Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, former editor-in-chief of America magazine, has written a column for Religion News Service.
In the April 13 column, Reese writes about the Extraordinary Form of the Mass:
“After the Pauline reforms of the liturgy, it was presumed that the ‘Tridentine’ or Latin Mass would fade away. Bishops were given the authority to suppress it in their dioceses, but some people clung to the old liturgy to the point of schism.
“Benedict took away the bishops’ authority and mandated that any priest could celebrate the Tridentine Mass whenever he pleased.
“It is time to return to bishops the authority over the Tridentine liturgy in their dioceses. The church needs to be clear that it wants the unreformed liturgy to disappear and will only allow it out of pastoral kindness to older people who do not understand the need for change. Children and young people should not be allowed to attend such Masses.”
Molon Labe.
This is a study in cognitive dissonance. The lack of self awareness in that article is breathtaking. Taking the time to click on the link is worth it.
Keep the Latin Mass for those [of any age] who prefer it. Just make certain the Celebrant can pronounce Latin correctly.
bwahahah. I wonder how many Irish priests of the 12th century could accurately pronounce let alone read Latin.
A lack of skills in this area is not a determinant for holiness, sanctity or even living a sacramental life.
No, anon. In the 5th century A.D., St. Patrick and other Christianized Roman Britons brought Christianity to Ireland, and the use of Latin with both Church and state, became well-established. Many fine monasteries were established in Ireland, and Latin learning was preserved there, during the Middle Ages. Ireland produced many outstanding Christian monks who were scholars and saints.
So Reese talks about “older people who do not see the need for change”.
Look in mirror lately?
For some who seem to speak frequently about diversity, tolerance and the need to accompany others, what is so offensive and unacceptable about the Mass as it has been celebrated for centuries?
Why such judgmentalism (at least about things traditionally Catholic)?
(Maybe Rev. Reese should listen to the voice of his fellow Jesuit: “Who am I to judge?”)
I do not attend (or serve at) the traditional Latin Mass, though I know many good Catholics who do. Yet, I find this prominent priest’s words directed at young Catholics to be very inappropriate. There is a legitimate diversity within the Church. (Why doesn’t Rev. Reese respect that? Does he have some unstated agenda?) Young people and not-so-young people are looking for reverent worship of God.
This is all too common among the liberals. They are all scream for diversity and inclusion as long as it’s their idea of diversity and inclusion. The last time I checked that goes against the definition of diversity and inclusion.
Poor Fr. Reese— he can’t allow people to decide for themselves but must follow the left’s playbook of ideological stranglehold on thought. And what will he do when a bishop approves of the Extraordinary form? Call for Mass protests ? (excuse the double entendre)
I’ve never attended a current Tridentine Mass. However, I do remember with great fondness the Roman Rite Masses I attended in my childhood up to the 60s. The condescending Fr. Reese is in line with all the Woke Brats who spit in the face of our glorious traditions. Iconoclasts are now active within our own Catholic religion, doing what they do best: denouncing, purging and, ultimately, persecuting those who remain faithful to the ecclesiastical doctrines of the Church.
Get behind me Satan.
He’s wrong, of course, as is Fr. Martin, another Jesuit. But chances are that the bishops who will be chosen to fill vacancies in America over the next 10-20 years will be sympathetic to Reese and Martin. Cupich and Tobin are on the Congregation for Bishops, and there’s a rumor that Cupich will be appointed prefect. Dark days lie ahead.
Reese is currently a Senior News Analyst for the Religion News Service, and is a visiting scholar during summers (I tthink) at scandalous, Jesuit-run Santa Clara University. Best of all– he is an aging, “1960s-style” priest, and will turn 76 this year– these kinds of liberal priests have very few years left, to wreak havoc upon the Church. (Love to keep track of their declining ages, with fewer and fewer years left, in their highly destructive careers.)
My only response to this so-called priest is derisive laughter.
And every week that goes by sees more and more young families with (Eeeek!) BABIES fill up the TLM pews and force us to add more Sunday Mass times.
Good luck with the aging Boomer Mass, Fr. Reese!
So true, Fred. Instead of learning what form of the mass brings people closer to God the want to so way with any competitive thought even if people are leaving the Nous Ordo Church in Droves and joining TLM community in record number. Jesuits are arrogant- always have been. They were suppressed once, maybe a second time is a charm.
He wants the bishops and Pope to send pieces of a consecrated host to non-Catholic bishops.
CCD publishes the oddest stuff.
Don’t you mean Jesuits write the oddest stuff and Religion News Service and others publish the oddest stuff?
This isn’t a California Catholic Daily article that’s being promoted here. It’s simply news from the Catholic world.
Too bad so many in the Church, including leaders, believe and teach such “odd” (to put it nicely) stuff.
No I meant CCD publishes a lot of stuff that is weird. Support for transgender athletes, woke educational initiatives, this article with every weird idea in it, abortion pills (I think CCD is pro-life, but they edited out the anti-abortion things in the article.)
I get that it is clickbait but I’m kind of sensitive to it because they are part of what boiled my frog on LGBTQ issues. And now it is happening again with critical race theory stuff.
I do not read a lot of them because I don’t want to think like that and it does affect you.
I wish they would stick to articles that are faithful.
OK, you can take it off your list of favorite news websites then. I enjoy the good, positive stories here too. (Although, even those usually have a number of critics.) Yet, we need to be aware of the world in which we live and even some of the battles within the Church. News is both good and bad. If you want only the positive stuff, try Formed.org, Ascension Press or some other sites.
Some people have really bad ideas. I understand that posting outrageous things gives people something to talk about but the more it is talked about the less stupid it looks. It legitimizes it.
This is how evil spreads.
‘Children and young people should not be allowed to attend such Masses”….So now the progressives unapologetically endorse violation of 1st Amendment.
‘Can a deacon or layperson anoint the sick or hear confessions? In an age of declining numbers of priests, such questions must be faced.”…In thriving, young “rad trad” (horrible pejorative, not my preference) parish, such questions need not be faced…but such questions do call into question the theological competence of a priest that would suggest a layman could confer sacramental confession.
“I doubt I will see many of these reforms in my lifetime”…The one and only rational statement in the article.
I didn’t see that, about Anointing of the Sick and Confession, in the article. Maybe especially as a deacon, I find it troubling and sad that a priest would propose considering such a thing. Does Rev. Reese understand the value of priesthood, in which he shares?
The lay faithful and deacons do not share in the ministerial priesthood. I am part of a Catholic Church that ordains married men to the priesthood and know several married priests. (I’ve had Roman Catholic priests ask if I was going to be ordained to the presbyterate.) I was called to the diaconate (to diakonia, service, ministry), not the priesthood. The call of the lay faithful and deacons is essential to the life of the Church, but, it’s not the same as the call to ministerial priesthood (or the episcopacy).
(There seem to be rare, ancient cases of deacons hearing Confessions, then taking the Confession to the bishop for absolution. Only bishops and priests may grant absolution. I say that in case someone brings that up as a reason to change the traditional and current practice.)
And, allowing a priest to make up his own “Eucharistic Prayer” and some of Rev. Reese’s other musings are ridiculous. The Mass (or Divine Liturgy) is the public worship of the Church. Regardless of whether it’s the Ordinary Form, the TLM or an Eastern Church Liturgy, it is a gathering of Catholics worshipping together according to an ancient rite of the Church. It is not a private devotion or a prayer meeting (as good as those can be). Pray for our priests!
I agree with Deacon Greg: there are many forms of the Holy Mass in the Catholic Church. Should the Carthusians be prohibited from celebrating the form of the Mass unique to the order? As a child I attended and served at the TLM, however, I have no fondness for it now. A contemporary folk Mass in English is the form through which I experience a closeness to the Holy Trinity.
Because it’s all about you.
Good grief!
Father wants to do away with letting people make their own choice. He would make a good Communist , if he already isn’t one. He is a Jesuit, so he’s almost there.
CCD features at least one Jesuit who, one would presume, is likely far from Fr. Martin, and unlikely a communist. The Jesuits have always been a ‘big tent’ group. [no girls] Everyhing they do is ‘Ad majorem dei gloriam’ [to the greater glory of God].
Reese is a liberal Jesuit fool, educated in liberal Berkeley– not an authentic Catholic priest. He loves gay rights for same-sex “marriage,” and Communion for pro-abortion politicians– and got in trouble with Pope Benedict when he was then-Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s CDF– because Reese publicly dissented from Catholic teaching. Reese is former editor of the Jesuits’ Catholic-dissenting, “America” magazine (he resigned when Pope Benedict got elected) and also wrote for the liberal, Catholic-dissenting “National Catholic Reporter.” Of course he hates Catholic Tradition, especially the 1500+-years-old Tridentine Latin Mass.
“Other than sex, nothing is more heatedly debated by Catholics than the liturgy. Everyone has strong opinions based on years of personal experience.”
That is not true at all. I have never heard sex debated at all and I have never heard the liturgy debated in real time. Capital punishment is probably #1. Communion for divorced and remarried is a big one or for pro-choice politicians. I have heard music in the liturgy criticized but not debated.
Actually Anonymous, I’ve met other TLM devotees like yourself who assert the TLM is the only valid Mass. In so doing your position is as untenable as Fr. Reese’s and also very un-Catholic. Take the time to actually read Summorum Pontificum by Pope Benedict XVI and perhaps you’ll understand.
Fr. Tom, I don’t think you have kept up with current affairs; I celebrate the TLM most Sundays in a parish in Turlock CA [central California] and the church is packed with young people and families with a ton of kids. I also celebrate in English at other parishes in the valley and those masses have only old folks. Open your eyes.
To my mind, Reese is one, dumb, sanctimonious @#! who no more belongs being a priest than Joe Biden. It’s high time the Church got its act together. We can do without nitwits like Reese.
On the opposite spectrum is Peter Kwasniewski, who would ban the new Mass. Where’s the outcry about him?
Who’s Peter Kwasniewski?
He’s wrong if he wants the Ordinary Form of the Mass banned.
But, Reese is an internationally known priest, magazine editor, teacher and more. His prominence makes the damage he proposes more imminent and likely.
How many people have even heard of Peter Kwasniewski?
There are extremists who fall out of the Barque of Peter on both sides, port and starboard, left and right. Let’s all stay in the new Ark, the Catholic Church.
Like Noah’s Ark, it stinks, but there is no better option. Let’s clean it up (in part by not subsidizing filth)!
I never heard of either of them.
The rad trads love Kwasniewski. He’s like the number one star of rad trads.
Outcry all you want. No one is stopping you. I bet one could find all kinds of pearl clutching over his opinions over at America, US Catholic and the National Catholic Reporter. But to suggest there is any kind of equivalency in Kwasniewski’s position and Reese’s is pretty delusory.
There is no groundswell bias against the Novus Ordo in the mainstream hierarchy. The same can’t be said about the TLM.
Guess that explains why the Jesuit order is shrinking faster than a cheap cotton T shirt. At the rate the Jesuit population is going, there will be no need for any Pope to suppress the order for a second time in its history, as they simply are withering and dying on the vine.
Reese’s Pieces (of crap)
MEMO to Tommy R.:
Good luck putting the genie back in this bottle
you think he cares?
He cared enough to run his mouth about the subject
What’s your problem?
Why so touchy?
A dying revolutionary you have failed, Reese; your entire “spirit of Vatican 2” project has collapsed; no one takes you or it seriously … Your wing of the Church will die out due to contraception, the Trads with large and faithful families will in time take over…
The Novus Ordo Missae is not going to be suppressed.
No but it will die out
I remember in 2005 when Fr. Reese stepped down from being editor-in-chief for AMERICA magazine there were people who were absolutely convinced that this was due to an action by the recently elected Pope Benedict XVI.