Coronavirus: Live Streaming Accents Latin Mass Glory

By Enza Ferreri 

This article was published here: Coronavirus: Live Streaming Accents Latin Mass Glory 

Many Non-Catholics may not know that on 3 April 1969, under Pope Pio VI, a liturgical revolution occurred with the promulgation of a new form of Mass, known in Latin as Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of Mass), replacing the Vetus Ordo Missae, the Ancient Order. 

The latter was the Tridentine Mass (named after the city of Tridentum, Trent, in north-east Italy), the form of the Eucharistic celebration promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570 at the request of the Council of Trent during the Counter-Reformation period and maintained, with minor modifications, in subsequent editions of the Roman Missal. 

Although called a “liturgical reform”, this represented a radical change of four centuries of worship. It followed and was promoted by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II in short, 1962 - 1965), that at that time had recently been concluded and which did a lot to change the Catholic Church as had been known until then. 

While the Tridentine Mass is in Latin, the universal language of the Universal Church, the new Mass is in the vernacular, the local language. 

Many alterations were introduced, concerning the text and form of prayers, readings from the Scriptures, rites, use and type of music and more. 

A fundamental modification concerns the orientation of the celebrating priest, previously towards the altar, and after the reform towards the congregation. 

Why mention all this now? 

Because the coronavirus lockdown, with the impossibility of attending Mass in person, has put me in a position to watch it live-streaming in online videos. 

During the Easter Triduum I repeated that experience several times, always choosing the Ancient Rite, except once, when by mistake I watched a video of the New Mass. The close sequence of the two with a distance of a few hours between them gave me an opportunity to compare the two liturgical experiences in a way that I'd never come across before. 

And I saw differences that had previously escaped me. 

It’s two entirely diverse experiences. 

They were both from churches in Italy, the Latin Mass from the Church of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, Rome (pictured above). 

One, the Tridentine Mass, worships God and the other celebrates man, reflecting the analogous change in outlook brought by Vatican II Council. 

The former brings you closer to the spiritual realm. 

I’m not the only one to have noticed this peculiar gift that, in all the mayhem and panic, the Covid-19 quarantine has given us. I’ve discovered that Catholic writer and philosopher Peter Kwasniewski has also published two articles about it. 

The celebrant’s ad populum orientation towards the people, which may seem a way to bring everyone together as a community and increase the participation of the faithful, is not the right thing for a Mass, where priest and congregation should not look at each other and focus on one another as if it were an assembly or meeting, but instead both should look at and focus on God. 

We’re not celebrating each other, we’re celebrating the Lord. 

Symbols and rituals have meaning. The sense of Mystery, Sacrifice and Communion with God must be there.

PHOTO CREDIT By Lumen roma - Opera propria, CC BY 3.0, Collegamento

Coronavirus Italy. Prayer to Mary from Rome Rooftops

By Enza Ferreri

This article was published here: Coronavirus Italy. Prayer to Mary from Rome Rooftops


We've previously posted about how Coronavirus Italy consecrates many of its cities to the Virgin Mary.

And, when Italians in Coronavirus times were not allowed to go to church to attend religious services because of the self-isolation lockdown imposed on them, the church was going to them.

This is what the Parish of Santa Giulia Billiart in Rome has done.

In Tor Pignattara, a historic working-class – now rediscovered by the middle class - district (“borgata”) of South-East Rome whose origins started in the Early Middle Ages, every day at noon, bells ring and a Marian song rises from the Parish of Santa Giulia Billiart.

It is the signal, the “voice of Mary” calling the aerial congregation across the roofs to prayer. The windows open, small balconies fill up to join the Supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii from people’s own homes.

On the rooftop terrace of the parish church complex, surrounded by the apartment blocks above it, the three priests who guide the community in the Tor Pignattara area, don Manrico, don Eugenio and don Luca, appear.

Wearing the purple stole, they recite the prayer in front of a microphone that through speakers sends the invocation to the inside of apartments. Then a brief reflection. Follows the leave-taking, accompanied by greetings bouncing from one window to another, until someone asks his neighbour: "What have you cooked for lunch?"

Tor Pignattara is home to six thousand people, of whom one third are – you might have guessed it - Muslim. In recent years, like so many other European cities’ suburban areas, it has undergone a population replacement.

Since the mid-90s, Tor Pignattara has received many migrants, especially from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China and Africa. But the most numerous are the Bangladeshis, hence its nickname “Banglatown”.

This Christian service initiative in Tor Pignattara was born as a spiritual response to the “flash mobs” which in these lockdown times animate Italian balconies around 6pm, when Italians normally go out for a “passeggiata” in the main street, and which have been seen in the media around the world.

"In times of difficulty Rome has always turned to Our Lady and invoked her protection” says the parish priest, Don Manrico. Interviewed by Avvenire, the Italian Bishops’ Conference newspaper, he explains that the three priests asked themselves: "Why, alongside moments of relaxation to share together, not propose a collective religious rendezvous?" Hence the Marian noon prayer, the special hour of devotion to the Virgin, the 10-15-minute-long bridge between homes.

The parish priest says that they want to stay close to the community and not let people feel alone but allow them to express their faith in a simple but intense way.

The parish remains a point of reference for the neighbourhood: “We are almost a village within the metropolis. When the rumour circulated that Rome churches were closing, many told us that they felt lost. Our church is always open. And we priests are inside or in the churchyard. Even if few are those who enter, the community perceives it as a beacon in the midst of darkness.”

SOURCES
Avvenire
With thanks to Corrispondenza Romana

Coronavirus Italy Consecrates Itself to the Virgin Mary

By Enza Ferreri

This article was published on Italy Travel Ideas


While you may have read about or seen videos of Italians in Coronavirus lockdown singing from their balconies to each other and to the rest of the world, different responses to the crisis have emerged in Italy.

From the North to the South of the country, many mayors have consecrated their towns and cities, starting with the Mayor of Venice Luigi Brugnaro, who on 13 March 2020 visited the splendid Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal, magnificently built by Baldassarre Longhena in memory of the relief provided by the Mother of God during the plague of 1630-1631.

Mayor Consecrates Venice to the Immaculate Heart

Luigi Brugnaro, in his role as Mayor, wearing the symbolic tricolour band of Italian mayors across his chest, in front of the altar of the Madonna recited the prayer to the Virgin composed by the Patriarch of Venice, Bishop Francesco Moraglia, saying: “We are consecrating to Your Immaculate Heart Venice and our Veneto lands”.

Immediately after that, a petition was launched by the website Radio Spada to ask mayors to follow Venice’s example, and many did.

Then it was Siena’s Mayor who, representing the city whose patron saint is the Blessed Mother, by giving Her the keys to the city entrusted the protection of Siena to the Madonna del Voto, as had been done many times before over the Tuscan town’s long and troubled history, during battles and sieges. The last time was in 1944.

Among the numerous other authorities who have responded are the mayors of Sassuolo, Giulianova, Nettuno, Ventimiglia, Tagliacozzo, Terni, Vanzaghello, Casole d’Elsa, Siracusa.


Italian Police Entrusts Italy to Saint Michael

In Ascoli the keys to the city have been entrusted to St Emidio, in Lecco the mayor entrusted his city to St Nicolò, in Silvi to St Leo, in Citerna to the Virgin Mary and St Michael Archangel, and innumerable other towns followed suit. Throughout Italian cities votes were renewed, processions held, rosaries, novenas and prayers said, like in Naples where a week of novenas to St Gennaro is still being recited.

Even Italian State Police on its Facebook official profile posted: “At this difficult time, the State Police entrusts Italy to this force’s own patron saint and protector St Michael Archangel, who reportedly stopped the plague epidemic in Rome in 590 AD. May his protection forcefully guide us for the safety and health of every citizen.”

Above this post is the Pietà, Michelangelo's masterpiece, reinterpreted in these Coronavirus times by Como artist Mr. Savethewall (stage name of Pierpaolo Perretta), who shared it on his social profiles with the words "The thanks of all Italians to doctors, nurses, health operators, pharmacists and all those who are directly and indirectly putting all their energy into protecting our lives and that of our loved ones. You are more than heroes".

The Madonna wears a mask and has a stethoscope around her neck, while the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ is replaced by the Italian flag.

The artist is from Lombardy, in Northern Italy, the country's most affected region, with a total number at the moment of 42,161 cases, a number higher than any whole country in the world except the pandemic's top 6, included Italy, now tragically surpassed by the United States. Italy's total number of Covid-19 cases is now 101,739, with 812 deaths just in the last 24 hours.

The Como artist said:

You cannot explain in words the pain that a woman who loses a child can feel. Each of us feels the intensity of it in a different way based on our own experience, our personal experience. This is the strength of the image and of the profound value it brings.

But then he added:

I want the positive message to emerge just as strongly: this woman is the Blessed Mother and the tricolour is the body of the Son of God made man Who will rise again, just like Italy.

SOURCES
Radio Spada Petition
Sienanews
Radio Spada

PHOTO CREDITS
La Repubblica
Messa in Latino
Polizia di Stato Italiana

Religious Freedom, Constitution Cannot Be Suspended

By Enza Ferreri

This article was published on Italy Travel Ideas



There are constitutional rights that cannot be suspended, and freedom of worship is among them.

The video has become viral.

Mass was interrupted by police last Sunday in Soncino, a small town in the Cremona province of Lombardy, in Italy.

A carabiniere went up to the altar to notify parish priest Don Lino Viola of the 270 euro fine for non-compliance with the government decree and get him to speak to the mayor on the phone. "I am saying Mass, not now", Don Lino repeated several times to the policeman just as the Consecration prayer was beginning.

The brave 80-year-old priest brushed off the police officer and continued celebrating until the end.

There may be sanctions for him and the congregation.

But there were only an organist and 13 people wearing a face mask and gloves, in a 300sq metres church with 30 pews, thus respecting social distancing. Don Lino told the carabiniere: "This is abuse of power".

Later, in an interview, he described the events:

There were six more people than we expected: they were family members of Coronavirus victims who died without a funeral, for whom Mass was being celebrated.

But how could I chase them away? There was a parishioner who just lost his mother and was unable to even give her a funeral.

Never before in 80 years have I seen such a desecration. And to the Carabinieri commander I said: how can you send around officers who do not have respect for the sacred?

Many, including public figures, have considered this a violation of Italy's Constitution.

Art critic and TV journalist Vittorio Sgarbi, whose religious beliefs are not obvious, nevertheless has said:

Article 19 of our Constitution does not limit the freedom of religion and worship. For this reason, law enforcement agencies should be careful not to prevent all this: with only one exception, that of the distance of one metre, an indication given by the health decrees issued by the Prime Minister.

He added that in the environment of Don Lino's Mass (which I've described above) the government's regulations were fully respected.

Italian lawyer Antonino Ennio Andronico has written a long letter published by La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana (all references are at the end), after expressing his support for the lockdown-imposed restrictions, explains why last Sunday's specific example of authorities' behaviour is against the Constitution:

The current emergency legislation uses the word "suspension", not a legal but pragmatic and plastic concept, therefore dangerous because it risks appearing innocuous but in reality tends to limit those constitutional rights enshrined in articles 13 and following of the Italian Constitution, which - as is known - can be limited only in rare exceptions.

Thus personal freedom, of communication, of movement, etc., can be limited on the basis of a law (issued by Parliament, mind you, not by an administrative authority, such as the Government or the Region), and under the control of the judicial authority.

But there are citizens' constitutional rights which are "very special", which it is not possible to limit even in this way, as they are part of that distinctive genetic makeup of the human being who is not only homo faber, but also homo religiosus, that is, a subject capable of dialogue with a supernatural being who has revealed himself as God.

The Constitutions and Concordats between States and Churches provide for specific protection of "religious sentiment" since they are part of human DNA: thus art. 7 of our Constitution declares the state and the Catholic Church "independent and sovereign", and art. 19 of the Constitution establishes that "Everyone has the right to freely profess his religious faith in any form, individual or associated, to propagate it and to exercise its cult in private or in public, provided that these are not rituals contrary to morality". So the only limit to worship is given by "morality", the constitution fathers wrote, worried, in 1947, to avoid future abuses of the executive!

There are constitutional rights that cannot be suspended, and freedom of worship is among them, because it is part of the deepest dimension of man. The Constitution recognises the "independent and sovereign" State and Church and the Concordat reaffirms the full freedom of the Church. A notice for believers and non-believers: .

In Italy, then, there are the Agreements of Villa Madama of 1985 - an international treaty between the State and the Church hierarchically equivalent to the Constitution and superordinate to the law and government administrative acts - which in art. 2 establish: “The Italian Republic recognises the Catholic Church's full freedom to carry out its pastoral, educational and charitable mission of evangelisation and sanctification. In particular, the Church is guaranteed freedom of organisation, of public exercise of worship, of exercise of the magisterium and of the spiritual ministry as well as of jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters".

Well, in Gallignano [the area of Soncino where the event occurred] law enforcement officers entered a church, interrupted the worship (not the "ceremony", as government decrees incompetently write), and both the parish priest - who fortunately was not intimidated - and the faithful were fined.

Illegal and illegitimate act of enormous gravity that violates all the constitutional and international principles set out above (but many others would have to be enumerated), while no one worries about the queues and assemblies that we find daily at supermarkets or post offices. Of course, it will be objected, but it's necessary to eat ... but if it is true that "man does not live by bread alone" it is also true that the Covid-19 disease cannot become an excuse to trample upon constitutionally guaranteed rights to individuals and communities ... and make money!

For those who really believe in it - unlike those for whom Coronavirus was a holy liberation from Sunday Masses too - the religious act, the exercise of worship, the participation in Mass is constitutive of one's being, it is man's own inner self. It is [in Latin] re-ligio, that is, bond with the supreme being! Beyond the abuses of power and the articles of the penal code that I hope will be used to challenge those who made themselves responsible for such abuses, I want to warn in a secular manner all citizens, including non-believers: our fathers have obtained certain constitutional rights with blood, do not take them for granted. Keep a copy of the Constitution with you and reread it, because there is no disease that can "temporarily suspend" even a rule of law ... we would already be in a dictatorship.

My closeness, solidarity and support to the parish priest and the faithful of Gallignano, for the civil and faith witness given.
Antonino Ennio Andronico, Lawyer [Emphasis added]

The episode of Don Lino was not alone: the same day saw two more police raids in churches during Mass celebrations, both in Northern Italy.

REFERENCES AND PHOTO/VIDEO CREDITS
Messa interrotta
Maurizio Blondet
Intervista con Don Lino Viola
Lettera dell' Avvocato Antonino Ennio Andronico a La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana

Intolerant Secularists

People like Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion (Amazon USA) , (Amazon UK) , and Christopher Hitchens, who wrote God Is Not Great (Amazon USA) , (Amazon UK) , et al, when attacking “religion”, play on various ambiguities. They create ambiguities in their choice of terms and then these ambiguities are convenient for them.

The first instance of ambiguity is the use of the term “religion”. It puts together all sorts of people and doctrines which may have very little in common.

To give an analogy, the flat earth theory is undoubtedly a theory of physics. It says something about the earth and, by extension, is a cosmology theory because the universe in which a flat earth exists would be a different universe from ours. It is scientific because it can be tested and disproved, as indeed it has.

Now, if I wanted to criticize scientific physics, I could bundle together the flat earth theory with Newton’s classical mechanics and Einstein’s relativity theory, and say about the former things which are obviously not true about the two latter.

When Dawkins and company attack “religion”, they bundle together Muslim suicide bombers (who are among the most hated figures of our times) with Catholic and other Christian missionaries who risk disease to help the poor in African and other Third World countries.

But, from their viewpoint, it’s a good ploy. If you are not interested in truth and intellectual honesty but only in scoring points (political and non), you can use generic terms which are obviously ambiguous and create confusion by mixing “il sacro e il profano” (“chalk and cheese”). Then, by attacking the obviously bad, you have achieved the effect of also attacking the obvioulsy good in the process. And if you’re good at it, it can be as in a magic trick: nobody noticed where the card, or in this case the truth, disappeared or indeed if it did disapper at all.

Men of science like Dawkins should know that, as in science different theories redefine the concepts they use (Newtonian time and space are not the same as Einsteinian time and space), so in religion the same is true: different doctrines have different concepts of God, and they may have very little in common.

In short, you cannot criticize “religion” meaningfully, especially by extending bad aspects of terrible religions to other religions which are fundamentally good.

Another ambiguity that they employ is when they say “religion is declining in the West” or something to that effect. In that case, what they mean is clearly “Christianity” and not “religion”, given that other religions professed by ethnic minorities who live in the West do not show sign of decline.

Here they got it wrong again. Christianity still permeates Western life and way of thinking profoundly. We are all Christian, as Oriana Fallaci says. I am an atheist Christian as she is, and I’m borrowing her expression because I think it explains well the condition of our “secular” societies too.

These, and we ourselves, have been shaped by two millennia of Christian thinking, luckily. An article by John Gray on secular fundamentalists in The Guardian seems to agree with this when he says that Dawkins & co. are really expressions of the Christian background from which they derive (and he does not even defend Christianity, he just attacks Dawkins and his gang). He believes that the very idea of history as progress is Christian.

I don’t know where we would be without this profound Christian influence. Britain, which is perhaps the least Christian country in Western Europe (perhaps in the West) has also some of the greatest drugs and alcohol problems, highest level of teenager pregnancy, highest rate of illegitimate births, biggest problem of an underclass, highest crime rate, highest level of debt among the population, highest spread of obesity.

This is where abandoning our Christian roots would lead: forgetting self-discipline and only thinking of immediate self-gratification have these effects. Which is also part of the reason why, whereas it may be possible for an individual to be atheist, I don’t think that it is apossible for a society to be atheist.

When Dawkins and people of his ilk say something like “hey, look, we are a secular society now and we are fine” or something similar, they systematically forget, overlook or disregard the many, profound, pervasive ways in which many centuries of Christianity have influenced our society and still do. I can see it in myself, how my Christian upbringing still has a (mostly beneficial) effect on me.

Where the intolerant secularists also got it wrong is in putting science and religion against each other. They think that they are incompatible, whereas in fact they occupy different domains, and there is no conflict or contradiction. In fact, you may say that the problems arise when one of them tries to occupy the other’s territory, and attributes to itself a role and capability which it does not possess.

Dawkins is a good case in point. When he writes as a modern evolutionary and genetic theorist and as a zoologist, he is fine and indeed very interesting. When he writes as a self-proclaimed philosopher and a “religion basher”, he writes nonsense.

Something similar happens to science when it usurps a role which is not its own. Dawkins is a good metaphor for this arrogance and its consequences: when he tries to attributes to both himself and science a role which they do not have and a power which they do not possess, they get it all wrong. Basically, biology is his profession, and philosophy of religion is his fun activity, his hobby. I would call him a religion basher by hobby. He definitely should stick to his profession, because he is rubbish at his hobby.

We have to be careful that science does not overstep its domain and role, because many bad things may easily follow from this.

Positivism was a 19th century philosophy which overstressed the power and importance of science. The French positivist sociologist August Comte thought that humanity goes through three stages: "the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive."

Gray's article does not mention him but mentions the anthropologist James George Frazer instead, who slightly altered and popularized Comte’s theories His three stages are: primitive magic; religion; and science.

All this leads to scientism, the belief that the scientific method can be applied to everything and that science is the most authoritative and valuable learning activity to the exclusion of other viewpoints.

We can easily give too much power to science, as the case of animal experimentation clearly and tragically shows. Most people in the West probably are morally, instinctively opposed to vivisection, but they just accept it because “scientists say that it’s necessary” without even trying to question whether that statement by scientists is true or not.

Technocracy, government by scientists and technical experts, is just as bad as any other form of control by an elite.