“Is it not true that prohibiting or suspecting the extraordinary form can only be inspired by the demon who desires our suffocation and spiritual death?” —The Vatican’s chief liturgist from 2014-2021; interview with Edw. Pentin (23-Sep-2019)
Do you know what the church narthex is? It’s kind of like a separate room, blocked off by a wall. A buddy of mine (sitting in the narthex) took some iPhone recordings of our congregation singing Vespers. Here’s how they sound sans organ. [Note: Whenever I play for Vespers, I make sure to have some […]
Here is a photo of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen celebrating Mass in Jerusalem. That image was included in the “Fulton J. Sheen Sunday Missal” (1961), which was edited by Father Caramen and has an IMPRIMATUR by William Cardinal Godfrey, who served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1956 until his death in 1963. The Fulton Sheen […]
I submit to you that nothing is gained by these slight variations in the repeats for the Epipany Offertory. The edition is by Carl Ott, a musicologist. Almost nothing is about Carl Ott—as far as I can tell, nobody even knows when Carl Ott was born or when Carl Ott died.
In 2013, I began speaking of an insane liturgical practice which was allowed by Pope Pius XII—but nobody realizes this. If you tried to do this at the Traditional Latin Mass, you would most likely be run out of town on a rail. However, for the record, the FULTON SHEEN MISSAL (edited by Father Caraman) […]
Yves Chiron claims that Annibale Bugnini was a professor at PIMS (the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome) for ten years, but in 1965 he was forced to resign. If true, this is very odd. Another odd fact: It turns out that Leopold Stokowski, the famous conductor who helped Josef Hofmann found the Curtis […]
Giovanni Battista Doni (d. 1647AD) is known for having changed the name of the UT Note—renaming it “Do.” He convinced his contemporaries to make the change by arguing that: (1) “Do” is easier to pronounce than “Ut” is; and (2) “Do” is an abbreviation for “Dominus,” the Latin word for the Lord, Who is the […]
Take a look at the Introit for tomorrow, the 13th Sunday after Pentecost. When we were in school, we would have gotten in trouble if we wrote “xiiii” as Roman Numerals instead of “xiv”—but you can see this was actually quite common.
Most Rev’d Dins J. Hart—Archbishop of Melbourne from 2001 to 2018—wrote as follows in 2007: “From my youth I have valued and loved the traditional Mass of the Roman Rite. Since 1970, I have grown to love the Missal of Paul VI. I am delighted that the Missal of Blessed John XXIII has been restored […]
Archbishop Di Noia recently claimed that the Faithful’s hunger for the Traditional Mass “has gotten totally out of control and become a movement, especially in the United States, France, and England…” The former vice-president of Ecclesia Dei declared that “Pope Francis is right to see in the repristination of the pre-conciliar liturgy at best a […]
If you look at the 1961 Solesmes Gradual for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, you will see that somebody in the 1960s was trying to figure out the “melismatic moræ vocis” (a.k.a. “Vaticana white notes”) which we have spoken of so frequently on this blog.
Speaking about the AGNUS DEI, Father Fortescue wrote: “Agnus as a vocative is curious, evidently in order to reproduce the original text (John 1:29) exactly.” [Altera die vidit Joannes Jesum venientem ad se, et ait: Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi.] Father Fortescue, as usual, is correct; but in some medieval manuscripts you […]
This incredible website gives each bishop’s response to the recent MOTU PROPRIO Traditionis Custodes, a decree by Pope Francis which seeks to reduce the number of celebrations of the “Extraordinary Form” (Traditional Latin Mass): traditioniscustodes.info
When you were in school, you would have gotten in trouble if you wrote the Roman Numeral “9” as viiii. You were supposed to write: IX. But look how an ancient manuscript writes “9” as a Roman Numeral. That’s the Introit Ecce Deus for tomorrow’s feast in the Extraordinary Form: The 9th Sunday after Pentecost.
Anyone familiar with the so-called “Traditionalist Catholic” movement knows that (like every other group) it contains some bad apples. Anyone can self-identify as a “Traditionalist Catholic”—even those who are mentally ill, those who beat their wives, and even folks who are emotionally disturbed. All of us know TLM Catholics who are so arrogant they make […]
If we grow up singing hymns, we’re incapable of judging them—because we’re “too close” to them. People who know and love “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide” probably never realized the first word is one of the most egregious examples of incorrect accentuation. (The correct accent for “abide” is on the second syllable, not […]
