Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

By now you may be aware that the other day (just in time for Christmas!) Rome released a “Questions & Answers” document about its ongoing effort to clamp down on obliterate celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. I’ve not read the document myself yet, but Father Z is on it here and here.

We got a somewhat oblique earful about how to respond in today’s homily, consisting of two parts. The first was something of a course in Canonical Law on Papal authority and respectful communication: It’s okay for me to speak in good faith about my genuine needs and concerns to my Priest or Bishop, but I should refrain from acting on the urge to go on social media and call the Pope a poopy-head. The second was about the importance of keeping our eyes on the long prize, i.e., salvation, and not letting the worldly bastards get us down.

I don’t know what’s actually going to happen. Our parish has had a rayther unique role in the TLM movement since the beginning. Our Bishop has always been sympathetic and is certainly not itching for an excuse to put the kybosh on us, but at the same time I just don’t know how strongly he’s willing to try and protect us.

Frankly, I still don’t even know why this fight was picked in the first place. (Well, I kinda do, actually. What I mean is why would anyone of good faith within the Church do so. This all just seems like plain spite to me.)

Funny, today I was looking about and it really struck home how young the TLM crowd are at my church. Lots of families with small children, young singletons and couples, and new faces all the time. Heck, there was a teenaged girl there all by herself today who evidently had bicycled over for the thing. (She nearly ran me down on the sidewalk afterward.)

Well, we shall see what happens.