SACRED HEART NAPIER'S MASS IN ANGLICAN CHURCH

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"I am not too popular for choosing not to attend my daughter's Catholic school's End of Year Mass which is once again being held in an Anglican cathedral. Instead, I will offer my Mass for Sacred Heart in a Catholic church on the same day."

So says 'Unknown', in a comment on my post "RUDE AND DEFIANT: DOING A RUNNER TO ESCAPE AN 'ECUMENICAL SERVICE" (Dec 3). 

We can now reveal (sounds like One News), with 'Unknown's' permission, the name of this 'Catholic' school.

It was Sacred Heart College Napier which held its end-of-year Mass not in the city's main Catholic church, St Patrick's, but at the Anglican Cathedral of St John.

Is this not taking 'ecumenism' a teensy-weensy bit too far, even for the most liberal and modernist of Catholics in the Diocese of Palmerston North?

At the Filipino Novena Mass tonight in St Patrick's Waipawa, we heard the Gospel of Lk 1: 5-25. The missal said that's tomorrow's Mass, but anyway:

"(Zechariah) was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to burn incense". In the temple of the Old Testament, just one priest was permitted to enter the sanctuary, "while the whole assembly of the people was praying outside." 

We may be struck by their reverence for the Ark of the Covenant: by comparison, how cavalier is our treatment now of the Son of God, in the Blessed Sacrament!

What justification is there for celebrating the Catholic Mass, in which Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is offered in an unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, and made present in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity by the priest in the act of transubstantiation - a dogma denied by the Anglican Communion - in an Anglican church, be it ever so large, impressive and CBD, as is St John's Cathedral in Napier? ("Poor Anglicans," some wit has observed, "all dressed up with nowhere to go.")

How can a Catholic priest consent to making Christ really and truly present on an altar built and used merely for a quotidian gathering of Protestants (i.e. heretics) in remembrance of the Last Supper, be the wording of the Anglican communion service ever so similar to the Catholic Novus Ordo (New Mass)? 

In an Anglican church there's no altar stone, no sacred relics, no tabernacle and no crucifix, only a tasteful, tactful cross which doesn't offend sensitive Anglican sensibilities. How can the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - except in an emergency - be divorced from the altar stone and its sacred relics of the saints? And from the tabernacle above the altar? And from the crucifix above the tabernacle? 

"Easy-peasy," you say, "it happens all the time, at 'house Masses' and rest homes.

So once again we see the rotten fruits of 'the spirit of Vatican II' and of the banalities and trivialities of the Novus Ordo: the erosion of reverence, of a sense of the sacredness of things. 

It's tantamount to denying the dogma of the Blessed Eucharist. How can a Catholic bishop give permission (because surely he must have been asked) for Mass to be celebrated in an Anglican church? Surely he realized the potential for scandal of such a proceeding? 

And we can't even say, "oh, we haven't got a bishop to ask for permission", because Sacred Heart's end-of-year Mass was held in St John's in 2018, when we did have a bishop - of sorts: Bishop Charles Drennan, recently ret'd. So presumably it was +Charles who gave permission, and we can't ask him why because he's shot through. 

"Oh but," you say, "St John's is bigger. There wouldn't be enough room in St Patrick's for the prize-giving." That's beside the point. Holding a prize-giving in a Catholic church is quite simply wrong. 

I've attended such prize-givings and experienced the hubbub, the applause, the laughter, the 'songs' - all in the presence of our Lord who, Sr Lucia, one of the seers of Fatima, assures us, is "deeply offended" just by talking in church, let alone the racket of a prize-giving. The Blessed Sacrament could have been removed from the church for those events, but wasn't, and wouldn't be at St Patrick's, either, which is further evidence of a lack of belief in the Real Presence.

The prize-giving was held at St John's in the morning, and fair enough: no reason why not. But parents and families were required to turn up again at the Anglican cathedral in the evening to celebrate the End-of-Year Mass. 

If St Patrick's is big enough for Christmas Eve Masses, and big enough for Requiem Masses, I bet it's big enough for the Sacred Heart Mass. If it's not, then enlarge St Patrick's or better still, build a new church, a traditional church with the tabernacle in its rightful place - but instead of that, St Patrick's is setting its sights on a new 'community centre'.

Why, when Mass counts are dropping and churches emptying, do 'gathering spaces' and 'community centres' conversely get bigger? Pre-Vat II there were no gathering spaces, only church porches.

"Oh," you may say, "but gathering spaces are necessary to build 'community'. No, they're not. It's Holy Mass, reverently and frequently celebrated, with catechizing that feeds the faithful, which builds community. Pre-Vat II, when the Mass was celebrated in Latin, with sermons, not 'homilies', churches were full to busting.  

And St Patrick's already has a community centre, newer I think than the church. Napier's Parish Priest, Father Barry Scannell SM, arrived just last year from Wellington, trailing clouds of glory: he'd been awarded the NZ Order of Merit for leading the multi-million dollar earthquake-strengthening exercise at St Mary of the Angels. 

Maybe Father Scannell's finding Napier a bit humdrum. Maybe he wanted a challenge. Anyway, I'm told fancy architects have been hired for a new community centre on the site of the old presbytery which, significantly, is no longer needed. A parishioner who's seen the plans says "it's very ugly". 

Wouldn't a new, fit-for-purpose St Patrick's church be far more suited to Fr Scannell's revenue-gathering and morale-building skills than a mere 'community centre"? 'Fit for purpose' means a church with acoustics to showcase the Sacred Heart choir - which was the reason other than size adduced for the use of St John's.  

Slight by comparison to the gratuitous insult to the Eucharist, the "source, centre and summit" of our Catholic Faith, of celebrating their Mass in an Anglican church, but still to be considered, are the needs of Sacred Heart's students and staff. They don't even have a chapel any more, and now they're expected to hold their end-of-year Mass in a Protestant church.

In 1 Corinthians 8, St Paul tells us that even if a certain idol is "nothing", we shouldn't eat it if there's any danger of leading our brothers astray. "When you thus sin against members of your family,and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ." (1 Cor 8:12). 

How could the celebrating priest - let alone the bishop - get around Scripture, which teaches that even lay people, let alone clergy, must avoid not only evil actions, but also the appearance of evil?

Let me refer you to a new book by the brave Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age (Angelico Press).

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2019/10/christus-vincit-bishop-schneiders.html

"I think that with the tremendous and almost unprecedented interior crisis in the Church we are witnessing today, the hour of the laity has arrived. They also feel responsible for the conservation and defense of the faith. The true intention and teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the laity is being realized now in our days ever more clearly, in many meritorious and courageous lay initiatives for the defense of the Catholic faith. 

"We have arrived at a grotesque situation, in which the sheep are beginning to unmask the infiltrating wolves in sheep’s clothing, i.e., the unbelieving, apostate, and debauched cardinals, bishops, and priests.”

Philippa O'Neill says:

Read your post on the end year Catholic college school Mass in Napier held at an Anglican cathedral. Sadly nothing surprises me anymore. Shameful.

My 'nice old codger' from Dannevirke has just rung, and it was not to wish me a Happy New Year.

No, he'd just read this post and he was 'absolutely furious'. Holding a Catholic school Mass in an Anglican cathedral is 'incredible'. He's going to ring Cardinal 'Call me John' Dew, to see what he has to say about it. 

I'll keep you posted ...

  

My nice old codger rang back today. He wasn't allowed to speak to Cardinal Dew. Some female gatekeeper told him that Cardinal Dew is - you guessed it - on holiday. So he rang Emeritus Bishop Peter Cullinane.

+Cullinane hadn't heard about Sacred Heart celebrating their School Mass at St John's Anglican Cathedral. Even though they've done it twice, that is, for two years running.

"Oh," said Bishop Cullinane. "Mass is celebrated in all sorts of strange places these days."

It seems my 'nice old codger' isn't so nice after all. Because what he dearly wanted to tell the Bishop  was, "I think there are more bishops in Hell than in Heaven".

Jeanette Hancock says:

That's my old school. I went there in the 90s, and yeah, St. Pats is too small for an end of year Mass. It was then, and it defintely will be now. Heck, it was too small for our opening and feast day Masses, which weren't as popular that our wider school community wanted to attend. Parents et cetera would complain that our opening Mass was too cramped.

People honestly need to get over themselves. If they want a bigger Church, then I suggest they have larger families and pay more to the local parishes so they can afford a building big enough that it can offer an end of year Mass for a school and it's community.

This is quite frankly a mountain out of a molehill, crafted by those who think they're more Catholic than the Pope.

I say:

I'm so tempted to reply, "Well I am more Catholic than the Pope", but I'll content myself with quoting Michael Matt of The Remnant: "The Pope wouldn't even make a good Moslem".

And it seems that even with their families the size they are now, St Patrick's can afford a building big enough for a 'Community Centre'.

Isn't this a case of the tail wagging the dog? A church big enough for all the community to worship God is the first priority, not a 'gathering space' for the community to worship community.

Helen Carver says:

In the words of Fr Max Palmer OCSO, "Pope Francis is the best Pope we have ever had and the group in the Vatican plotting to bring him down is a nest of vipers." Hear Hear! 

I say: 

He would say that. Fr Palmer is a liberal and a modernist, one of those described by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in his new book 'Christus Vincit' as the latter-day Scribes and Pharisees. 

Thanks for supplying his surname. I was wishing I knew it so I could pray for him by name.

Philippa O'Neill says:

By his own words he will bring himself down. 

While I try to teach my young adults the truths of the Catholic Church (the Pope) constantly moves the lines or totally confuses us. I respect the office of Pope and that he is my Pope but I can totally disagree with him and what he says.

I'm not a lemming.

Bob Gill says:

Regarding “In an Anglican church there's no altar stone….” I was shocked to discover recently that Catholic altars not made of stone (most it seems) do not contain an altar stone or relics of a saint these days. Apparently things changed after Vatican II.

As Father Buenger just recently explained to me: “From my research and discussion on this point in New Zealand, most altars are not fixed and therefore don't "qualify" as a permanent altar into which an altar stone is placed with a relic in it. Note that the altars in Dannevirke and in 'Palmy' at the cathedral are not fixed and therefore do not have a relic. The altar in my "new" parish is not fixed either, nor does it have a relic.”

I say:

According to both the GIRM and to Canon law, it is “proper” and “appropriate” for every church to have a fixed altar, and fixed altars “are to be dedicated” (while moveable altars can simply be blessed), and the tradition of placing relics in the altar to be dedicated “is to be retained”.

A member of our Parish Council confirms what I thought, that in the new, moveable altar at St Joseph's Waipukurau there are no relics. He states that there haven't been relics in altars "for many many years".

I'd say, about 50 years. Since Vat II. It figures. The saints have been tossed out of the altars just as by and large they've tossed out of the texts of the 'New Mass'. How the Church thought she would get along without the help of the saints, I don't know. 
But now,50 years on, we do see. And the Church is not a pretty sight.