Several Bloggers have summarized Thursday’s splendid liturgy at Holy Innocents parish in Manhattan and have provided additional information: here and here. The celebrant was Fr. James Miara (who had been ordained by Cardinal Egan). The deacon was Fr. Michael Barrone and the subdeacon Fr. Richard Trezza OFM. Let me add my own reactions to the homily of Cardinal Egan.
Cardinal Egan, at the start of his remarks, repeated his apology for not celebrating the liturgy himself. He had not realized at first that it was a pontifical solemn mass and he thought it better that these complex rubrics be left to a younger man. I myself thought that the obvious difficulty the Cardinal was experiencing that night in kneeling and, to some extent, walking may been a motivating factor. He did speak in an unqualified manner of the beauty of this liturgy and of the importance of using it to commemorate a major feast and a major pro-life event.
The Cardinal’s homily was simple but effective. He first spoke of the experience of Mary at the annunciation and her unconditional “yes” to God. Second, the Cardinal preached the dignity of the human person and of the sanctity of life – “from the womb to the wheel chair.” In the case of the unborn, ultrasound images of the living unborn children provided the strongest possible evidence for truth of the prolife position. It is a conclusion dictated by the natural law engraved in mind of man entirely apart from any religious belief.
We have become accustomed to these lines of argumentation over the last decades. The fact of the annunciation is viewed from the perspective of a “humanized” Virgin Mary, while the argument against abortion is couched in general “philosophical” terms. Specifically Christian theological considerations are avoided. There also was no reference to recent political developments on the prolife front that have attracted the attention of the entire nation. In these events the role of some major Catholic organizations and institutions has been equivocal, to say the least.
But it was the Cardinal’s enigmatic and self-revelatory third point that gave me the greatest cause for reflection. He spoke of his own ordination in Rome in 1957 by Archbishop Martin O’Connor. That prelate had one overriding message which he repeated again and again to his students at the North American college: lealta – loyalty – obedience. The voice of the Church is the voice of God. Cardinal Egan continued (and I quote from – an admittedly faulty – memory):
” I love this mass which is what I was ordained in. Later, Rome told us we should take a new direction. I followed that. And I love the new mass as well. Now Pope Benedict has told us there is an extraordinary form of the (Roman rite) and that both forms are to be celebrated and cherished. And I accept and follow that – always with lealta – in obedience.
How are we to understand this? The Cardinal did not provide any specific context. In the past this type of admonition was usually directed at Traditionalists – specifically at the FSSPX. Or is the Cardinal referring to the many bishops, parish priests and chaplains who today are refusing to implement Summorum Pontificum? Or is the message of a more general nature – that the proper attitude and virtue of the Catholic in liturgy should be exclusively obedience to authority? These final words of the Cardinal – obviously of a more personal nature – give me pause for thought. They shed light both uopn the “preconciliar” Church and on much that has happened from 1962 to the present day.
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