Thursday, March 6, 2014

Bishop of Fort Worth takes action against wayward Catholic college and is attacked, by Catholics known as radtrads

Bishop Michael Olson (CNS photo)
The Traditionalist blogosphere is abuzz, again, with the story of the latest “injustice” done to Catholics who are devoted to Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  A letter from the bishop of Fort Worth, TX, dated February 24, 2014, to Mr. Michael King, president of Fisher More College, was leaked to the Rorate Caeli blog; the letter from Bishop Michael Olson states: 
1. You do not have permission to have the public celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass at the Chapel of Fisher More College.  This includes Sundays and weekdays.  The weekly celebration of the Extraordinary Form is available to the faithful every Sunday at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Fort Worth. 
2. You may only have the celebration of the Mass in the Ordinary Form by priests who explicitly have faculties for such celebration as granted by me as the Bishop of Fort Worth....
I make these norms out of my pastoral solicitude and care for the students of Fisher-More College as well as for your own soul.  I urge you to comply with them. 
The reasons for the bishop’s disciplinary action are not spelled out in the letter, because it was written immediately after a meeting between Bishop Olson and Mr. King, during which it can be assumed King’s actions as president of a Catholic college located in the Diocese of Fort Worth were discussed.  A modicum of background information shows that the Ordinary’s letter was fair and prudent. 
First: Bishop Olson is no enemy of the Traditional Latin Mass; the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter staffs St. Mary of the Assumption parish in his diocese.  Less than a half-hour away, in the neighboring Diocese of Dallas, the FSSP also staffs Mater Dei Parish, which has one or two Traditional Latin Masses every day of the week.  Therefore no lay people unaffiliated with the college are being deprived by the bishop’s ruling.  (For basis of comparison: I live in the densely populated Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which has four parishes where Sunday Mass is celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, and I drive 40-45 minutes to the nearest one.) 
Second: while some see Bishop Olson’s action as an attack on Summorum Pontificum, a review of the actual provisions of the motu proprio is in order. It does not give an unlimited right for any priest to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite anywhere and at any time: the universal permission is for private Masses, not public Masses (although the lay faithful may attend the private Mass of a priest if they so desire and he allows it).  By the very nature of an educational institution, Mass in a college chapel is a public ceremony, and therefore other considerations come into play as well.  Specifically, Article 5 §1 of Summorum Pontificum says, “In parishes where there is a stable group of faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition,” and by implication, in chapels, “the pastor [or chaplain] should…ensure that the welfare of these faithful harmonizes with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the guidance of the bishop in accordance with canon 392, avoiding discord and favoring the unity of the whole Church.” In simpler language: the local Ordinary is obliged by canon law to defend Church unity and to ensure that abuses do not creep into the celebration of the sacraments (canon 392).  The celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form must not be turned into an ideological “statement” that would cause disunity. 
But that is precisely what Mr. King had been doing at Fisher More College.  Employees there report that Michael King has invited to the campus preachers and speakers who have questioned the validity of Mass celebrated in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  The author of A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics writes that King himself has taken “an increasingly severe stand regarding the [Second Vatican] Council…. The level of excoriation for the Church and Her leaders has reached [the point where] even many good, traditional Catholics are scandalized by the rhetoric.”  An acquaintance of this author, whose husband has worked for Fisher More College for two years, says that the college president is “a borderline sedevacantist” (i.e. suggests that the post-conciliar popes have not been valid), has alienated the families of many former students, has fired faculty members on the spot for disagreeing with his views, and has then threatened them with lawsuits if they go public with their complaints


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