THE TAOS TATLER.

More to come?

It no longer comes as a surprise when an outrageous action is perpetrated by a high-ranking Church official against Traditional Latin Mass adherents. Those acts have become so frequent many have become resigned to them, and other horribilia emanating from highly placed liberals [sic] in the Holy Catholic Church. That is the reason your Tatler blogs less and less on the Church. The only thing left for us, and it happens to be the best thing, is to pray to our Lord, our Lady and, for good measure, St Joseph. We will, by God’s grace, come through these dismal times, though God only knows when.

Every now and then however, an event occurs so beyond the pale, it jolts your Tatler out of his lethargy. Such an event occurred yesterday and it is thus:

From the National Catholic Reporter.

LONDON — Cardinal Vincent Nichols has declined to give permission for the old Latin rite celebration of the Easter Triduum in Westminster, making it the first time since the 1990s that the Easter Triduum won’t be celebrated in the Diocese of Westminster according to the liturgical books in use before the 1970 reform of the liturgy.

What is the putative cause for His Eminence banning the Triduum, among the most moving and beautiful rites of traditional worship? Supposedly, according to the Register, it was out of concern the celebration of it in his diocese, which includes  London, might draw  “parishioners from other parts of the archdiocese who attend the traditional liturgy in other churches.” And what might be the number of those traditional worshippers lured to St Mary Moorefields, in the City, where the Triduum is celebrated? All of 200. Right, so what is the real reason? This is.

In his email, Cardinal Nichols said he took his decision in accordance with “the parameters laid down by the Holy See” — an implicit reference to Pope Francis’ 2021 apostolic letter Traditionis Custodes (Guardians of the Tradition) and subsequent clarifications from the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which imposed restrictions on the traditional Latin liturgy.

Meaning, however indirect, it comes from the Pope.

Shutting down TLM completely seems to be the goal of our decidedly liberal Church leadership, which will become even greater in number with every appointment Pope Francis and his inevitable liberal successor(s) make. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to this writer that in time, our present or future pope will pronounce the Traditional Latin Mass anathema, and those Catholics who attend it are no longer fulfilling their obligation. Church leadership need not fear much fallout from such a move, as traditional worshippers and celebrants are only a tiny number, maybe three percent, of all Catholics. If a Latin Mass ban leads to schism of some of that small number (obedient souls like this writer will stay, regardless), it is difficult to imagine the liberals being overly upset by it, seeing it more as a thorn being removed from their side with no pulling required.

Regardless of how many stay or leave, the liberals will be free to get on with their modernistic agenda, including remarriage after divorce, same-sex marriage, abortion, ordination of women, transsexual rights, etc., thus emulating the mainstream Protestant denominations, which they seem to hold in such envy, particularly the Anglicans. One thing they seem to pay little heed to is the steady decline in church attendance and possible explanations for it.

As the old Prayer Book says: Let us pray for the whole State of Christ’s church. Kyrie eleison.

Our eastern correspondent provides us with this news item.

WOODBURY, Connecticut (WFSB) — A reverend [sic] in Woodbury was arrested and charged with dealing crystal meth, among other crimes.

Herbert Irving Miller, 63, was arrested on Feb. 9, according to Connecticut State Police.

Woodbury Police officers recently got a tip that Miller was allegedly dealing drugs from his house right next to the church. Neighbors noticed lots of traffic at the home at different hours, and someone discovered a meth pipe on the road near the church.

Police allege Miller was providing the crystal meth in exchange for watching gay couples have sex.

Not likely, but until last night the President of the United States, through the efforts of his handlers, and the administration of multiple cocktails of geriatric drugs to keep the man conscious and upright, managed to maintain in him the appearance of a somewhat presidential mien, at least to an all-too-willing- media. No longer.

Many are asking why the president’s advisors, especially his wife, after all their work over the years to give a sense of legitimacy to the man and his office, allowed him to stay up way past his bedtime and make such a bloody ass of himself before the nation. Here is the Tatler’s opinion: they had to, they had no choice.

The Justice Department’s special counsel has chosen not to charge the President with any crime for keeping top-secret documents in his garage and showing them to a ghostwriter, (after all, his name isn’t Trump), but it did report, as the Washington Free Beacon reports:

“Biden’s memory was worse” than in previous interviews when he appeared in their office on Oct. 8, 2023. That day, the president “did not remember when he was vice president,” nor could he “remember, within several years, when his son Beau died.”

More damning is the counsel’s explanation of just why the president won’t be prosecuted: no jury would vote to convict him because he is “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” in other words, they’ll feel sorry for the fool. Most Americans however will likely conclude, despite the mild language used in the special counsel’s report, it is really saying by its letting the man off is, he has truly had it, is incompetent, and should no longer continue in his office.

The Democratic Party must realize by now, despite their months and years of stonewalling and far-fetched defenses, the game is up and Biden must go down. It seems believable to this writer that the party, as well the president’s enablers, could well have encouraged him to make that address to expose to the world the farce of his presidency; thus getting things started to persuade him to quit before the subject of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution starts being murmured about, in Congress and elsewhere. Cynics that they are, they will dump Biden in a trice for the upcoming elections’s sake.

Dartmouth basketball team can unionize, government official states.

The college might begin by asking the players union reps, in their estimation how much value added is provided by their clients to a Dartmouth education, offer their replies to the Daily Dartmouth, and ask for comments.

True, Ivy League practice (to its great credit) is not to offer athletic scholarships and the players, no matter how bad they are, must still put in long hours practicing and traveling; but did they really come to Dartmouth and the other Ivies for the prestige of their sports departments, or simply for the pleasure of the sport in their college years?

h/t Instapundit.

“Professor” Schickele had a big influence on this blogger while he was still in school. The purported scholar of the life and works of the “youngest of J. S. Bach’s 20-odd children and certainly the oddest,” Schickele never once let up in public that P. D. Q. Bach was anything but a real composer, and would display mock irritation whenever the existence of his subject was questioned.

Schickele owned a unique brand of comedy. He deftly combined sophisticated musicological jokes, aimed at musicians and those knowledgeable on baroque and classical music, with old-fashioned slapstick and wacky invented musical instruments, such as the “tromboon.” This way, all could laugh themselves silly when attending a P. D. Q. Bach concert.

Schickele was also a “legit” composer, with many serious compositions to his credit, and did studio and soundtrack work as well. Back in the ’60s, I remember noting with surprise his name in the credits of a Joan Baez album, in which he had composed and conducted the lovely arrangements. For I,  like so many other P. D. Q. Bach fans, was oblivious to Schickele’s serious side.

After years of intense study of music history and theory, I enjoy going back to my P. D. Q. Bach albums, and inevitably finding more musical jokes, which had gotten by me before.

Rest in peace, Professor. Make those angels laugh.

In San Francisco, no less.

From Father Zuhlsdorf:

STATEMENT from priests of the Cathedral of San Francisco about “FS” and “blessings

This is worth notice. Priests of the Cathedral in San Francisco have issued their own statement about FS…

We will note with interest the reaction to this statement among Church higher-ups. Will they respect the counsel of St John’s Fisher’s concerning conscience.

– – –

Biden Tells Voters: I Work for the Government in the Senate.”

By most accounts, he’ll barely be missed in the White House.

Soon we will have priests reduced to the role of social workers and the message of faith reduced to a political vision. Everything will seem lost, but at the right time, only in the most dramatic phase of the crisis, the Church will be reborn. It will be smaller, poorer, almost catacumbal, but also holier. For it will no longer be the church of those who seek to please the world, but the church of believers in God and his Eternal Law. The revival will be the work of a small, seemingly insignificant, but indomitable, remnant, undergone a process of purification. Because that’s how God works A small flock withstands evil.

From Cardinal Ratzinger’s vital address in 1969.

Benedict’s prediction is bearing fruit, but there are many more setbacks to endure. Consider this sad news from the Society of St Hugh of Cluny:

31 Dec

2023

End of Traditional Mass at St. Stanislaus in New Haven

Posted by Stuart Chessman

We are reliably informed that two minutes before today’s Traditional Mass a decree of Archbishop Leonard Blair of Hartford was read suppressing the Latin Mass in New Haven as of January 14. There had been no previous communication with the congregation. They have been referred to St. Patrick’s, the church of the Institute of Christ the King, in Waterbury!

Your Tatler, when living in New York, knew some of these wonderful people; observant, pious Catholics whose only wrong was to embrace the Mass that Catholics have celebrated for 1500 years, with only minimal and organic changes, up to the 1960s. Then, in an audacious action forever to be deplored, a group of men arbitrarily decided this glorious work of faith–and art–should be “modernized.” Substantial parts of the order of worship were trashed and the remaining carcass translated into jejune vernacular, reading like a second-rate sixties pop song (the lyric of a Beatles song is much superior).

Benedict’s prediction will prevail. The rebirth he cites though may likely not occur until most or all of us are dead. It thus behooves Catholics who love the Mass to pray and keep it alive. Even, when necessary, playing whack-a-mole with Archbishop Blair and his colleagues’s desperate attempts to extinguish it once and for all. They will not succeed. Most of those clerics are old and older, but the Mass is older still, eternal, and will survive them and their destructive acts.

Domine salva nos.

From PJ Media:

Biden Looking at Huge Concession to GOP on Border Policy . . .

How badly does Joe Biden want that funding for Ukraine? That’s the question Republicans are asking as border negotiations tied to Ukraine funding continue this week.

If the reports about what’s been agreed to are true, Republicans have already won a big victory. Senators and the White House have reached agreements on “tightening asylum interviews, expanding expedited deportations, and creating an authority to expel migrants without humanitarian screenings when border agents are overwhelmed,” according to CBS News.

It’s a virtually certainty, shortly after the president [sic] signs this bill, soon after, while campaigning and reading the speeches his minders craft for him with big block letters, he will take full credit for the bill’s passage, claiming he had been working tirelessly for its passage for months; at the same he will blast Republicans for their obstructing it every inch of the way, for purely cynical and political purposes.

The fact the boarder crisis is entirely Biden’s and the Democrat’s creation will of course receive nary a mention in the media and they, getting in on the fun, will further the charade by praising Biden for at last showing real leadership and resolve, thus relieving them of the irksome and unpleasant task of criticizing him on the matter. Instead, the media will resume their far pleasanter and easier job of covering up for Biden; praising him to the sky and covering up his multiple and collosal failures, as is mete, right and their bounden duty.