The death of Carlo Caffarra, the beloved dubia Cardinal, has left an additional empty place in the group of the original four who presented their concerns to the pope concerning Amoris Laetitia. So much so, in fact, that one of the pro-papal apologists, Dr. Austen Ivereigh, even put on Twitter this somewhat breezy comment: “Only two of the four dubia cardinals alive.” (I will leave out here Dr. Ivereigh’s more explicitly demeaning comment about Cardinal Caffarra himself on the very day of his death.)

One could well imagine (but I do not claim any intimate knowledge here) that these two deaths might have left Cardinals Raymond L. Burke and Walter Brandmüller so discouraged that they doubt whether they would even be able to proceed with the final step of their promised public procedure – namely, the fraternal, public correction of Pope Francis – perhaps along with asking him to make an explicit Papal Profession of Faith. However, this moment of understandable discouragement could actually turn out to be a moment of Grace.

Let us now remember, for example, St. Joan of Arc. When, during the military battles for the political freedom of France, she thought that she was losing her battle, something happened that almost miraculously turned things around. Therefore, she has been for me, for quite a while now, an inspiration. As I wrote in May of 2016 about St. Joan of Arc:

She is our saint. She will help us continue this combat against the siege and occupation of Rome and against this seeming occupation of the Seat of Peter itself by a man who now even seems to contradict God’s Laws. Saint Joan will give us the spirit to try the impossible, to be forceful and strong when God’s truth is undermined, and, yet, to keep true charity. She will give us the strength to fight when all seems to be against us, when the Powers That Be seem to have all that they need to accomplish their maneuvers. She will teach us that he will finally win who is with God, and not against Him. She will teach us that the saints are with us, and, most of all, the Heavenly Mother.

So, if now the four dubia Cardinals seemingly are losing their own battle, if they are deeply discouraged and disheartened by the loss of two of their comrades-in-arms, what if God were to send them two new comrades? What if that painful event of the loss of two devout and loyal cardinals now unexpectedly inspired others to follow in their footsteps?

Not long ago, after Cardinal Joachim Meisner had died, we published our story about the (now widely-contested) “Müller Conversation in Mainz” concerning word we had received that Müller was dismissed for resisting the ongoing papal agenda of reform. Following this article, I wrote Cardinal Gerhard Müller a personal note. In this personal note, I told him that additional sources who claimed knowledge of the events described in our story had come to our attention, sources who were almost immediately hindered by a lawsuit meant to intimidate and to silence them. (Just this week, another person, Thomas Shirrmacher, a Protestant philosopher and theologian who knows Francis well, said that he believes Müller was dismissed in large part because of his public opposition to female deacons – one of the key points of contention mentioned in our story.) I also said that we trusted that the fuller truth would come out at some point in the near future. (There is more to say about this story, but not now.) And then I said:

We can assure you that we only wish to know the truth. The only reason why we published the now quite contested story was that we considered these “five points” of your dismissal [by Pope Francis] as being so important for the whole Church. Should there be truth in these five points [to include the ordination of female priests] – in whatever concrete context they then appeared – whether during the last audience or at another time – then you yourself would be duty-bound to inform the whole Catholic world about it and to warn us about it. Female priests and married priests mean a protestantization of the Catholic Church.

After asking Cardinal Müller whether he should not also tell Catholics that Amoris Laetitia does indeed contain statements – such as the novel claim that, sometimes for the good of the children, intimate relations (more uxorio) might have to be allowed and maintained, even though the couple is “remarried” and divorced; or that “no one is condemned forever” – that are also heretical and thus detrimental to the salvation of souls, I came to a concluding invitation to Cardinal Müller:

Therefore, I call upon you – in honor of Cardinal Meisner – clearly to assist the three dubiacardinals and to request from Pope Francis to clarify the dubia, and, yes, to sign the dubia yourself.

I never received a reply from Cardinal Müller or his secretary concerning this personal request, although I had received correspondence and even telephone calls from them on more than one occasion in the past.

But perhaps others will be more successful in this matter. For example, I recently felt inspired to see that Professor Ettore Gotti Tedeschi – the former President of the Vatican Bank and an eloquent defender of Catholic truth – just gave a small interview (concerning the sudden death of Cardinal Caffarra) in which he seems to go into that same direction, even though he did not mention, much less propose, any specific names. Here is the important portion – to include some beautiful words about Cardinal Caffarra himself – of that 6 September Italian report, as it was translated by OnePeterFive‘s generous contributor, Mr. Andrew Guernsey:

[Question:] Do you have a personal memory to tell about Cardinal Caffarra?

[Ettore Gotti Tedeschi:] “I have more than one, but many are private and I do not have the right to share them. I will try to remember something about him that honors his memory, without any indiscretions. Caffarra was appointed at the end of 2003 to replace the great Cardinal Biffi. A few months after Biffi’s retirement, in his hermitage above Bologna, I went to see him [Biffi] with my wife and two daughters. We stayed with him for almost three hours, and asked him what he thought of his successor. He told me not only that he himself had named him, but also that no one could be better or more appropriate than Caffarra to lead the Diocese of Bologna. He also told me that he wanted to abstain from any kind of presence in Bologna in order to avoid the risk of misunderstandings of interfering with a person of whom he had absolute esteem and consideration. Since then, I have encountered Cardinal Caffarra several times after the publication of the dubia, [and] the only sentiment that I can make public was his enormous suffering, his love of the Church and the figure of the Pope. Caffarra was a holy man, when he talked about serious things, which made him suffer, he talked about them as someone who has confidence in God, who speaks to God, and above all, listens to him. I do not want to say more.”

[Question:] He [Caffarra] had signed the dubia precisely about Amoris Laetitia. He dies after [Cardinal] Meisner, who was also a signatory to the letter to the Pope. But does the Church, which asks for greater clarity about the Apostolic Exhortation, remain alive?

“In this sense and in this regard, Cardinal Caffarra will remain an example of ‘priestly responsibility,’ an example of virtue worthy of a possible process of future beatification. But I can answer a “trick” question. Now, as I see it, Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller ought to devote more efforts, with superior commitment, to Meisner and Caffarra’s memory. And I hope that two other well-known holy Cardinals (living and working) are available to make up for the work of the two deceased cardinals, replacing them with the commitment to ask for clarity for the good of souls. But now I would like to ask IntelligoNews readers to remember Caffarra with a Requiem. Needless to say, he will protect us from where he is, as he did until yesterday here on earth.” [emphasis added]

Here, Professor Gotti Tedeschi may be suggesting that he has two specific cardinals in mind who, in his opinion, should now fill the empty lots of Cardinals Joachim Meisner and Carlo Caffarra. However, he does not specifically name these names. It is interesting to note, in this context, that Gotti Tedeschi will soon, on 14 September, participate at a Summorum Pontificum conference in Rome with exactly those same two cardinals whom I have had in mind: Cardinals Robert Sarah and Gerhard Müller. Is it hoping for too much that he might now use this occasion to ask them whether they would not actually do that: join ranks with the now possibly discouraged, remaining two dubia cardinals, and to do it especially for the sake of Catholic truth and for the salvation of souls?

What do these cardinals still have to fear if, at this point, nearly everything seems to be lost? When those who try to uphold the traditional moral teaching of the Catholic Church – not only about marriage, but also about contraception, homosexuality, abortion and much more, as Professor Josef Seifert has just pointed out – are being increasingly punished and humiliated? For what are we still truly waiting? Until no one is left to come forth and speak up?

Therefore, I ask our dear readers to send many prayers to heaven that God may inspire two cardinals – whoever they be –  to give new courage to the faithful Catholic world and especially to the two remaining dubia cardinals, so that finally a public fraternal correction of Pope Francis may take place, for his own greater good, and the good of the Catholic Church.

Our Catholic Faith is filled with miracles and great surprises. Let us just think of Lepanto in 1570! Let us not forget the 1920 Miracle of the Vistula! Our Lady surely will help us in this moment of distress. And St. Joan of Arc, too.

 Amen, amen I say to you: He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber. – John 10:1

With the recent news that President Donald Trump has ordered an end to the Obama-era immigration amnesty program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the topic of illegal immigration is making headlines once again.

Advocates of an open-borders approach to immigration tend to focus on findings indicating

that the willingness of less-skilled immigrants to work at low pay reduced consumption costs — the costs to consumers of goods and services like health care, child care, food preparation, house cleaning, repair and construction — for millions of Americans. This resulted in “positive net benefits to the U.S. economy during the last two decades of the 20th century.” These low-wage workers simultaneously generated “a redistribution of wealth from low- to high-skilled native-born workers.”

Still, while studies on the topic vary in their interpretation of the data, whether you hear it from The Heritage Foundation or the New York Times, it seems fairly uncontentious to tally up illegal immigration costs for the American taxpayer at an amount totaling more than 50 billion dollars a year.

And when it comes to immigrant crime, it should be obvious to anyone that 100% of illegal immigrants to the United States have broken federal law. But what about other crimes? The statistics on the contribution of illegal immigrants to American crime are not easily found in any single location, and disputes over the data are common. But in a 2015 report, Fox News pieced together

a patchwork of local, state and federal statistics that revealed a wildly disproportionate number of murderers, rapists and drug dealers are crossing into the U.S. amid the wave of hard-working families seeking a better life. The explosive figures show illegal immigrants are three times as likely to be convicted of murder as members of the general population and account for far more crimes than their 3.5-percent share of the U.S. population would suggest. Critics say it is no accident that local, state and federal governments go to great lengths to keep the data under wraps.

Further,

Statistics show the estimated 11.7 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. account for 13.6 percent of all offenders sentenced for crimes committed in the U.S. Twelve percent of murder sentences, 20 percent of kidnapping sentences and 16 percent of drug trafficking sentences are meted out to illegal immigrants.

There are approximately 2.1 million legal or illegal immigrants with criminal convictions living free or behind bars in the U.S., according to ICE’s Secure Communities office. Each year, about 900,000 legal and illegal immigrants are arrested, and 700,000 are released from jail, prison, or probation. ICE estimates that there are more than 1.2 million criminal aliens at large in the U.S.

With all of this in mind, I have long wondered why the Catholic bishops in this country are so vocally in favor of unrestricted — and even illegal — immigration, and against attempts to reform or restrict our dangerously porous borders. They seem not to care at all that we’re a nation of laws, and that open borders mixed with a welfare state creates a combination that is entirely unsustainable. For years, I assumed that this was to fill the pews in a Catholicism that has shown consistent decline since the end of the Second Vatican Council. In a controversial interview with 60 Minutes this week, former White House chief strategist (and Catholic) Steve Bannon lent his own voice to this theory:

“The Catholic Church has been terrible about this.” Bannon said. “The bishops have been terrible about this. By the way…you know why. You know why. Because unable to really to….to come to grips with the problems in the Church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches. That’s…it’s obvious on the face of it. That’s what the entire Catholic bishops condemning [Trump’s action on DACA]. They have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration. Unlimited illegal immigration.”

The USCCB fired back without hesitation, releasing a statement in response to Bannon’s comments at surprising speed. The statement reads:

“It is preposterous to claim that justice for immigrants isn’t central to Catholic teaching. It comes directly from Jesus Himself in Matthew 25, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food…a stranger and you welcomed me.’ Immigrants and refugees are precisely the strangers we must welcome. This isn’t Catholic partisanship. The Bible is clear: welcoming immigrants is indispensable to our faith.

Caring for and about the ‘Dreamers’ is nothing more than trying to carry out that seemingly simple, but ultimately incredibly demanding, commandment. It is a commandment found throughout Sacred Scripture, reaching back to the Hebrew scriptures, including Leviticus, ‘when an alien resides with you in your land, do not mistreat such a one’ (Lv. 19:33). In fact, the Church has been pro-immigration since God called Abram to leave Ur: ‘Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you’ (Gn. 12:1). To suggest otherwise is absurd.

The witness of the Catholic bishops on issues from pro-life to pro-marriage to pro-health care to pro-immigration reforms is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ rather than the convenient political trends of the day. We are called not to politics or partisanship, but to love our neighbor. Let’s reject the forces of division that insist we make a false choice between our safety and our humanity. It is both possible and morally necessary to secure the border in a manner which provides security and a humane immigration policy.

Our pro-immigration stance is based on fidelity to God’s word and honors the American dream. For anyone to suggest that it is out of sordid motives of statistics or financial gain is outrageous and insulting.”

The question I find myself asking, however, is that if the economic benefit illegals present to the nation is their contribution of low-wage, unskilled labor, are they really bringing enough to collection baskets in dioceses across America to justify the effort the bishops make on their behalf?

I don’t know the answer. Recently, however, a friend brought another economic incentive to my attention – the federal money being given to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Charities for the purposes of “refugee resettlement”. You’ll note that while they are not identical terms, in the USCCB statement above, immigrants and refugees are mentioned in the same breath. Refugees are defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act as “any person outside his or her country who has a ‘well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.’” Even so, it can be difficult to tell, depending on the case, where the category of “immigrant” ends and “refugee” begins. In a 2015 article for the Captial Research Center, James Simpson of Foundation Watch tells us

In December 2013, the Obama administration announced an in-country refugee program for Central American Minors (CAMs) that allows persons under 21 years of age from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador direct travel to the U.S. While those countries tragically suffer from high crime and poor economic conditions, merely being a member of an afflicted population does not raise a person to the definition of “refugee.” By offering this status, the Obama administration is deliberately expanding the definition, an action that has been called a “rogue family reunification program.”

Simpson also reveals that

Left-wing grant-makers have embarked on a campaign aimed at overwhelming America with unprecedented levels of immigration. These foundations underwrite a universe of liberal organizations that are devoted to bringing in ever more people from all over the world, and the organizations’ motives include money. These groups, known as “Volunteer Agencies” (VOLAGs), don’t just receive private dollars from liberal foundations; they also are richly rewarded with your tax dollars when they collaborate with federal government agencies.

[…]

Primary funding for the VOLAGs comes from the federal and state governments. But many secondary immigrant/refugee advocacy and assistance organizations are supported by wealthy state and national foundations whose assets total tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars. Most of these well-established foundations are the Left’s primary source of support outside government.

After revealing the names of over a dozen such progressive foundations — including George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the Media Matters bankrolling Tides Foundation — Simpson goes on to list the nine primary “Refugee Contractors” whom the “federal government pays …. to resettle refugees and asylees.” Among the nine is “CC/USCCB: Catholic Charities/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops”.

According to the table provided — with figures from USAspending.gov — We see that from 2008 to 2015, the Catholic Charities/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops shows funding received for refugee resettlement in an amount totaling over $2 billion dollars.

In a story from LifeSiteNews earlier this year, Ann Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch gave a different number, saying that “Over the past nine years, the USCCB has received a total of $534,788,660 in taxpayer dollars for refugee resettlement programs”. It’s difficult to say which figure is more accurate, or how they’re being tallied. But If either number is correct, the USCCB is receiving — at the very least — hundreds of millions of dollars, all to bring refugees from other countries into America.

Simpson goes on:

Because they [the contractors on the above list] are non-governmental organizations (NGOs), they can and do lobby for advantageous changes to immigration law and build allies in Congress and the bureaucracy, all fertilized by an open spigot of taxpayer dollars. While six of the nine contractors are affiliated with religious groups, the false notion that they are charitable organizations just doing the Lord’s work needs to be corrected. They are federal contractors, relying on the government for most, and sometimes all, of their income. This is big business. They do the government’s bidding, whether it honors religious principles or not.

OnePeterFive asked the USCCB if they could verify how much money they are receiving for these services, and how the money given to them for refugee resettlement is allocated. They did not respond to our inquiry.

Curious about what information is publicly available, I did my own search of USAspending.gov, and found $635,250,759of government funding directed to the USCCB and its various agencies. After playing with the spreadsheet to remove all the other categories, I discovered that of this total amount, $452,108,508 was received for programs under the umbrella of Migration and Refugee Assistance, for contracts with start dates ranging from 2011 to 2016.

That’s a lot of money for a bishops’ conference to be receiving from the federal government. Enough that one might wonder how it impacts the USCCB’s view on public policy issues. Which is exactly the concern that Deal Hudson, a former advisor to President George W. Bush on Catholic issues, expressed in the aforementioned story from LifeSiteNews:

“Just how dependent have both agencies become on taxpayer money to cover their annual overhead, apart from special programs and services?” Hudson asks. “What percentage of annual receipts does this federal money represent?”

Hudson says he is concerned that an over-dependence on government funding could threaten the Catholic identity of both the USCCB and CRS, and their social justice work.

“How can either institution call itself ‘Catholic’ when they have created financial dependency of the federal government?” he said. “Doesn’t this level of funding make the USCCB hesitant to publicly criticize the Congress and the administration on abortion, same-sex marriage, fetal stem cell research, and euthanasia?”

In light of these staggering figures, the USCCB’s sputtering indignation that anyone would suggest that their work on these matters is for “sordid motives of statistics or financial gain” rings hollow. However much they want to present their work on immigration and refugees as a Gospel issue, it’s difficult to see altruism at work when so many other issues that should concern them go ignored — and so much cash is at stake.

{ Personal disclaimer:  during the last quarter of the 20th Century I was Chairman of the NCCB/USCCB Committee on Migration and Refugee Services.  Abyssum}

Editor’s note: This article is Part I of a two-part series. Part II will be published soon.

Author’s note: This article dwells particularly on the vocation to the priestly life. For the most part, the things said about the priesthood are also applicable to the religious life in general. Also, even though about the priesthood, the main points are applicable to the religious life for women. Thus, while its focus is masculine, women may find this article helpful as well, not only for themselves, but also for the men they know.

To many men, service of the church in religious life seems so “dry” – that is, having nothing to give them or ask of them. Such men say, “I will take my catechism, attend Mass on Sunday, be a decently moral fellow. I may even, at times, experience a grace or two and be able to offer a really good prayer.” It will not even cross his mind to say “no” or “I’m not interested” to the question of becoming a priest (or a monk, or a friar, or a canon).

With the Catholic faith thus lacking a palpable sense of the Divine (however that may have happened), it may never cross men’s mind to consider what Christ offers them in the Mass, in the Eucharist, in the priesthood.

Various explanations have been given for the crisis in vocations. The most convincing explanation places the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the origin of the trouble – specifically, the changes made since Vatican II, and especially the creation of the New Mass.

* * *

What is a priest? He is an intercessor and friend of God. The priest stands at the altar and enters into the “bold and terrible commerce of the saints with God,” as a monk memorably put it. The priest is called to be a beloved disciple, who leans on the heart of Jesus to hear what Jesus says in His suffering, death, and resurrection. The priest is called to union with God so as to bring the laity to union with God [1]. He is a mediator who does something vitally important for people that they cannot do for themselves.

What is it about the image of the knight that inspires admiration? It is that he fights for something good; he works hard to further a noble aim. The knight serves the good through sacrifice, is fulfilled by it and rewarded. I would like to break these four words down and examine how they are essential to the religious life.

Serving. This word has been either banished or vilely banalized. It either signifies something you really don’t want to do, that detracts from any aura of importance, wealth, and happiness you might have, or it is heard in the context of “community service,” a phrase that rings hollow as long as it connotes service divorced from “serving the Lord with fear and rejoicing before him with trembling” [2].

Sacrifice. Our present culture is trying to destroy, and to a large extent has succeeded in destroying, this word, or any positive connotation it may have. As we all know, this is one of the definitive words of Christianity; more specifically, it is the very meaning of the Mass.

In its Latin root, sacrifice means “rendering something sacred.” In the secular world, there is nothing rendered sacred. Likewise, the New Mass was designed from the start not to “intimidate” people with a palpable and perhaps frightening sacrality. The many new Eucharistic Prayers have all but removed the sacrificial element of the Mass.

The notion of penance is also gone. The reduction of the Communion fast to a mere hour, the reduction of fasting in Lent, and the almost complete disappearance of kneeling during Mass have all dulled and hidden the reality of sacrifice. Voluntary mortifications such as flagellation and the wearing of hair shirts, practices familiar for more than a thousand years (say, 9th century to 18th century) among all the great ascetics – these are gone.

Fulfilled. “Fulfill” means “to carry out, accomplish” or “to satisfy or to fill.” Never before in the history of the world have people been so filled with “things”; never have people been so un-satisfied. In a similar manner, the reformers of the liturgy thought the people were not “accomplishing” enough – yet never before have we accomplished spiritually so little as we do now. The reformers thought the faithful could not be satisfied with Latin, reverence, and mystery. But the primary sign of the faithful’s “satisfaction” with the New Mass was a widespread apostasy, not only among the laity, but among priests and the religious as well.

Rewarded. Reward is a keyword of our culture … and yet how few ever end up feeling rewarded! In a certain sense, being rewarded and being fulfilled are inseparable. One cannot feel fulfilled without some element of reward and vice versa.

When looking at the etymology of “reward,” I was surprised to find that it is related to the Middle English word ward, to guard or watch, and that from this Middle English word comes “guard,” “regard,” and “reward.” Thus, in a certain sense, one could say that a reward is something one is privileged to guard and to behold.

Four key words – and what they signify is forgotten, misused, or despised today. For young men, all of these words must come into play if they are to hear, understand, and respond to the call of the priesthood.

* * *

Men want to be tough. They want to be challenged. Dom Mark Kirby, prior of Silverstream Monastery in Ireland, notes this with extreme clarity:

There is much talk of a crisis in priestly vocations. Summorum Pontificum is the answer to it. Men want to be sacrificers. Men want to be mediators. Men want to be trusted with a work so sublime that it requires the hardness of non-negotiable rubrics in order to be done safely. Men do not want to be entertainers. Men do not want to be facilitators. Men do not want to deal in soft transactions with ever-changing contours.[3]

Why are orders like the Fraternity of Saint Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, and the Transalpine Redemptorists filled with young men, eager and enthusiastic to give their lives to God? The traditional Latin Mass is the answer to the crisis in priestly vocations. This Mass is attractive, yet hard to win. The Latin language makes it mysterious and demanding, but once one is accustomed to it, the same language becomes a consolation and source of strength. The Latin is comforting because one knows that this language is set apart for prayer. There is no mistaking the atmosphere of prayer for anything else.

The rubrics of the Latin Mass are initially hard to understand, but when they become familiar, these rubrics, too, are consoling. It is a wonderful thing to watch the movements of the priest and servers at the Offertory. The vestments and vessels remind you that something terribly important is going on here. They inspire fear and trembling while opening the door to the serenity of participating in the service of God.

“The denial that the Mass is a true sacrifice makes the priesthood superfluous, and the denial of the priest’s unique role as sacrificer eviscerates the meaning of the Mass.”[4] The sacrificial nature of the traditional Mass is impossible to miss. Designated men, clothed with priestly vestments and equipped with sacred vessels, approach an altar. They pay little attention to the congregation, for they are intent upon communicating with God. This is not to say the priest does not care about the congregation; in fact, he cares so much about the congregation that he doesn’t pay attention to them, for, if the priest loses focus on the awesome task of interceding to God for the people, little will the people benefit. These champions pray in a strange language, using ancient signs and forgotten words. They are communicating with another world.

The usus antiquior is beautiful. Who has described beauty successfully? No one, but everyone knows when he has seen it. In a world where the beautiful seems to be less and less a priority, the Latin Mass is home to a great, serene, and subtle beauty.

St. Thomas Aquinas does a good job of defining beauty: for things to be beautiful, they must have the three qualities of integrity, proportion, and clarity. Integrity means that all the parts of an object present are where they belong, while proportion means that all of the parts are in right relationship to each other. Clarity means that something has a certain brightness, effulgence, or splendor so that the object’s integrity and proportion can capture our attention.

In the new form of the Mass, these three qualities are absent; in the old form, they are present.

Integrity: In the New Mass, there is a great lack of integrity: things and people are often not where they belong! From the female altar servers and EMHCs to the distracting hubbub at the sign of peace, there is a lack of integrity. In the Old Mass, people, words, and actions are always according to their place.[5] When one sees a server kissing the hand of the priest or genuflecting before the tabernacle, one knows that it is right.

Proportion: The New Mass is out of proportion in many ways. For example, there is too much talking with not enough silence. The “Liturgy of the Word” is oversized compared with the “Liturgy of the Eucharist.” On the other hand, the Old Mass is well balanced in silence, speech, and song. In the Latin Mass, all of the parts have developed over 1,500 years to exactly the right emphasis, balance, length, and rhythm.

Clarity: Clarity refers to the power of something to impress itself on us. The Novus Ordo’s designers wanted to avoid “scary impressiveness” at all costs, preferring things to be familiar and warm. On the other hand, the Old Mass – whether one is witnessing a Low Mass, a Sung Mass, or a Solemn High Mass – impresses with its reverence and conveys a sense of luminosity.

Thus we can see that while the New Mass fails to pass the Angelic Doctor’s test for beauty, the Latin Mass passes with flying colors (or should one say flying fiddlebacks?).

[1] See this beautiful interview with Fr. Anthony Mary, F.SS.R. for more on this subject:

[2] Ps. 2:11

[3] At http://vultuschristi.org/index.php/2017/06/correspondence-on-the-monastic-vocation-13, accessed September 6, 2017.

[4] Ibid.

[5] I am fully aware that there can be abuses and sloppily celebrated Old Masses. I am not trying to say that if one attends or celebrates the Old Mass, every problem is fixed, no mistakes are made, no one forgets what page he was on, and no priest ever says anything annoying in his homily. But the rite, as it is celebrated the majority of the time, as its rubrics direct, is filled with much more integrity than even the most well celebrated Novus Ordo.