Priests Threaten Mass Exodus Over New Translation

Time to ring those alarm bells...

Still, personally I think these guys bluffing...or maybe just Fr Anthony Ruff-ing. Make no mistake here, this is insurrection, open rebellion against not just the Authority of the Church Herself, but against His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI.  Thanks to The Catholic Knight, who alerted us to this in-depth piece concerning the organisation mentioned in my previous post - the National Council of (we are the Gaudiem et Spes) Priests. My thoughts, bold, deep purple, bracketed.

Courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald...

To be gradually introduced from June, the new Mass will be the compulsory version of the English mass by November. But Father John Crothers, the parish priest of St Declan's parish in Penshurst, said he could not in good conscience use the text, which he believed to go against the 1960s Vatican Council's spirit of ''aggiornamento'', meaning ''up-to-date''. ''I've no problems with changing things - it's part of my philosophy that you've got to change and grow and develop. It's the fact that this is going backwards instead of going forwards,'' he said. ''I won't be saying the priest part. If the people wanted to do the responses in the new translation, it's up to them.''
In Ireland this month a group representing more than 400 priests publicly denounced the new translation as ''archaic, elitist and obscure'' and urged their bishops to delay the changes for at least five years until the clergy and laity were consulted.
The chairman of the National Council of Priests of Australia, Father Ian McGinnity, said hundreds of its 1600 members were ''pretty steamed up'' at the Vatican's lack of consultation but most had not yet decided how to respond. At least a dozen had indicated they would not use the new English translation, he said. ''We're also very concerned that the language, the idiom, might perhaps estrange more Catholics [in grave and mortal sin] from participation in the Eucharist,'' he said. Asked what sanctions a local bishop could apply to defiant priests, Father McGinnity said: "I really don't know. I suppose he could suspend a bloke. But given the [priest] shortage, it's unlikely." Father Crothers said he had told Cardinal Pell his position at a clergy conference last year. "I said at the conference, 'I won't be doing it, and where do I stand there?' And he's just said that he expected all the priests will do it" [and in a spirit of obedience to the expressed will of the Holy Father, you said, "Gotcha! Will do!"...right?]
Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, the vice-chairman of the international translation committee, said consultation had been extensive but there would have to be ''dialogue and encouragement'' with opponents. ''I think a lot of the criticism is really a fear of what we think the thing is, and when we get to the reality, it's not like that at all.''
The executive director of the National Liturgy Commission, Peter Williams, who has spent the past year travelling the country to explain the new Mass, said it had already been successfully introduced in New Zealand. ''I think that's what's going to happen here. Of course there will be some irritability, but in due course people will have made the change."

If they go, they go, but somehow I doubt they will...yet.


georgem said…
I tend to google image the names of dissenting priests whenever they get mentioned on blogs.
And, guess what, 90% of them are of
the age. How predictable is that?

Bear with me on this. Many years ago a scientist researching in the field of crystallography told me that it was a struggle to get Govt. funding after the age of 30.
I remained puzzled by this. Until I was much, much older. And then I realised why. Too many men get stuck at the age of 25 and development stalls.
Which brings me back to the priests in question, most of whom appear to have been ordained in the 1960/70s. And there they've fossilised.

btw like the headline - clever puns work!
Sixupman said…
Call their bluff!
St Malachy said…
Hmm, "..the 400-year-old Latin text.."

The charitable thing would be to suggest that's a typo in the newspaper but this is the media we're dealing with.

Nice picture of of the renegade priest on the link - very stylish collar!
David O'Neill said…
Isn't it a pity priests didn't complain that they "didn't like changes" immediately after Vat II?
Anonymous said…
David O'Neill - of course they did but they were rapidly shot down. Google Fr Oswald Baker of Downham Market. Sadly, after fighting a valiant action for many years he died a Sede Vacantist.
Clive said…
How is it sad that someone fought against the orthodoxy and became a sedevacantist (consigned to an eternity severed from the community of Christ)? It's a tragedy he was so bloody minded that he let his personal opinions remove him from the Church as an apostate
Queen Clive said…
Clive - it is sad when anyone is driven to such an extreme view. Charity dicates that we pray for them, just like these reporbate priests who are willfully dissenting against the proposed translation because of their heterodox views.

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