Above you see the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in East 74th Street. Were someone to step into that church during the mass, the first thing he might notice would be real English being spoken, as compared with any Catholic church in the US. Alas, Resurrection is only a catholic church, not a Catholic church. Were it to be the latter, paradoxically, the mass would be celebrated in the dull, uninspired English resulting from the Vatican II reforms [sic] of 1962, along with other dumbing-downs in our Holy Mass, i.e, the celebrants facing the wrong way, the removal of altar rails, and the ghastly, pop-like music, to name but a few.
The Church of the Resurrection still uses the beautiful prose of the Book of Common Prayer, written by the gifted heretic, Thomas Cranmer, using Shakespeare’s English, and adopted by the Church of England and later, the Episcopal Church.
I was a parishioner at Resurrection until one day at mass I reluctantly decided, despite the superior celebrations of it at Resurrection, our Lord could only be found in the Holy Catholic Church. My conversion was quite a few years ago, but I do not regret it. It was the only choice, Deo gratias.
A priest friend who, like your Tatler, is a convert from the Episcopal Church, was allegedly asked shortly after embracing the full faith if there was anything he missed from his former church. His prompt response: “the mass in English.”
If anyone were to ask your Tatler similarly, the equally prompt response would be, “music of the mass,” for it is hardly a secret how dreadful the music is in most Catholic churches (though not all of them).
There are three Catholic churches in the small town of Taos. It may be safely said, every Sunday the three compete in a tight race to the bottom, such the cacophony is inflicted on the faithful. Silence would be sweet music to the ears of this convert.
What a pity most Episcopal churches these days, while offering decent music offer little else, save bad theology rife with political correctness.
Taste and See? Canticle of the Sun? Any hymn in the Catholic Hymnal?
Bishop Rob Hirschfeld [image below] was one of several community and faith leaders gathered in Concord, N.H., for a vigil for Renee Macklin Good just days after she was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis.
“I’ve asked [clergy] to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written,” he said, “because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”
Those of a certain age may remember a far different Episcopal Church, which came to being as an offshoot of the Church of England. When this blogger was a boy the Episcopal Church was the society church. The church of presidents and captains of industry. The church to which half the signers of the Declaration of Independence belonged. The church once described by a wit as “the Republican party at prayer.”
Those days are long gone. The Episcopal Church over the last 50 years has mutated into a shallow political institution that embraces every left-wing cause that sprouts up, particularly those that have found favor with the media and well-placed members of the radical left. It should therefore come as no surprise the church’s membership has dropped every one of those last fifty years and continues to drop.
NPR, however, is taken in by dolts like the Right Reverend Hirschfeld, who personifies the contemporary Episcopalian when, with exquisite self-importance, urges on his colleagues the proposperous suggestion they”write their wills,” in the expectation of their coming martyrdom. It’s not at all a stretch to imagine those idiots seeing themselves as 21st century equivalents of the early Christian martyrs. Regardless their motives though, they exemplify the elitist institution claiming to be church where fewer than one percent of American church goers belong.
Candidate for martyrdom and canonization, the future S. Robertus Cervimontanus.
Addendum:
On this post it should have been mentioned (though the post shall remain unchanged) that the Episcopal Church has, even in this present day, clerics that are pious and godly, as well the parishioners to whom they preach. Your Tatler can attest to that because he was a parishioner at some of those churches before swimming the Tiber. The further back in time, the more Episcopalians, lay and clergy, you find that fit the description above.
House, feds probe to unravel mystery of ‘Squad’ Rep. Ilhan Omar’s skyrocketing wealth: ‘It’s not possible’
The House Oversight Committee is probing “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar’s skyrocketing family wealth after a $9 billion Somali social services fraud scandal exploded in her district, The Post has learned.
“We are investigating all politicians potentially connected to any of this [fraud] in Minnesota. You can read between the lines,” said a law enforcement source.
Unlike the Biden administration, which took no apparent action, Team Trump is “on top of it,” the source said.
The most galling thing about Omar’s sudden wealth is it most probably came from we the people, the taxpayers. Investment frauds are bad enough, but their victims at least decide for themselves whether or not to risk their capital. Tax payers have no say in what’s done with their dollars.
Which is why scoundrels like Omar are so loathsome. Go get him, Mr President.
It is a common trend in these times to be reluctant to proclaim one’s Christianity in public and to effect a “we’re all alike” attitude. We are not, the Catechism makes that clear: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. So why, oh why. did the Vatican recently open a prayer room for Muslims alone?
The Vatican Apostolic Library, long seen as the center of Catholic scholarship and biblical study, now echoes with the alien cadence of the Islamic call to prayer. Father Don Giacomo Cardinali, vice prefect of the library, casually announced a recent decision that chills the soul of every faithful Christian. The Vatican has opened a dedicated prayer room for Muslims within its own walls.
Let that sink in.
Indeed, let that sink in. Our Holy Catholic Church would be better off if she stopped accommodating other religions, many of which hardly return the favor, with some having a history of behavior toward our Church that is the antithesis of accommodation.
I look forward to the provision of a Rosary space in Mecca.
This breathtakingly naive gesture of the Holy See is an abject surrender of the Faith, the sort of useful idiocy that must quietly amuse astute Muslims. When the Saracens tried to take possession of Rome in 846, at least it was not at the invitation of Pope Sergius II. Various unconvincing attempts to explain away the Papal kissing of the Quran in 1999 seem to be getting recycled for this latest gesture. So far, such gestures have not put the mullahs in a happier frame of mind about the Holy Trinity.
Reader GR kindly sent along a Bill Donahue piece from the Catholic League announcing the less-than-surprising news New York’s Mayor Mamdani, “likes anti-religious bigots.” Donahue then presents a list of some of the more virulently anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish bigots with whom Mamdani associates and is close with many. He even has appointed some of them to positions in his administration.
The news comes as little surprise, hard-core bigots being tediously among the left and most practicing their bias on Catholics and Jews.
Donahue closes his short piece with an amusing anecdote.
Spellcheck does not recognize the word Mamdani, offering as a substitute the word “Madman.” It looks like it is a lot smarter than the people who voted for him.
. . . there’s little need for an Episcopal seminary.
From WPIX News
There is a new mission coming to a New York City landmark.
There is history on West 21st Street between Ninth and 10th Avenues in Chelsea. For 200 years, the General Theological Seminary has had a bell tower and trees add to its landscape.
In the near future, the space will be occupied by roughly 200 undergraduate students of Vanderbilt University, based in Nashville.
Long ago the Episcopal Church taught its seminarians theology. Now it is hardly needed.
The alleged music at my church is the worst of any I have experienced anywhere. It is provided by teenaged girls singing in a bad “pop” style. I am sure the girls are sincere and pious, working hard at what they do and doing the best they can, but the sad fact is they are tone-deaf and, since they apparently cannot keep time, they must rely on a digital rhythm device to do it for them. Adding to the woes, voices, rhythm box and the other instruments, guitars of course, are amplified to high levels, making it impossible to ignore them or tune them out. It’s as if we are forced to pay penance at every mass, no matter where we are on the liturgical calendar.
This church is one the most historic and well-known in the nation, the subject of many paintings by distinguished artists. It deserves better. I have no doubt that before the so-called reforms of Vatican 2 the music in the church was simple, but effective (there is no organ and likely never was), consisting of–and I hazard a guess here–plainchant, which would be vastly more suitable in a church like this one.
What an improvement it would be if the powers in charge directed a return to plainchant. It would not only be far more appropriate in this ancient church, it is not difficult to learn. An added bonus is that masses using plainchant tend render the wretched Novus Ordo mass far more palatable.
Addendum: will wonders ever cease! It turns out the digital human device is a human being.
THE TAOS TATLER. 