A (proposed) Open Letter regarding the Restoration of the Sarum Rite

Those of my seven or eight readers who actually go down below the most recent entry of my poor weblog will note that I have written somewhat about the Sarum Rite, and of its possible restoration in the Roman Catholic Church. Please allow me to tell you why I’ve not been writing much about it, until recently.

An episcopal apology I’d like to hear some day

When I was a child at a Roman Catholic grade school in Southern California, long ago, the practice of the nuns who taught there was to have the students of in each class room line up in their own line at the end of each recess. One morning, the kids in my class room, while in their line, were being particularly loud and unruly, so much so that they delayed the whole school from going in to their respective classrooms by at least ten minutes.

My teacher, a particularly tall and stout Carmelite nun, came up to me, and said, “I want you to apologize to the whole school for the behavior of our class.” I quietly protested to her, “But I didn’t take part in what they did!” And the nun quietly said to me, “I know that. Nonetheless, I would like you to apologize on behalf of your class. Could you do that for me?” I nodded, and in as loud a voice as I could muster, I apologized to the school on behalf of my class.

It seems that these days, I have heard tell of a number of bishops who are remonstrating with their unruly and disorderly flocks. I have remarked here and there about such bishops. I’m afraid that I have not been very charitable with these bishops, and for that, I apologize myself.

It is better to light one small stick of dynamite, than to curse the silence.

This is a wake up call, for me and for my five or six readers now. I’ve mourned the death of my late wife, Beth, for long enough. I have also mourned the death of all that I have loved in the Church of my youth for long enough.

It is time to wake up to what we must become, rather than who we now are.

An Open Letter to His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan

11 March 2016

Your Eminence,

Please forgive the intrusion upon both your time and your webpage, but I wish to write in response to the excellent question you posed in your recent entry, which may be found here. That question was: “Where is the Catholic Sandy Koufax?” If I understand aright, you meant by this, ‘Where are those Catholics willing to show devotion to keeping the Sabbath, to worship on that day, and to express their worship by prayer, by fasting, and by almsgiving?”

Although I am an Eastern Catholic, please permit me to offer an answer to that question. In doing so, and with all due respect to Your Eminence, I am exercising both my right and my duty to answer your question under Canon 212, §§ 2 and 3, to make known my spiritual needs, to manifest my opinion on matters which concern the good of the Church, and to make that opinion known to the rest of Christ’s faithful.