{"id":3899,"date":"2009-02-19T23:13:43","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T22:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aomoi.net\/blog\/arkiv\/1719"},"modified":"2009-02-19T23:13:43","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T22:13:43","slug":"angrep-pa-engelsk-sogneprest-av-the-tablet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/2009\/02\/angrep-pa-engelsk-sogneprest-av-the-tablet\/","title":{"rendered":"Angrep p\u00e5 engelsk sogneprest – av the Tablet"},"content":{"rendered":"

En engelsk katolsk sogneprest, Fr. Tim Finigan, har blitt angrepet i det kjente katolske tidsskriftet, The Tablet<\/a>, fordi han er noks\u00e5 konservativ, pr\u00f8ver \u00e5 feire messen p\u00e5 tradisjonell m\u00e5te, og fordi \u00e9n av fire s\u00f8ndagsmesser i menigheten er den tradisjonelle latinske messen. Han forsvarer seg selv HER<\/a>, og father Z. presenterer ogs\u00e5 et forsvar for sin engelske venn HER<\/a>. Og her tar jeg med hele teksten i The Tablets stykke:<\/p>\n

That was not my Mass <\/strong><\/p>\n

by Elena Curti
\nNearly 40 years ago, that was the comment of the keenest supporters of the Tridentine Rite as the new rite was introduced. Now the sentiment has been reversed in the suburban parish of Blackfen, where a priest\u2019s introduction of traditionalist liturgy has split the parish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Each Sunday at around 9.45 a.m. a team at Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen, in the south-eastern suburbs of Greater London, erects a wooden stepped platform faced in a marble-effect laminate on the altar. On this is placed a gold crucifix, six large candlesticks, vases of flowers and altar cards for the celebration of the old Latin Mass. Welcome to the parish of Fr Tim Finigan, popular blogger and leading light of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.<\/p>\n

Fr Finigan is in the vanguard of priests determined to restore \u201ctradition\u201d to their parishes and, step by step, he has introduced elements of the extraordinary form into the liturgy at his church. The centrepiece is the weekly Sunday Tridentine Mass at 10.30 a.m, introduced in the wake of the Pope\u2019s motu proprio allowing wider celebration of the old rite. During his 11 years in charge he has also gradually brought in other traditionalist touches that have split the parish.\u00a0<\/font><\/i> <\/p>\n

Between 30 and 40 people no longer attend the church and a similar number have taken their place. The row about numbers has become so heated that supporters of Fr Finigan carefully count the numbers attending the Sunday morning old-rite Mass. An auxiliary in Southwark diocese, Bishop Pat Lynch, has been called in to mediate.<\/p>\n

In what was once a fairly typical parish, there are no extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. Altar rails have been installed and the parish priest makes it clear that he prefers communicants to kneel and to receive the Host on the tongue.\u00a0Communion is not usually offered under both species. At a regular Sunday evening Mass in the new rite, there are no bidding prayers and the congregation is not invited to exchange the sign of peace.\u00a0 Fr Finigan says the Eucharistic Prayer with his back to the congregationwith the stepped platform, properly called a gradine, on the altar. Unaccompanied hymn-singing has been dropped after the priest complained it was a \u201ctorture\u201d to continue to inflict it on the assembly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Old-rite Masses are also usually celebrated on major feast days including Midnight Mass, and there is a regular Mass in the extraordinary form on Saturday mornings. The ordinary form is used for the Saturday vigil Mass and the Sunday 9 a.m. children\u2019s Mass. Weekday Masses are in the new rite.<\/p>\n

But Fr Finigan\u2019s critics fear that their parish is gradually becoming a flagship for the Tridentine Rite. They claim that most of those who welcome the trend are newcomers living outside the parish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSix parishioners wanted the Latin Mass here. I have no objection to them having it once a month or once a week, but it should not be the main Sunday Mass and it should not be imposed over the whole parish,\u201d said Les Thomas, a member of the delegation that went to see Bishop Lynch.<\/p>\n

Mr Thomas is one of nine parishioners I met who claim that Fr Finigan\u2019s dedication to \u201ctradition\u201d has hurt the parish. Most of them have served as readers and\/or Eucharistic ministers. Four say they can no longer bear to attend Mass at Blackfen, the rest doing so under sufferance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a matter of principle. I won\u2019t be driven out,\u201d says Eddie Sweeney, a former master of ceremonies and scoutmaster who has lived in the parish for 57 years. The group describe feelings of irritation, discomfort and sadness at the changes that have been made. Those who prefer to stand for Communion and receive it in the hand say they feel selfconscious doing so at Fr Finigan\u2019s Masses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several said their adult children vowed never to go to the church again, such was their unhappiness with the liturgy. \u201cPeople who have been away from church come back at Christmas and Easter and are totally put off. It is so sad,\u201d said Jean Gray. A woman who asked not to be named said she had known Fr Finigan for many years and he had been a \u201crock\u201d supporting her family through some difficult times. But she felt moved to complain after she asked him to celebrate a Mass for her daughter\u2019s favourite aunt who had recently died. She did not realise at the time that it would be entirely in Latin. \u201cMy daughter cried through most of the Mass because she could not join in. Afterwards she said: \u2018That was not my Mass.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Rules introduced include an insistence on silence in the church before and after Mass, which critics said meant there was little opportunity for parishioners to mingle afterwards, losing an important point of contact especially for the elderly.<\/p>\n

There were also complaints about their priest\u2019s refusal to support Cafod, his expenditure on traditional vestments and other clerical garb, the absence of a parish council and failure to account to parishioners how money from the collection plate was being spent.<\/p>\n

Matters came to a head last October when one parishioner, Bernard Wynne, a retired management consultant, set out his grievances in an email to Fr Finigan and asked for a parish consultation. He copied his message to a number of parishioners and invited them to make their views known.\u00a0 The ensuing correspondence resulted in about a dozen people objecting to Fr Finigan\u2019s approach and about the same number supporting him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In her email Susan Reynolds, a parishioner for 35 years wrote: \u201cI grew up with the Latin Mass and remember sitting watching men and women saying the Rosary, slyly reading the newspaper or making responses they didn\u2019t really understand. The English Mass made us participants and co-celebrants in the sacrifice of the Mass. The instruction to \u2018open the windows and doors\u2019 is one of the most liberating things to happen in the Catholic Church. If you listen carefully you can hear them being shut in Blackfen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fr Finigan\u2019s response was a 35-page essay, in which he set out the thinking behind his use of the \u201ctraditional liturgy\u201d. But it is in a lecture to the Latin Mass Society\u2019s training conference at Oxford last year for priests learning how to celebrate the extraordinary form that he set out his strategy. He told the priests they were the \u201cinfantry\u201d who need to overcome \u201creal problems and difficulties\u201d in bringing the extraordinary form to their parishes. He said the priest had a responsibility to persevere even in parishes where there were not a large number of people requesting the old rite.<\/p>\n

Parish reaction to the introduction of the old rite would find a few \u201cvery favourable\u201d, a few \u201cstrongly against\u201d, and \u201cthe substantial majority who simply wonder what Father is doing now\u201d. It was, Fr Finigan said, \u201cimportant not to neglect this majority of our parishioners in deference to a vocal minority\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I spoke to Fr Finigan he admitted there had not been a stable group at Blackfen who had requested Mass in the extraordinary form as set out in the motu proprio, but over a period of time he said most parishioners had accepted the liturgy and some, particularly young people, had become very enthusiastic about the old Latin Mass. He pointed out the three Masses in the ordinary form that people could attend on Sundays, adding: \u201cI am not going to be able to please everybody. I would like people to gradually be able to settle down and accept the way things are now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The parish priest rejected the idea of a consultation or the setting up of a parish council on the grounds that it would be a \u201cbear pit\u201d\u00a0 and \u201cpeople would be at each others\u2019 throats\u201d. With regard to the parish\u2019s finances, he said he was arranging to get help so that a summary of income and expenditure could be published for parishioners.\u00a0
\nFr Finigan put me in touch with five parishioners who support the changes at Blackfen. One was a mother of seven-year-old twins, Wendy Kane, who lives just outside the parish boundary and has been attending Our Lady\u2019s for seven years. She felt delighted with the liturgy and said it had strengthened her faith and that of her family, adding: \u201cThe extraordinary form is not what I grew up with and I never experienced it before. I personally find it a beautiful form of worship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another supporter, Julia Jones, a 38- year-old teacher who moved to the parish last summer, said: \u201cI have been very moved by the silence and palpable feeling of devotion, especially during the Eucharistic Prayer. I have gained greatly from the experience in only a few months. I really do believe that I have found \u2018the pearl of great price\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bishop Lynch said this week that the whole parish needs to build communion through prayer and social activities. \u201cYou need a situation where people respect diversity but can also come together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fr Finigan trained for the priesthood at the English College in Rome and has worked in parishes in south-east London for 23 years. Through his blog, The Hermeneutic of Continuity, which recently had its millionth hit, he has become well known. He is also a visiting tutor in Sacred Theology at St John\u2019s Seminary, Wonersh; and there can be no doubt that he considers bringing the old rite to his parishioners central to his ministry.<\/p>\n

Some welcome what Fr Finigan is doing. It is equally clear that some do not. If Fr Finigan is right, and the priest\u2019s responsibility for the liturgy in his parish is absolute, there is nothing parishioners can do about it. And there could be many more Blackfens in the future. <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

En engelsk katolsk sogneprest, Fr. Tim Finigan, har blitt angrepet i det kjente katolske tidsskriftet, The Tablet, fordi han er noks\u00e5 konservativ, pr\u00f8ver \u00e5 feire messen p\u00e5 tradisjonell m\u00e5te, og fordi \u00e9n av fire s\u00f8ndagsmesser i menigheten er den tradisjonelle latinske messen. Han forsvarer seg selv HER, og father Z. presenterer ogs\u00e5 et forsvar for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-katolsk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}