Edit: you might remember him calling upon us to reject the Virus Mass.
(Rome) Constantly new arbitrary and even sacrilegious measures by bishops, which are enacted to curb the spread of Coronavirus, are incomprehensible and cause absurd reactions to the point of horror missae and dramatic interventions such as the removal of a pastor in the Archdiocese of Palermo shows.
Many priests are outraged, some refuse to do so without publicly announcing it, but at the risk of being denounced by the faithful. This also happens because the irresponsible extent of the scaremongering, as it was carried out by politicians, government advisers and the media, can trigger irrational reactions among anxious people and can cloud common sense in some. Since May 18th, public worship has been allowed in Italy again, if only under strict conditions enacted by the Italian government and the Italian Bishops' Conference on May 7th. Yesterday, May 24th, the first Sunday services were held after twelve weeks. The requirements imposed on the priests include wearing a face mask and disposable gloves when giving communion.
A priest who expressed his outrage loudly and clearly has now become the victim of punitive measures by his bishop, a bonified Bergoglian. The serious incident occurred in the Archdiocese of Palermo in Sicily.
Germany is three times more affected by Corona than Sicily
While some areas of northern Italy were severely affected by the corona virus, the situation in southern Italy and on the islands remained surprisingly relaxed. In Sicily, with its five and a half million inhabitants, 20 percent fewer people were tested corona-positive than in tiny Luxembourg, which has only a tenth of its inhabitants.
The numbers are to be questioned overall. The completely unusual and constantly widespread total number of corona positives at some point is ultimately irrelevant, since 90 percent of those affected show no or at least no noteworthy symptoms, but above all there is no risk from those who have recovered. So what would count are the fatalities, but they are even more dubious, as new cases of vertiginous counting confirm. A number of credible indications suggest that since the first corona death in Europe, that was the Italian Adriano Trevisan, who died on February 21, as many corona deaths as possible should be "produced", mostly afterwards by a corresponding note on the death certificate and through the reports to the central corona detection points. Why doctors, including pathologists, are involved is one of the many open corona questions. It is reasonable to assume that these are economic interests, whether direct or indirect.
It should also be mentioned that almost three months after his death it turned out that Adriano Trevisan is not a corona-dead person at all, but has succumbed to serious preexisting illnesses. The Padua public prosecutor's office had forced the autopsy. Trevisan, who became the fan of unprecedented fear-mongering across Europe, now symbolizes the doubtfulness of the way the Corona dead have been counted and, overall, the government's Corona measure. This also includes the fact that although he was reported to be the first Corona dead across Europe, the correction of this false report based on the autopsy results is being kept secret.
Why, despite the small number of cases, Sicily has more than twice as many corona deaths as Luxembourg, namely 268, is one of the numerous corona puzzles that seem less to do with the corona virus and more to do with forces that work under the Corona pretext to take you for a ride. All in all (the paradox in the paradox?) There were 9.2 percent fewer deaths in the province of Palermo, which is specifically concerned, according to the Italian statistics office and the National Health Institute ISS in the first third of 2020 (January 1 to April 30) than last year - despite Covid-19.
The situation in Sicily is always relaxed, after all, the lowest level of Corona warnings in Italy applies to the island. To establish a relationship: According to WHO figures, the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria were three times more affected by the Corona virus than the Mediterranean island.
The pastor's indignation over latex gloves
However, the Italian Bishops' Conference prescribed uniform provisions for the whole of Italy, the same for acute areas as for hardly affected areas. The priest Leonardo Ricotta, pastor of Sant'Agata in Villabate in the Archdiocese of Palermo, was dismissed on May 21. The city of 20,000 inhabitants is nine kilometers from the Archbishop's Palace. The reason: The pastor refused to handle the body of Christ with disposable gloves and said so out loud.
The archbishopric's press office published a statement on this, which does not disclose the facts and begins with a defense of its own actions. Rumors are false that the priest has been dismissed by the archbishop. Don Ricotta himself has given up his office. The Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum by Pope Benedict XVI. causes the priest to celebrate Holy Mass in the traditional Rite, which he has been doing on three working days since then. He also celebrated the parish service ad orientem in the Novus Ordo.
At best, what the matter is about can be guessed from the archiepiscopal statement. The point of contention is presented as follows:
"The practice of distributing hand Communion is in conformity with the norms issued by the ecclesiastical Magisterium, to which every Catholic Christian owes religious obedience and that of the intellect."
Reference is made to the instruction of Redemptionis Sacramentum of the Roman Congregation of Worship in 2004. Paragraph 92 states accordingly: If a believer in a country in which the Bishops' Conference has allowed hand communion with confirmation of the Holy See wishes it, he should give him Communion be distributed like this. The instruction is the preliminary conclusion of a long process by which the misuse of the distribution of Communion by Rome, which was supported by Dutch and then German bishops, was subsequently recognized. The Italian Bishops' Conference issued a dispensation for hand Communion in 1989. In the Catholic countries, oral Communion is still widespread today. The bishops' Corona measures are the most radical global intervention against Communion on the tongue and for hand Communion since Pope Paul VI. 1969 buckled before German blackmail and gave the bishops' conferences the opportunity to allow hand Communion as an exception.
Don Leonardo Ricotta, with holy anger, took a stand against the decree to pick up and offer the body of Christ with disposable gloves. He criticized such a practice as "Eucharistic butchery".
Topsy-Turvy World in Reversed Roles
The well-known liturgist Don Nicola Bux also criticized the instructions of the bishops as "paradoxical", because if it were to be liturgical, it would have to be exactly the opposite. In the traditional rite, as it was celebrated until 1965/1970, the bishops wear gloves because their anointed hands should be clean so that they can touch the Eucharistic Lord with their bare hands. They are discarded from the offertory, to the ambo and the communio. With the Novus Ordo the gloves were discarded as obsolete, but now the bishops want to reintroduce them in a somewhat weird way, but upside down. Don Bux has assigned touching the body of Christ with disposable gloves as if He were a leper, and the episcopal compulsion that compelled this behavior on all priests to the area of the sacrileges.
Don Ricotta is not the only priest in Sicily to be appalled. However, he said it clearly and announced that he would only celebrate Holy Mass in the traditional rite that would not tolerate such a compulsory prescription. The archdiocese reacted and disclosed the archbishop's understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:
“The Eucharist exclusively with the Roman Rite as an extraordinary form according to the Missale Romanum by John XXIII. from 1962, which was introduced by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, established in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI. would exclude that portion of God's people from participating in the Mass, in as much as the promulgated form of Paul VI's Missal currently used, who might be allowed active participation. This would seriously affect the rights and freedom of a large number of believers. ”
In conclusion, it is as succinct as it is contradictory:
“Personal beliefs, presented by individuals as authentic teaching, cannot be forced on believers. It is up to the bishop in the diocese to 'establish standards for the liturgy to which everyone is bound', 'to preserve the unity of the Church as a whole' and 'to promote the common order of the whole Church' (Congregation for Worship , Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, No. 176–177).“
Coercion can obviously be applied, but only in one direction, away from tradition.
The letter from a lawyer
Roberto De Petro, a lawyer from Palermo and a traditional Catholic, wrote Archbishop Corrado Lorefice on May 20th. Lorefice, the "most progressive" candidate that Pope Francis could find for the Diocese of the Primate of Sicily, was appointed in the fall of 2015. In it he describes the traditional Rite as "safest in Corona times". Above all, he draws attention to the "invalidity" and "illogicality" of the joint protocol between the government and the episcopal conference of May 7th on the re-admission of public worship. De Petro documents in a knowledgeable and detailed manner that the protocol and the associated legislative decree (No. 33/2020) are unconstitutional. This already results from the lack of an "exceptional emergency", which the constitution requires for such a type of provision. This plight does not exist in Sicily and has never existed during the entire Corona period.
The protocol mentioned was also null and void because the government had no jurisdiction over Catholic issues and the representatives of the bishops' conference had no jurisdiction, neither over the bishops nor over the priests, nor about the faithful.
“Every bishop is sovereign in his dioceswe, but he cannot change what is specified in the Missal sections that have legal force for the whole Church. The headings of the Missale do not provide for the use of gloves when celebrating the Eucharist."
The lawyer also addresses the question of liturgical gloves, called Chirothecae, as they are used in the traditional rite:
“In the traditional rite, the bishop removes the chirotecae before he approaches the altar for the sacrifice, which means that he can only touch the consecrated host with his bare hands. (…) Indeed, after the change, the priest holds the fingertips of the thumb and forefinger together until the end of communion before cleaning them in the chalice.”
This was to prevent even a crumb from being lost from the Lord's body. But this is exactly what can't be done with gloves, which is why they are removed in the traditional rite.
Therefore "the use of latex gloves is an aberration". The material is miserable and contradicts all liturgical provisions of the church. Above all, the gloves are simply thrown away afterwards. Corrupting the understanding of the Eucharist, whether intended or not, is devastating.
In a third point, the lawyer opposes the factual ban on oral Communion by forcing manual Communion. In contrast to hand Communion, oral Communion is the " much safer" form of receiving Communion. This has been confirmed by doctors specifically interviewed by the Portland diocese in the United States.
Finally, De Petro contradicts the references to Redemptionis Sacramentum and states that the provisions of the Bishops' Conference contradict and violate this instruction. In various parishes of the Archdiocese of Palermo, Communion kneeling and on the tongue was previously denied to believers. Archbishop Lorefice, although informed of this, did not respond to it.
De Petro calls on the archbishop to stop using the “humiliating” protocol and to promote the celebration of the traditional rite as a measure against the Coronavirus.
The archbishop's press office's statement the next day on Don Ricotta's case shows that Archbishop Lorefice is not considering implementing any of it.
"Padre Pio called this butchery"
Don Ricotta said on May 18:
“When my bishop tells me that I have to be a pastor somewhere that I don't like, I go and obey. But if he forces me to act against belief or step on the Consecrated Host, I cannot obey. Obedience applies to the lawful, not the unlawful, that is the great teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. What you're doing here is an act of Eucharistic butchery. Father Pio called this butchery. "
Vaticanist Marco Tosatti commented on the Don Ricotta case:
"And lo and behold, Don Ricotta was dismissed without notice, and in the merciful Lorefice of Palermo, we wonder how much credibility can be given to the declaration of the diocese ..." when it says that the priest has voluntarily renounced his parish.
The Archdiocese of Palermo was previously the scene of a violent conflict between a diocesan priest and the archbishop. Don Alessandro Minutella , pastor of a suburban parish in the Sicilian capital, criticized Pope Francis' line. He was then given an ultimatum. When he did not respond in the desired form, he was suspended and effectively excommunicated. Don Ricotta is also a priest who speaks his mind even when it concerns the Pope - albeit more moderately than Don Minutella. You don't make friends with them in Bergoglian ordinaries, not even in a moderate tone. Whoever celebrates in the traditional Rite and is connected to tradition has to dress twice as warmly.
The Don Ricotta case shows how great and varied the damage that is currently being done, not by the corona virus, but by the corona measures.
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Cooperatores Veritatis / Archdiocese of Palermo / TV2000 (screenshots)
Image: Cooperatores Veritatis / Archdiocese of Palermo / TV2000 (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG
