Tag: My Journal of the Council

The public session concluded, before the final Te Deum, with a liturgy of penance imploring God’s forgiveness for the sins committed during the Council, and because of it. I left slowly and with difficulty, barely able to stand. A great many bishops congratulated me, thanked me. To a good extent, it was my work, they…

Dinner at a restaurant in the Piazza Navona, in the open air. We saw normal people again, to whom our byzantine intrigues would have absolutely NOTHING to say!

From different sides I hear echoes of disappointment among the laity AND AMONG PRIESTS. The reform of the liturgy is insufficient (‘Is that all?’). The story of the Motu proprio has caused disturbance and disquiet. Some are driven to despondency and to lose interest.

[The proposed motu proprio] lays down that texts for use in the vernacular must first be submitted to the Holy See, and approved by it. This is the very negation of the worth of the Council.

The Pope is looking for a formula for proclaiming the decree on the liturgy that ASSOCIATES THE BISHOPS with the Pope. Something other than ‘Paul, with the approval of the sacred Council . . . !

Ukrainian Mass. I dearly love the Easterners, but it is a bit much to keep giving us Masses which last for more than an hour when there is so much work to be done. … It is absurd. But in Rome, no-one knows what work is.

I realized once again to what an extent the Catholic Church is Latin, to what extent she deceives herself, in good faith, by believing herself to be ‘Catholic’. She is nothing of the sort. Romanism, Italianism, Latinism, scholasticism, the analytical spirit, have swallowed up everything and have almost established themselves as a dogma. What a…

Joachim Amman (Germany) attacked the existence of diplomatic representation of the Holy See, which likens the Church to temporal states. He questioned their episcopal character. He also questioned the greater confidence placed in their reports than in the bishops.