on me. I was saddened to see so many people I have known, not least among them being the Founder and Chair of the Saint Lawrence Press, who have now departed this life. Among the servers for those functions there were at least three who had served, as young men, at Fr. Clement Russell's church in Sudbury.
ReplyDeleteThere must be other photographs out there - perhaps now mouldering in attics - as the $$PX celebrated its first Holy Week in Guildford in 1972 and then, from 1974 in both Guildford and Highclere. At Highclere the village hall was turned into a temporary chapel and the solemn celebrations of the Triduum took place there. Gabriel, a sacristan at Brompton who loathed the changes, equipped John Tyson with a couple of violet folded chasubles for the events. There was at least one solemn Pentecost Vigil too. The folded chasubles were still hanging up in a room at St. Michael's House back in 1990 when I was last there.
Perhaps they prefer tat and superstition to tradition and faith, but I'd like to know how any of them sleep at night.
ReplyDeleteYou are wrong. What interests them is politics, the so-called "Social Reign of Christ the King", but it wouldn't be Christ. Christ is only a euphemism. They are interested in control and whatever favours they might get from a ruling regime corresponding with their ideology. Tat and superstition - I don't think so, at least from the point of the "dealers" rather than the "addicts".
Exactly, as I have discussed before. The "social kingship of Christ" is a cloak for the political hegemony of the Papacy.
DeleteI found all of this very informative. As an outsider, who had some association with SSPX in Australia in the early 80's and latter went on to establish a Schola Cantorum which organised Masses in the Archdiocese of Sydney at Lewisham, Ultimately, with the reluctant approval of the Archbishop of Sydney, a collegiate style of liturgy and a community was established with a vision not of restoring the traditions of the recent past but rather that of the historical Western Patrimony. Rubricists invariably have meltdowns over thing not written in books - Have a large Quire book in the Centre of Choir, caused them no end of pain as it was not referred to in Fortescue! Anglicans had more to offer on keeping Catholic traditions in choir. The Monastic Breviary was our solution to the corrupted Breviary of Pius X, and the restoration of the 12 Lesson at the easter Vigil the Pentecost Vigil proved that such things were possible.
ReplyDeleteThe appointment of the FSSP to the Chapel saw the 1962 rubrics enforced, and the removal of the great choir book - but the monastic office remains, and the men and women separate each sunday and chant the offices of Terce (before the High Mass) and Sext afterwards.
Restoration starting with the 1960's or 50's (living memory) is a beginning in recovering tradition but the aim must be to recover the glorious heritage of the ages of faith not the dim shadows of it from the late 1950's.
The Social Kingship of Christ and the Papacy are essential elements to Western Catholicism - Westerners who go looking to the East for refuge will ALWAYS be outsiders, because their heritage and patrimony is Latin Rite - such a process is simply untraditional.