Confessions of a Communist
I have just picked up a copy of AA-1025 The Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle (TAN Books and Publishers, Rockford, 1991) and had a quick perusal of its contents. There are two sections which pertain to the liturgy which make interesting reading.
The first is an interpolation by the nurse who found the notes on which the book is based. She writes how liturgical innovators thought Catholics were offended seeing the priest at the foot of a high altar with their backs towards them and responded by placing them on the same level, although this meant that only those in the front pews could actually see the priest. Again, by destroying high altars the Blessed Sacrament could no longer be reserved at the altar but moved elsewhere, often to a position where priests had their back to it.
The second section is from the notes itself and begins by stating the importance of reforming the words of the Mass, beginning with the itself which could be replaced by Lord's Supper or Eucharist. The consecration should be minimized and communion trivialized. The sense of isolation experienced by the parishioners should be corrected by having the priest facing them and the sacrifice of the Mass further minimized by inclusion of additional readings. The Ordo itself should be adapted along Protestant lines, giving the impression we are of one mind, and the Protestants themselves admitted to communion, introducing ambiguity as to the nature of the Mass. Further elaborate vestments, sacred music, genuflections and kneeling should be discouraged.
Does this all sound familiar? Well if the memoirs are, as they claim, the work of a Communist intent on entering the Catholic priesthood to subvert and destroy from within, there is all the more reason to preserve and promote the Latin Mass.
The first is an interpolation by the nurse who found the notes on which the book is based. She writes how liturgical innovators thought Catholics were offended seeing the priest at the foot of a high altar with their backs towards them and responded by placing them on the same level, although this meant that only those in the front pews could actually see the priest. Again, by destroying high altars the Blessed Sacrament could no longer be reserved at the altar but moved elsewhere, often to a position where priests had their back to it.
The second section is from the notes itself and begins by stating the importance of reforming the words of the Mass, beginning with the itself which could be replaced by Lord's Supper or Eucharist. The consecration should be minimized and communion trivialized. The sense of isolation experienced by the parishioners should be corrected by having the priest facing them and the sacrifice of the Mass further minimized by inclusion of additional readings. The Ordo itself should be adapted along Protestant lines, giving the impression we are of one mind, and the Protestants themselves admitted to communion, introducing ambiguity as to the nature of the Mass. Further elaborate vestments, sacred music, genuflections and kneeling should be discouraged.
Does this all sound familiar? Well if the memoirs are, as they claim, the work of a Communist intent on entering the Catholic priesthood to subvert and destroy from within, there is all the more reason to preserve and promote the Latin Mass.
posted by Lactantius at
8:42 pm
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