BISHOP DRENNAN, WHY IS THE NAPIER SSPX MASS CELEBRATED IN A FUNERAL CHAPEL?

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Humiliation is good for the soul. Yes, sir!

Once again I must apologise, this time for seeming to designate the Traditional Latin Mass in a 'tiny church in Ashhurst' (March 15) as SSPX (Society of St Pius X), when in fact of course that weekly Sunday Mass is diocesan, and celebrated by priests of the Palmerston North Diocese (would that there were more of them!).

I had carelessly lumped Ashhurst in with the TLM at St Anthony's in Whanganui and Dunstall's Funeral Parlour in Napier. I do apologise.

Of course, the traditional Latin Mass in all places is the same, the difference being only that in Whanganui and Napier they are celebrated by the SSPX, not a diocesan priest. 

And in regard to the canonical standing of the SSPX, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has said that: "When the Society of St Pius X will (not 'if') be completely integrated as a canonical institute of the Church they can really officially give to the Church a good contribution to a necessary theological discussion and deepening of some aspects of the Council which had a temporal (temporally limited) character. 

I might well add that Vatican II was only a pastoral council, not a doctrinal or dogmatic council. It was never the intention of the Church to give, in the documents of Vatican II, any definitive teaching. That is, Vatican II is not set in stone. It's liable to change, or even to correction. 

'Anonymous' says: 
Hopefully, Vatican II is not set in concrete! I do see that Council as a licence for unnecessary change within the Church. I see liberals, both priests and lay people, throwing in their interpretation of church practices. During a school Mass in my local church all the children going to Communion held out their hands to receive the Eucharist. Not a single one received on the tongue. Does this mean our teachers have been instructed to teach the children to receive Communion in the hand only – and without so much as a bow beforehand? As we judge people by their actions at times, how many of those children actually believe in the Real Presence? 

I say: Lex orandi, lex credendi: Yes, we pray as we believe. Which means it does appear that people receiving Communion in the hand cannot actually believe they are receiving the Lord God of Hosts into their soul. 

But I used to receive in the hand. I think it's a question of depth of faith. My heightened belief in the Eucharist means now that I go down on my knees (while I still can), and receive on the tongue.

Teachers mightn't have been instructed to teach children to receive in the hand. More likely it's just taken for granted they'll receive in the hand, because that's what the teachers do - and, sadly, the teachers' teachers, too.

Another 'Anonymous' says:

With all due respect there is a gulf of difference between the Mass celebrated by the SSPX priest and the one celebrated by the diocesan priest in Ashhurst. One is an extraordinary act of disobedience, the other is simple preservation of the traditional form of the liturgy with canonical approval. Disobedience rooted in pride. 

I say: 
For years I shunned the SSPX Mass, because I thought the same. Now I attend the SSPX Mass when it's celebrated in Napier - an hour away - but only on the third Sunday of the month, and only after attending my parish Novus Ordo Mass.

That's because it is the right of all of Christ's faithful that the celebration of Holy Mass should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulation as prescribed in the liturgical books (Redemptionis Sacramentum). In my parish of Holy Trinity, Central Hawke's Bay, the celebration of Holy Mass is quite simply not 'as the Church wishes'. 

In 1995 Msgr Camille Perl of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei stated: "In the strict sense you may fulfill your Sunday obligation by attending a Mass celebrated by a priest of the Society of St Pius X … If your intention is simply to participate in a Mass according to the 1962 Missal for the sake of devotion, this would not be a sin."

What really drew my attention however, because I knew the foregoing, but I didn't know that SSPX priests and bishops are usually allowed to offer Mass in non-SSPX churches around the world, including Lourdes and St Peter's Rome.

So why, Bishop Charles Drennan, do your faithful people in the Diocese of Palmerston North have to suffer the Holy Mass being celebrated IN A FUNERAL CHAPEL?

This is outrageous, and a terrible offence to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. The proper place for the SSPX Mass in Napier is one of the several Catholic churches in the city and suburbs.