Monday, July 20, 2009

Alabama Latin Mass Update

This past week has seen tremendous progress by Una Voce in Alabama. Make sure you read the notices below about the Latin Mass in Birmingham and the permission for the Mass in Montgomery. If you are going to Birmingham for the conference and Mass on August 15th and you will spend the night Saturday night, well Una Voce has good news for you. The FSSP will have a sung high mass on Sunday. This is tentative and of course it is subject to change but if all goes well the Sunday mass will be :

12:00pm

Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church
1460 Pearson Ave. SW
Birmingham, AL 35211

If you know of anyone in the area that would like to attend this mass please get this info to them. If we want future Latin Masses in the home diocese of EWTN then we must support this effort. This opportunity may not repeat itself.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

UNA VOCE GETS PERMISSION FOR MASS IN MONTGOMERY ALABAMA

If you know anyone who may be interested in the latin mass in Montgomery please have them contact Una Voce Central Alabama. They have a beautiful church with high altars and side altars. The pastor has graciuosly given permission for the Latin Mass at his church. He does not know how to say it but is working with Una Voce to get a priest trained to start having Sunday Masses in the Extra Ordinary form. Check out Una Voce's web page for details.

Here is a virtual tour of the church:

http://www.stpetersofmontgomery.com/360tour.htm

Here is the Una Voce contact web page to help out and get info:

http://www.unavocecentralalabama.org/

Thursday, July 16, 2009

UNA VOCE & FSSP HOLD LATIN MASS CONFERENCE

PLEASE SPREAD THE BELOW INFO ON TO ALL PEOPLE YOU KNOW-LETS HAVE A BIG CROWD FOR THIS AND HOPEFULLY ONE DAY WE CAN GET THE FSSP IN ALABAMA?

Una Voce is pleased to announce our first ever diocesan-wide workshop for the laity: "Introduction to the Extraordinary Form." This free, daylong workshop will take place on Saturday, August 15—the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, at the Cathedral of St. Paul in downtown Birmingham. Fr. Justin Nolan, FSSP, will offer conferences on the theology and ritual of the Ancient Form of the Roman Rite of the Mass. The highlight of the day will be Solemn High Mass in the Cathedral. Lunch will be provided directly following the Mass.

During the conferences, Fr. Nolan will answer many frequently asked questions regarding the basics of the Traditional Latin Mass, such as:


Why does the priest not face the people?
Why is the Mass in Latin?
How can I participate?
What is Summorum Pontificum?
What are Pope Benedict’s thoughts on the Extraordinary Form?

This event is free and open to the public—all are invited and no registration is required. However, we ask that you please RSVP online at www.unavocenorthernalabama.com to help us plan for the event. A nursery will be available if you wish to make use of it.

We have provided below a tentative schedule for the event and a flyer with all of the pertinent information. Please help us spread the word about this workshop by telling those who may be interested. Please contact us if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you on August 15!



Introduction to the Extraordinary Form
Tentative Schedule


*All events at the Cathedral Life Center except the Solemn High Mass, which is in the main church.

8:00am – Coffee and donuts
8:30am – First Conference: The Mass as Sacrifice
9:15am – Break
9:30am – Second Conference: Priest and Laity at Mass
10:15am - Break / Confessions / Mass preparation
11:00am – Solemn High Mass
12:30pm – Lunch
1:00pm – Third Conference over Lunch: Latin and the Language of the Liturgy / Informal Q&A

FOR QUESTIONS CONTACT UNA VOCE AT www.unavocenorthernalabama.com

Monday, July 13, 2009

FSSP MEETS WITH POPE

On Monday, July 6 the Holy Father met in private audience the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Fr. John Berg. The meeting took place in the Holy Father's private library in the Apostolic Palace.

Check out story and photos of the FSSP meeting with the Pope

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/07/fssp-superior-general-and-benedict-xvi.html

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Ecclesiae Unitatem

Below is the english version of the most recent decree from the Pope concerning the Latin Mass (translation taken from Rorate Caeli)


APOSTOLIC LETTER ECCLESIAE UNITATEM
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFFBENEDICT XVI
GIVEN MOTU PROPRIO

1. The role of guarding THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, with the solicitude of offering to all aid for responding in an opportune manner to this vocation and divine grace, belongs in a particular way to the Successor of the Apostle Peter, who is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of the unity both of Bishops and of the faithful1. The supreme and fundamental priority of the Church, in every age, of leading men towards an encounter with God must be favored through the effort of promoting the common witness of faith of all Christians.
2. In faithfulness to this mandate, following the act with which Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, on June 30, 1988, illicitly conferred the episcopal ordination on four priests, Pope John Paul II, of venerable memory, instituted, on July 2, 1988, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei "whose task of collaborating with the bishops, with the Departments of the Roman Curia and with the circles concerned, for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals until now linked in various ways to the Fraternity founded by Mons. Lefebvre, who may wish to remain united to the Successor Peter in the Catholic Church, while preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions, in the light of the Protocol signed on 5 May last by Cardinal Ratzinger and Mons. Lefebvre"2.
3. In this way faithfully adhering to the same purpose of serving the universal communion of the Church also in her visible manifestation and making every effort so that to all those who truly desire unity it is made possible to remain in it or to find it anew, We have desired to widen and renew, with the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the general indications already contained in the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei regarding the possibility of using the Missale Romanum of 1962, through more precise and detailed rules3.
4. In the same spirit, and with the same commitment of favoring the overcoming of each fracture and division in the Church and to heal a wound felt in an always more painful way in the ecclesial tissue, We desired to remit the excommunication of the four Bishops illicitly ordained by Mons. Lefebvre. With such a decision, We intended to remove an obstacle which could prevent the opening of a door to dialogue, and thus invite the Bishops and the "Fraternity of Saint Pius X" to find anew the path towards full communion with the Church. As We explained in the Letter to the Catholic Bishops of past March 10, the remission of the excommunication was a decision in the area of ecclesiastical discipline which could liberate the weight of conscience represented by the gravest ecclesiastical censure. The doctrinal questions, however, obviously remain, and, until they are not clarified, the Fraternity does not have a canonical status within the Church, and its ministers cannot exercise any ministry legitimately.
5. Since the questions which must be dealt with the Fraternity are of an essentially doctrinal nature, We have decided - twenty-one years after the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei, and as We had planned to do4 - to restructure the Commission Ecclesia Dei, linking it more directly with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
6. Therefore, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will be constituted thus:
a) The President of the Commission is the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
b) The Commission has its own structure, including a Secretary and Officials.
c) It belongs to the President, aided by the Secretary, to present the main events and questions of a doctrinal nature to the study and deliberation of the ordinary instances of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as to submit the conclusions to the superior judgment of the Supreme Pontiff.
7. With this decision, We have desired, in particular, to display our fatherly solicitude to the "Fraternity of Saint Pius X" so that in the end it may come to full communion with the Church.
We earnestly invite all to pray to the Lord incessantly, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, "ut unum sint".
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on July 2 of the year 2009, the fifth of Our Pontificate.
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Monday, July 6, 2009

MACON LATIN MASS ON HOLD FOR JULY

The pastor of St Joseph's in Macon is on vacation, therefore there will be no latin masses in July. The latin masses will start back on the regular schedule in August and will be a high mass on the first Sunday of August at 2:00 pm. For details visit www.unavoce-ga.org and click on latin masses in Georgia for the mass schedule.