#Tridentine Latin mass

[catholicmemoirs]

I'm late setting up for Advent.. and it's okay!

It's 1am on December 2nd and our Thanksgiving weekend got ahead of us.

I just got around to bringing up our stack of Advent things, but I really need to get rest since I'm back to work tomorrow after taking the week off.

These are all the Advent countdown things. I didn't get a chance to hang the Jesse Tree countdown cards, so will have to ask my husband for help tomorrow.

The Advent wreath isn't even close. I have to remove old wax and we don't even have the wreath!

The earliest we can do is take our preschooler to go wreath shopping after work tomorrow. I think he'll enjoy taking part in the setup of what we do for Advent.

Lastly, I printed out my liturgical planner since it will take around 2-3 weeks to print and deliver the book copies, so I need to do planning on printables for now. Sadly, I don't have time to post a listing of these, so again they're late for the new liturgical year!

We went to Latin Mass. The Gradual (Psalm 24: 3, 4) literally moved me to tears. The soprano soloist in our schola was so talented, her singing shook me to the core and before I knew it, I had tears streaming down my face. I decided that the Gradual would be my Lectio Divina study for today.

The word "wait" stuck out to me. It's actually an interesting word choice because it could mean "to wait" like waiting for something to happen (passive) or "to wait on someone" like to attend to their commands (proactive), kind of like a handmaid to a queen. The latter drew me in more because there are lots of Scripture from mass that mention people waiting on an important figure. This ties into Mary's fiat acceptance ("I am the handmaid of the Lord") and the Church being Christ's queen. Handmaids are usually specially hand picked by the queen or the king and not a role given to most people. They're usually the queen's most trusted and most loyal people. By waiting on the queen, her handmaids also serve the king.

Anyway, back to Mass. Our baby was asleep peacefully in our arms all the way until Communion where my spiritual director was celebrating mass & he blessed the baby when we were up at the altar rail. It was a really peaceful and holy mass today.

At the end of it all, this is all okay. It will all happen soon enough. Happy Advent!

[intrinsicallydisordered]

Some Catholics look at the world of falling resources, rising poverty, looming climate catastrophe, bellicose international relations, nuclear weapons, and all other forms of human indignity… and seriously think the primary solution is to have more Latin Masses?!

[heresylog]

Low masses are boring AF, high masses are boring AF but you're having you ass blasted by an organ and your choking on an agregious level of incense that summons the local fire department (true story)

I will go to a Trinidentine High Mass for the incense only. My lungs crave the smoke.

[jameslmartello]

[northemoonduringthenight]

Catholic religion, Latin Mass.

[tria-haec]

"Let the oblation about to be offered to Your Holy Name, o Lord, purify us and day by day change us to the living of the heavenly life. Through our Lord ..."

[catholicsaintquotes33ad]

🔥Saint Ignatius, Ora Pro Nobis🔥

[stone-cold-groove]

Missale Romanum - 1915.

[apenitentialprayer]

Liturgical Elements: The Embolism

In the liturgical rubrics of the Mass, the "embolism" refers to a short prayer spoken out loud by the priest after the congregation has collectively recited the Lord's Prayer. According to Nicholas Ayo (The Lord's Prayer: A Survey Theological and Literary, page 196), "the embolism functions like a marginal gloss, an explanation of the last line of the Pater, and an unfolding of its many implications." In reformed liturgy of the Roman Church, the English translation of the embolism is as follows:

Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil; graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of Your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the Tridentine form of the Roman Mass, a longer embolism was recited:

Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils past, present, and to come; and by the intercession of the Blessed and glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God, together with Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and Andrew, and all the saints, mercifully grant peace in our days, that sustained by help of Thy mercy we may be always free from sin and safe from all disturbance. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

The Ambrosian Rite, being another Latin rite, has an embolism that is unsurprisingly similar to the Tridentine one:

Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils past, present, and to come; and at the intercession for us of Blessed Mary who brought forth our God and Lord, Jesus Christ; and of Thy holy Apostles Peter and Paul and Andrew, and of blessed Ambrose Thy confessor and bishop, together with all Thy saints, favorably give peace in our days, that assisted by the help of Thy mercy we may be both delivered from sin and safe from all turmoil. Fulfill this by Him with whom Thou livest blessed and reignest God, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.

The embolism was not only an element of Roman liturgies, either. Take, for example, this embolism used by the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (notice how the doxology that follows the modern Roman embolism is instead integrated into this one):

Merciful Lord, lover of all mankind, do not let us be overcome by temptation, but deliver us from the rebellious evil one and his perverse and evil ways. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to You and Your Only Son and Your Holy Spirit, now and always and forever.

Here is the embolism of the Syro-Malabar Church, reflecting the Eastern Syriac rather than Western Syriac tradition:

Lord, God Almighty! Fullness of all goodness! Our Merciful Father! We entreat You for Your mercy. Do not lead us into temptation. Deliver us from the evil one and his hosts. For Yours is the kingdom, the might, the power, and the dominion in heaven and earth, now, always, and forever.

In the Greek liturgies, the embolism only survives in the Liturgy of Saint James, which has the following:

Lord, lead us not into temptation, O Lord of hosts! For Thou dost know our frailty; but deliver us from the wicked one, from all his works, from all his assaults and craftiness; through Thy Holy Name, which we call upon to guard us in our loneliness.

On a final note, Fr. Frederick Holweck, the author of the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on the embolism, thought that the Mozarabic embolism in particular was "very beautiful." In addition to being said after the Our Father at Mass, the following prayer was also said after the Our Father in the Mozarabic Church's Morning and Evening prayers:

Delivered from all evil, strengthened forever in good, may we be worthy to serve Thee, our God and Lord: and put an end, O Lord, to our sins; grant joy to them that are afflicted; bestow redemption upon the captives, health upon the sick, and repose to the departed. Grant peace and safety in all our days, shatter the audacity of our enemies, and hearken, O God, to all the prayers of Thy servants, all faithful Christians, upon this day and at all times. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, ever through all the ages of ages.

[azspot]

The problem is, in this crazy and chaotic world, we want a God who is like Zeus, detached from the weakness of matter but in control of life’s events. There are movements today in the Catholic Church to return to the Tridentine (Latin Mass), to restore the church to its glorious reign, as if the Middle Ages were the best of all times; to worship a God who reigns above, like a King who has sent ‘his’ Son to save us from this fallen world. This fabricated God–who has nothing to do with Scripture and everything to do with our deep existential fear of nothingness–is the root of our environmental disaster, our inability to cope with artificial intelligence, our exclusion of LGBTQ persons, the persistence of racial inequality and the lack of hope in the world’s future.

Rebirthing Religion

[catholicmemoirs]

Impressive meetings in our humble little parish

I didn't realize how profound our little parish in South San Francisco is.

My family got the courage to stay at the parish dinner for the first time after the Sunday TLM mass. We thought the dinner wasn't being hosted anymore since there was no longer a coordinator, but it was there!

And it was such a blessing of many fateful encounters.

I met with the music director. It turns out she is a professor at the St. Patrick's Seminary here in the Bay Area and a founder of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music. She is involved in the nation's top Catholic music organizations, especially for Gregorian chant!

I just remember one mass a few years ago, she had appeared with a full schola of around 18 members. Our modest and modern-looking parish was crashed in by Heaven with the most beautiful Gregorian chanting. Since then, she's provided our parish of roughly 50 regular TLM attendees the gift of Gregorian chant with beautiful books, seminars and her generous wisdom and love for the art.

She invited me to come join their practices before the TLM if I'm ever free. I'd love to someday when the kids are older!

Mass was also celebrated yesterday by a priest who visits every so often. I was surprised because he is Chinese. My husband's family also being Chinese, it's not often we see Chinese Catholics. He is so well-versed in the TLM and is exceptionally talented with singing. His Gregorian chanting was very beautiful, some of the most beautiful chanting I've heard from a priest here.

I later learned he is the priest-secretary to our Most Reverend Archbishop Cordileone and also serves as a lecturer at the Seminary and is a Doctor of Canon Law. What an an incredible life!

There are so many incredible people here in the Bay Area that it's so easy to bat an eye and not realize that the person conducting the schola or celebrating mass - let alone the person you sit next to and say hi to every day - holds a doctoral in their field of expertise.

Our Archbishop and Archdiocese are so very blessed, despite San Francisco being in the liberal state that it's in. They need all the prayers to protect them as they continue their mission. 🙏

[paula-of-christ]

I see a lot of tridentine catholics on tumblr, and I guess I just don't understand. Is Novus Ordo not valid in your eyes or is this more... strict I guess? style of mass like a greater affirmation of your faith to Jesus?

Firstly "Tridentine Catholics" aren't real because both those that attend Tridentine and Novus Ordo Masses are of the Latin (Roman) Rite of the universal Catholic Church. Secondly I'm not a goer of Tridentine/Latin Mass. I am a traditionalist, meaning I believe in traditional values, morals, and faith when it comes to the expression of our Catholic faith. These traditional expressions are rightly ordered in the Novus Ordo Mass, as was intended by the documents of the Vatican II council, subsequent councils, and post-council letters.

The general issue with most Novus Ordo Masses in the United States (and to an extent Canada from what I can tell of english-speaking online spaces) is that the Novus Ordo, by and large, deviate too greatly from the intent of the creation of the Novus Ordo. Since the 1980s-ish, there has been a stronger pull in the direction back towards those traditional expressions outside of TLM (Tridentine or Traditional Latin Mass), including in places like my parish, which is a traditionalist Novus Ordo Parish. This means traditional hymns, the use of Latin (or Greek) where appropriate, reverence in the sanctuary before and after Mass, the altar and priest Ad Orientem, among other things, that express the reverence and honor deserving of God.

It is not that if you do things differently that it is dishonorous to God, it is that things done differently, as we have seen in the past nearly 80 years since the introduction of the Novus Ordo, that it is an extremely fast and slippery slope towards dishonoring God. It should have nothing to do with how we feel, but about how we are treating God. When I go to a Novus Ordo parish that does not have a sanctuary befitting that of the reverence we should have for God, people act irreverently, and it is offensive because it is offensive to God. Their actions don't change my worship of Him, but their actions are not befitting a place where God is physically present on earth.

[mariacallous]

Poland’s far-right used to be loyal footsoldiers for the Catholic Church. But now, they are turning against the clerical establishment – by going to Latin mass.

The men are assembled along the left, the women line up along the right, and the very young children follow the proceedings from an anteroom, soundproofed behind a glass screen. The dress code is sombre – mostly black, occasionally grey. The women are obliged to cover their hair, though judging by the sprinkling of Louis Vuitton and Hermes headscarves, there is no injunction against luxury. Silent and perfectly still, the congregation surrenders to the language of the ancient church: “Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto”.

For the sermon, the priest switches from ecclesiastical Latin to everyday Polish. “You used to be so passionate about your faith and your national identity,” he says. “You paraded with your T-shirts of war heroes and sang hymns in praise of the Lord and the motherland. Now all that is gone. Why?” The reproach seems to be directed exclusively at the male members of the congregation. They lower their heads penitently.

Appeals to nation and faith are uttered in the same breath on Poland’s Independence Day, the annual holiday on November 11 that commemorates the restoration of the country’s sovereignty. However, the faith invoked at this Independence Day mass, in the leafy Warsaw suburb of Wawer, could not be further from the mainstream Catholicism that anchors Poland’s national identity.

The mass was held at a small chapel belonging to the Society of Saint Pius X, an organisation of Catholic priests that was established by Marcel Lefebvre, a controversial French archbishop who was excommunicated by no less a figure than Pope John Paul II, patron saint and supreme icon of modern Polish Catholicism. Performed in traditional Latin rather than Polish, the ceremony at Wawer contained deeply traditional elements that even the most conservative of Poland’s churchgoers might have found archaic. It was arranged at the behest of the Independence March Association, a Polish far-right organisation that convenes an annual march on Independence Day, rallying tens of thousands of ultra-nationalists to declare their hostility to “cultural Marxism” and LGBT rights while affirming – sometimes violently – their “patriotism” and ���traditional” Polish values.

The head of the Independence March Association, Robert Bakiewicz, is the most recognisable figure within Poland’s extra-parliamentary far-right, and the closest thing to a leader for its disparate formations. At the mass in Wawer, he could pass for the doorman of an upmarket nightclub – burly physique, smart grey overcoat, military-grade haircut. Contemplating the altar, he is periodically interrupted by uniformed lieutenants equipped with wireless earpieces and armbands.

Bakiewicz – the name is pronounced “Bon-kyeh-vich” – is among the minority of Catholic traditionalists worldwide who prefer to attend mass in the original Latin rather than in their native languages, as is the norm. The traditionalists believe the mainstream Catholic way of worship has strayed from dogma and become too liberal, too ecumenical. As they see it, the Latin, or Tridentine, mass still preserves the splendour and sanctity of the pre-modern Church. In a later interview at his office, Bakiewicz criticised the liberalised version of the rite that he grew up with. “It became like a spectacle of sorts, like a Protestant church… something infantile, something I could not take seriously,” he said.

On social media, the Latin mass is associated with the “trad Caths” – Anglophone internet-speak for an increasingly visible new generation of online Catholics. The “trad Caths” of Instagram and TikTok share content celebrating the values and aesthetics of traditional Catholicism, in tones that veer between the playful and the unabashedly sincere. Bakiewicz has joined in the fun – his private Facebook profile has featured a meme-style portrait of himself with the slogan, “Latin Mass Matters” – but his “trad Cath” identity is also a political statement. It signifies a rejection of a historic ally, the Polish clerical establishment, and a recalibration of the far-right’s relationship with Church and state. It also underlines his own credentials. To lead the far-right, you must be more nationalist than the nationalists, and more Catholic than the Catholics. And there is no better way of demonstrating that, in today’s Poland, than by being seen at Latin mass.

Poland’s nationalists have traditionally been close allies of its Church leaders. Through Nazi occupation and Soviet dominance, they served as joint custodians of national identity, active in the resistance and in the preservation of Polish culture. Over the last decade however, the clergy has been hit by a series of scandals that have weakened its standing with the nationalists, as within Polish society at large, leaving it looking like the junior partner in its alliance with the right-wing government. Media reports have exposed the profligacy of Polish bishops who spent donations to the Church on expensive cars, real estate and lavish renovation schemes. More damagingly, senior clergy in Poland have been implicated in committing and covering up child abuse – allegations that echo those made against Catholic bodies across the world.

The scandals have prompted accusations that the clerical establishment has been behaving like an unaccountable elite, corrupted by power and privilege. Indeed, the far-right’s criticism of Church leaders has a distinctly populist tone, suggesting an archetypal contest between “everyday people” on the one hand and “elites” on the other. “I will send my men to protect churches,” Bakiewicz told me in October 2020, as an effective ban on abortions ignited anti-clerical protests across Poland. “But I will never send them to protect the palaces of bishops.”

Matters have not been helped by the current pope. Hailed as a reformist by liberals, Pope Francis has irked conservatives in Poland and beyond, prompting many to question his judgement. Traditionalists have been particularly troubled by the Pope’s decision to restrict access to the Latin mass, reversing efforts by his predecessor, Pope Benedict, to restore some legitimacy to the ancient rite. Where the era of Pope John Paul II marked the consolidation of the relationship between Poland’s nationalists and clergy, the era of Pope Francis coincides with its weakening. “It’s not like we disobey the Pope, the hierarchs,” Bakiewicz said. “But one cannot ever accept others preaching a false gospel, even if it is – to quote Saint Paul – an angel descended from heaven.”

Street-fighters with a political label

In the battle with liberal values, the far-right in Poland is broadly aligned with its government. Led by the national-conservative Law and Justice party, the government picks fights with Brussels, intimidates independent judges and journalists, demonises the campaign for LGBT rights, more or less prohibits abortions, and persecutes refugees and migrants unless they happen to be Ukrainian. Poland’s far-right movement supports these policies on the streets, and some of its biggest players – such as Bakiewicz – are in turn supported financially by the government. Investigative journalists in Poland have revealed that the government has paid more than one million euros in public subsidies to organisations linked to Bakiewicz. Much of the money is drawn from the budget for cultural projects, and is allocated towards staging the Independence March – an arrangement that casts Bakiewicz in the role of subcontractor, providing event management services for a state that prefers its sponsorship of the far-right to be kept under wraps.

According to Mikolaj Czesnik, a political scientist and professor at Warsaw’s SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, the government uses far-right figures such as Bakiewicz to fly a kite for its most hardline policies. “You do not need an army to do that – a few people on the streets of Warsaw is enough,” he said. In the conflict with Brussels for instance, Czesnik said, the far-right helps the government to measure, foster and claim popular support for an extreme position. “The nationalists openly hate Brussels, the people hear that, and this allows the PM to come out and say that he is taking a tough stance against the European Commission because he values the Polish people over some foreign, cosmopolitan greater good.”

Czesnik said he did not expect the Independence March Association to convert its influence into formal political clout by contesting elections as a party. “The threat of them achieving anything in a political sense is not significant,” he said, “and it is certainly much smaller than the threat of them committing harm to Polish public opinion.”

Bakiewicz began his political career as a footsoldier in the ONR, the largest and oldest formation within Poland’s far-right eco-system. The ONR – its initials stand for National Radical Camp – claims to be the ideological heir to an organisation of the same name whose cadres hounded Poland’s Jews and leftists in the run-up to World War Two. The nationalist organisation took part in the armed insurgency against the Nazis, only to be driven underground by the Soviets. It re-emerged in the 1990s as a fringe movement, amounting at first to little more than a group of streetfighters with a political label. Its present-day membership is known for its Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and hostility to LGBT rights, as well as its belief in an ethnically pure Poland. A recent ruling by Poland’s supreme court decreed that the ONR could reasonably be described as “fascist”, although the court stopped short of endorsing that description. The movement rejects the label – fascism is technically outlawed in Poland – even if some of its members have been pictured marching in brown shirts and performing Roman salutes.

Bakiewicz became known at the ONR for his rousing speeches and all-round tough guy image – qualities that, according to his supporters, have helped shake the far-right out of its anomie and restore its sense of purpose. He was born in 1976 in Pruszkow, a satellite town of Warsaw that acquired a reputation for gangland violence in the post-communist transition. As a young man, he ran a small construction company. The Polish investigative website, frontstory.pl, revealed that the firm struggled financially, and that Bakiewicz eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2011 – around the same time as he became active in the ONR. Media outlets also reported that he had been granted a divorce at around this time, with his financial problems cited as a contributory factor. Bakiewicz has refused to speak to the press about this period in his life.

He agreed to the interview on condition that we would only discuss matters of faith. Questions about his financial history were strictly off-limits, and nor was I able to ask him about a 2017 interview in which he used a slur for gay people, and referred to homosexuality as an illness threatening the traditional family.

Persecution and exile

The interview took place in Bakiewicz’s office, in a tower block in Warsaw’s genteel Zoliborz district. I waited in a hallway where religious icons hung on the wall. A stack of newspapers beside the chair contained a range of left and right-wing publications, many with handwritten comments scribbled on the front-page stories. Bakiewicz tends to avoid speaking to established media outlets, opting to get his message across via his YouTube channel.

I began the interview by asking him about his enthusiasm for Latin mass. He responded that the modern mass, replacing the Latin version, undermined the Church’s claim to universality – the claim, in other words, that its teachings applied equally to everyone. “The Church cannot suddenly start changing what it used to preach,” he said, because universality also meant that the institution “needs to be understood in the same way.”

Almost all churches in Poland conduct the mass in the Polish language – a legacy of the Second Vatican Council, held in Rome between 1962-5. The extraordinary summit resulted in sweeping reforms that were welcomed by liberals as a timely overhaul of obsolete doctrine and ritual. Importantly, priests were permitted to celebrate mass in the native language of the congregation rather than Latin. Deeply conservative factions within the Church, however, rejected the changes. Some of these factions were eventually cast out by the Vatican.

The Society of Saint Pius X is among the leading formations that have been exiled to the margins of the mainstream faith. It was established in 1970 by Marcel Lefebvre, a French archbishop who had led opponents of the reforms at the Vatican Council. In 1988, Lefebvre was branded a schismatic and ex-communicated by the Vatican after he defied papal authority by personally consecrating three priests.

“I remember the Lefebvre movement as minnows, back in the 1990s,” said Stanislaw Obirek, a former priest who lectures in American Studies at the University of Warsaw. “They were insignificant.” That changed, he said, as the movement began to attract prominent recruits in Poland, including an influential Jesuit priest and a popular right-wing historian. “People like that gave them recognition and legitimacy, and their optics became more attractive.” 

Bakiewicz’s wing of the far-right embraced the Lefebvre movement after falling out with the clergy three years ago. The bond was fortified a year later, amid the largest protests seen in Poland since the dying days of the communist regime. The targets of the protesters’ fury were the leaders of the governing coalition and their allies in the church, deemed to bear joint responsibility for a new law effectively banning abortions. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for weeks on end, church services were interrupted by activists, and the word, “murderers”, was spray-painted on church facades across the country.

The air of insurrection seemed to galvanise Bakiewicz, spurring him to a defence of his values. “Out there on the streets right now, there are only two banners: the banner of Jesus and the banner of Satan,” he told me, when we spoke by phone on October 27, 2020. Later that day, he convened a press conference outside the St Cross Church on Warsaw’s iconic thoroughfare, Krakowskie Przedmiescie. He declared that he was creating a volunteer force of “true Poles” that would rise up against the danger of secularisation, and secure church premises against attack.

The clergy, though, was less enthusiastic about an association with the far-right. A year earlier, in the run-up to the 2019 Independence March, Bakiewicz had tried to book a central Warsaw church to host a celebratory mass for his supporters. However, church after church turned him down. A vicar at a prominent Warsaw church who eventually agreed to host the mass would also cancel at the last minute, reportedly because Bakiewicz had not disclosed his institutional affiliation when making the booking.

In a spat that was played out in the national press, Bakiewicz in turn accused the Archbishop of Warsaw, Kazimierz Nycz, of violating canonical law by denying his request for a Latin mass. A spokesman for the Warsaw Archdiocese, Przemyslaw Sliwinski, rejected the accusation, telling me at the time that the decision had been taken by individual churches, and they were moreover under no obligation to host a Latin mass. And so it came to pass that the far-right leader spurned in Warsaw would end up celebrating mass at a small chapel in the suburbs, operated by a movement on the fringes of Catholicism.

The themes of persecution and exile resonate through the history of Christianity, echoing the suffering of the earliest followers of the faith. The modern far-right often exploits these themes, insisting that it has been victimised by crusading leftists and over-reaching governments. Bakiewicz has portrayed his movement as heirs to the early Christians, combating the rotten elites in the name of the true believers – giving a populist spin to the old story.

As Bakiewicz’s far-right follows the rising star of the Lefebvre movement, the Law and Justice-led government has entered an ever-tightening embrace with the Church. Top clerics have applauded the overall direction of Law and Justice’s rule, while priests in smaller cities have nudged the faithful to vote for government candidates – all the while endorsing the party’s stance on abortion and LGBT rights. The party’s growing influence over the judiciary has, critics say, also enhanced its appeal as a strategic partner for an institution facing a barrage of lawsuits over sex abuse claims.

Where the far-right flies a kite for Law and Justice ideologues in exchange for state subsidies, the Church clings to the government in the face of scandals and waning influence. Law and Justice is the dominant partner in both these relationships, the apex of a lopsided triangle, bestowing benefits as it chooses.

‘Lifeboats lowered from a sinking ship’

In the interview at his office, Bakiewicz heaped scorn on the clergy that had barred his followers from its churches. He accused them of taking a passive stance during the protests against the abortion law, thereby neglecting a fundamental duty to stand up for the faith. “They suddenly went silent, they did not do what the Church expects them to do.” Instead, he said, “at moments like these, the Church, the bishops, the cardinals in particular, are bound to sacrifice and martyrdom.” After a brief pause, he clarified that he did not mean “martyrdom” in the literal sense.

He also criticised the clergy over its response to recent events – the arrival in Poland of more than three million Ukrainian refugees fleeing the conflict with Russia. Ukrainians now account for nearly eight per cent of Poland’s population, marking a dramatic shift for a country characterised since World War II by the absence of any sizeable linguistic, religious or ethnic minorities. The homogeneity of contemporary Polish identity is typically upheld by the far-right as a virtue, to be defended at all costs against migrants from Islamic countries.

Towards the Ukrainians however, allies in the confrontation with the historic Russian enemy, there is no overt hostility. “These people came to us from a war-torn country,” Bakiewicz said, striking a paternalistic note. “It’s not the time to think about trivial, materialistic things.” But the Polish clergy, in his view, was once again at fault – it had missed an opportunity to bring the Ukrainians, most of whom follow a branch of the Eastern Orthodox church, within the fold of the Catholic faith. “I am disappointed that the Polish Church is not fighting for these souls,” Bakiewicz said. Converting Ukrainian refugees to Catholicism could, he argued, serve a dual purpose: it would create a durable bond between the two countries and it would boost the strength of the Polish Church.

The proposed mass conversion of a displaced people may sound like anachronistic fantasy – something out of Europe’s mediaeval past – but it encapsulates a particular view of faith and nation on the far-right. Some refugees are welcome, in this view, if they can be assimilated into the faith, reinforcing rather than altering it.

According to the traditionalists, it is the willingness of the Church to be altered, to change with the times, that lies at the heart of its current malaise. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has softened its rhetoric towards LGBT minorities, condemned Europe’s policy towards migrants, and sought to find common ground with the leaders of other faiths. “If the Pope suggests that all religions are equal,” Bakiewicz said, “it means that the Catholic martyrs, those who were put to death because they refused to convert, would have died in vain.”

Despite their many vocal objections to the current Pope, the traditionalists maintain that they have not crossed the line into outright defiance of papal authority – a move that would call their identity as Catholics into question. One of Bakiewicz’s ideological soulmates in Polish politics, Robert Winnicki, threads the needle between criticism and defiance of the Pope. “We are not going to fight the Pope or the bishops who follow that liberal, syncretic, multicultural path,” said the MP from the ultra-conservative Confederation Party. “We just shrug our shoulders and do what is ours to do.” At the same time, he paints a bleak picture of the Church in peril. “The ship is sinking and the lifeboats are being lowered,” he said. “The Latin mass movement is one of those lifeboats. It will not operate against the Vatican, but despite it.”

Mateusz Mazzini is a Warsaw-based reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza daily and Polityka weekly. This story was produced as part of the Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, supported by the ERSTE Foundation, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Editing by Neil Arun.

[gone2soon-rip]

POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI (1927-Died New Years Eve,December 31st 2022,at 95).German senior Catholic preist.Born Joseph Ratzinger,he was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known by the title "pope emeritus" upon his resignation.Ordained as a priest in 1951 in his native Bavaria, Ratzinger embarked on an academic career and established himself as a highly regarded theologian by the late 1950s. He was appointed a full professor in 1958 at the age of 31. After a long career as a professor of theology at several German universities, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, an unusual promotion for someone with little pastoral experience. In 1981, he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important dicasteries of the Roman Curia. From 2002 until his election as pope, he was also Dean of the College of Cardinals. Prior to becoming pope, he was "a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century"; he had an influence "second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions" as one of John Paul II's closest confidants.He lived in Rome from 1981 until his death in 2022.His prolific writings generally defended traditional Catholic doctrine, values and liturgy (with his rehabilitation of Tridentine Mass). He was originally a liberal theologian, but adopted conservative views after 1968.During his papacy, Benedict XVI advocated a return to fundamental Christian values to counter the increased secularisation of many Western countries. He viewed relativism's denial of objective truth, and the denial of moral truths in particular, as the central problem of the 21st century. He taught the importance of both the Catholic Church and an understanding of God's redemptive love. Benedict also revived a number of traditions, including elevating the Tridentine Mass. He strengthened the relationship between the Catholic Church and art, promoted the use of Latin, and reintroduced traditional papal vestments, for which reason he was called "the pope of aesthetics". He was described as "the main intellectual force in the Church" since the mid-1980s.On 11 February 2013, Benedict announced his resignation, citing a "lack of strength of mind and body" due to his advanced age. His resignation was the first by a pope since Gregory XII in 1415, and the first on a pope's own initiative since Celestine V in 1294. He was succeeded by Francis on 13 March 2013, and moved into the newly renovated Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City for his retirement.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI

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Catholic Religion: Latin Mass

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About how on the one hand the Church continues to be corrupt, wanting to kill it, its enemies, as it was, since they wanted to kill its founder, Jesus Christ, taking away the Tridentine masses, which is the original one before the new one, whose purpose was to make it more protestant so that everyone could fit in it, destroying it, massacring it, trampling it. And on the other hand, about Trump and the changes he will make in education in the United States. Listening to his points, the one I liked the most was the one about bringing prayer back to schools because God has been taken out of schools by bringing their ideologies, because in the absence of truth they have to fill it with their lies. Listening I realized this is what I like most about Trump, a leader who is not afraid of God, afraid of His Power, of being supplanted by Him, giving all the honor and merit to Him, Who deserves it, recognizing himself as nothing more than an instrument, that makes creation do its work, like the sun if it would hide its light only for itself, in exchange for us worshipping it, praising it as the great lord, it would lose all its beauty, all its warmth, it would become just a rock.