30 September 2007

Tagged for a Meme

.
Tagged by Moretben, first in his combox (which I could have pretended not to have read), then in mine.

1. Do you attend the Traditional Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo?

I attend the TLM very very rarely: it isn't available in this diocese (or in the neighbouring one) at any time at which an absence of family or work commitments would allow me to attend. On occasion I have been in London and have managed to arrange a schedule which has allowed me to attend. I like to read my TLM for the appropriate Sunday each week.

2. If you attend the TLM, how far do you drive to get there?

n/a

3. If you had to apply a Catholic label to yourself, what would it be?

I'll appropriate Piers Paul Read's comment on a description of himself; he said he wasn't a "stern moralist": he was a bad Catholic.

4. Are you a comment junkie?

A bit, but the addicition is under control. If someone writes something that I really like (or rarely, that I really don't) then I like to tell them.

5. Do you go back to read the comments on the blogs you’ve commented on?

Only if I leave a question, or am participating in a continuing discussion.

6. Have you ever left an anonymous comment on another blog?

Yes: though not on Catholic ones.

7. Which blogroll would you most like to be on?

HH the P's, if he had one.

8. Which blog is the first one you check?

Moretben's, when he's posting; otherwise Fr Tim's or Fr Ray's. Occasionally Fr Z (whom God preserve)'s if something is going on.

9. Have you met any other bloggers in person?

Not to my knowledge.

10. What are you reading?

I'm struggling through Anibale Bugnini's "The Reform of the Liturgy": I think I'm gradually coming to an understanding of why things happened the way they did. Light relief comes from "While Rome Burns": collected pieces by Alexander Woolcott (one of the Algonquin Circle). When alert, I am working on an informal peer-review of an article for a historical review for a friend: this means I am reading through various files from the National Archives. And I'm sharing "My Family and Other Animals" with my daughter, who is reading it for the very first time.

Bonus Question!
Has your site been banned by Spirit of Vatican II?

If it were "the spirit of Vatican II", then I would hope so! See the first part of my answer to question 10, however: I am more and more convinced that Vatican II, or, rather, the decisions of Vatican II, were hijacked by a bunch of people who didn't really know what they were doing, and who were expecting to be stopped at any moment.

5 comments:

Anagnostis said...

...except that the same bunch of people were also responsible for drafting the schemata. this is especially true of Sacrosanctum Concilium which made it through practically untouched (and was the only one of the original schemata to have survived Leinart's coup d'etat). It was the work of exactly the same bunch of people who, by the mid-fifties, had already done most of the groundwork on the NO.

No, I think the clue to the Council is Metz. God is not mocked. One does not invoke the Holy Spirit at the same time as cutting deals with His enemies to pre-determine where He blows and where He doesn't.

Ttony said...

Can you expand on Leinhart and Metz?

Anagnostis said...

Certainly.

The "Metz agreement" was concluded semi-secretly (it was reported in the secular press at the time nevertheless) in August 1962 between the Secretariat of State and the Kremlin. Representatives of the Moscow Patiarchate (KGB agents, in effect) would be permitted to accept Pope John's invitation to attend the Council as observers, in exchange for which the Pope guaranteed that the Council would refrain from any condemnation of Communism (the outstanding error of the age if ever there was one).

Cardinal Leinart (Bishop of Lille) was de facto leader of the "Rhine Group" of Council Fathers, the only group of bishops to arrive at the Council with clear (liberal) objectives and a "game plan". During the first session he seized the microphone in a dramatic (now generally understood to be carefully orchestrated) gesture and denounced the schemata - the preparatory documents carefully drafted in advance under papal oversight. He demanded that these be withdrawn and a completely new set of working papers produced. He was immediately applauded by supporters and subsequently by others cautht up in the anti-curial mood and the general euphoria of the circumstances. The proposal was put to the vote and all the preparatory work - except Sacrosanctum Concilium - was scrapped. New documents were commissioned from the "new theologians" - Rahner, Kung, Schilebeekx, Haring, Congar, etc, etc...

The rest, as they say, is history. "God forbid" worried our own Cardinal Heenan, that the periti [these men] should be the ones charged with impementing and interpreting the Council. Of course that's exactly what happened.

Anagnostis said...

BTW, I updated mine: I'd left out Shawn Tribe and the Abbe Laguerie. Mea Culpa.

Fr Ray Blake said...

Only just realised, Anibale" is the Italian form of Hannibal, how apt.