segunda-feira, 25 de janeiro de 2010

“I don’t like to name it the Latin Mass,” Hoyos said of the traditional celebration, he prefers to call it the Gregorian rite;

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Roman Catholics in Lincoln had the rare privilege Friday of attending a Mass led by a cardinal from the Vatican.

buy this photo Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos speaks during an ordination Mass at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ Friday morning. (Eric Gregory)

Roman Catholics in Lincoln had the rare privilege Friday of attending a Mass led by a cardinal from the Vatican.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos led the ordination Mass at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ for four new priests from Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary near Denton.

The nearly three-hour worship service was entirely in Latin, in keeping with the mission of the Denton seminary, which is to train priests to follow the traditional form of the Mass that was used in Catholic churches worldwide for more than 1,000 years.

In a news conference afterward, Hoyos said he accepted the invitation because this was the first ordination of graduates of the Denton seminary since Pope Benedict XVI in July 2007 authorized parish priests to celebrate the old form of the Latin Mass without having to obtain their bishop’s permission, and also told bishops to encourage priests to offer the older form if parishioners asked for it.

Hoyos praised Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of two seminaries worldwide training priests for the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, for introducing a new program in which priests can learn to lead the older version, called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, in special one-week classes.

Since last June, priests from more than 60 U.S. dioceses have received the training.

Hoyos, originally from Colombia, is the president emeritus of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, a Vatican entity whose job is to promote and coordinate the use of the older form of the Mass.

Both the older form, in which the priest faces the altar and uses a very traditional Latin liturgy, and the newer form, in which the priest faces the congregation and the liturgy is usually in the language of the people (but can still be in Latin), have their value and should be maintained, Hoyos said.

“I don’t like to name it the Latin Mass,” Hoyos said of the traditional celebration, which was widely discontinued following liturgical reforms in the 1960s. Hoyos said he prefers to call it the Gregorian rite; it gave birth to the Gregorian chant form of church singing, and inspired the great cathedrals of Europe.

The focus in the older form is on God, and on the sanctity of the Mass itself, he said. The “new Mass,” by contrast, has more emphasis on scripture reading and allows expression of cultural differences, he said.

The pope supports the new Mass, but also wants to make the Gregorian version “known to all the people of God, so that all the people can experience the power of the old rite, too,” Hoyos said.

Those attending the ordination service had an opportunity to experience it in its highest form, with lots of incense, pomp and ceremony. The altar was set up in the Cathedral with the cross atop a pedestal, flanked by candles and flowers. Throughout much of the service, Hoyos and other priests faced the altar, with their backs to the congregation, directing their prayers symbolically toward God.

In the news conference the cardinal got a laugh when he turned his back on reporters, demonstrating the rudeness of not looking at the person one is addressing. When the priest faces the altar, both he and the congregation behind him have their faces turned toward God, Hoyos said.

During the Mass Friday, he said, “I was not alone. I was accompanied by the people of faith. I was with them, giving our face to God.”

New priests ordained Friday were: the Rev. Paul Jared McCambridge of Arlington Heights, Ill., the Rev. Dennis Michael Gordon of Nogales, Ariz., the Rev. Justin Mark Nolan of Guthrie, Okla., and the Rev. Jonathan Andrew Romanoski of Harrisburg, Pa.

More than 800 people packed the cathedral, including many friends and relatives of the new priests who had traveled from across the country. Some 50 priests participated, some from other states, and one from France.

“It’s overwhelming that God shows such mercy that he would give us the holy sacrifice of the Mass,” Gordon said on the steps of the Cathedral after being ordained. Gordon, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard before entering seminary, has two brothers who also are priests and attended the Denton seminary.

“I came because of the old Latin Mass,” he said. “It lifts me up to God so beautifully.”

Romanoski said he was thankful for the prayers of his family and friends that helped him get through seminary. He said he hopes to have his first assignment in a church in Mexico.

Dick and Teresa Teich, from Post Falls, Idaho, got to know Romanoski while he was a deacon in their church, and came to Lincoln just to see him ordained. The Teiches love the old Mass, and have sought out churches that celebrated it ever since the new version began in the late 1960s.

They and others said they hope the pope’s support will lead to more widespread use of the older ritual.

Gordon’s parents, James and Beatrice Gordon, took their children to Tucson to experience the Latin Mass because it wasn’t available in Nogales. The traditional liturgy “is more God-centered,” his mother said. “I believe there’s room for both. People can be spiritual in different ways.”

fonte:http://www.journalstar.com/