Dear Friends and Benefactors of the Society,

In the expectation of the joys and blessings of Easter, three clarifications of some points regarding this year's Holy Week.

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The first one concerns the extraordinary coincidence of major feasts and the resulting apparent liturgical confusion.

Traditionally St. Patrick and all things Irish are celebrated on March 17, the anniversary of the saint's death. However, March 17 falls this year on the Monday of Holy Week and, according to liturgical law, the days of Holy Week and Easter rank above all others. Therefore, the celebration of St. Patrick must be moved to another date, along with St. Joseph (March 19) and the Annunciation (March 25), which fall on Holy Wednesday and Easter Tuesday respectively. What is to be done? 

This year's uniqueness has presented a major challenge to the compilers of the liturgical Ordo in Ireland. Easter Sunday 2008 is on March 23, the second earliest date it could be. The earliest date is March 22, as Easter Sunday - since the Council of Nicea, year 325 - always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. Now for the first time in 150 years, there is a concurrence (coincidence of two offices) of the holy days with the three feasts of St. Patrick, St. Joseph, and the Annunciation. The Annunciation is transferred to March 31, the first free day after Easter Week, and St. Joseph to April 1. St. Patrick should have been relegated to April 2, sixteen days after the usual celebration, but, fortunately, an indult has been granted by the Sacred Congregation for the Divine Worship by which in Ireland the feast of St. Patrick shall be celebrated this year on Saturday, March 15*. Since it will be a transferred feast there will be no holyday obligation. St. Patrick's Day will fall again during Holy Week in the remote year 2160; but by then, none of us will be affected by the concurrence... 

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The second apparent oddity is the hour of celebration of the Paschal Vigil, which this year will take place in St. John's at 6 pm. The rubrics leave to the decision of the local Ordinary the hour for the Vigil in special cases. Ideally starting at 11 pm, it can be celebrated as early as sunset, even earlier if the good of the faithful or the clergy suggests it. This is why the priests recite by exception the Vespers of Holy Saturday in the afternoon instead of the evening, Vespers preceding naturally the Paschal Vigil. 

The present (and temporary only) scarcity of priests which makes of this year's Vigil the only one in our territory, the long six and five-hour-drive Mass circuits of Easter Sunday, the timetables of public transportation, and the possibility for the faithful of other chapels to travel to and from Dun Laoghaire at a reasonable hour make it prudent and convenient to start this year the Vigil at 6 pm,ending no later than 8.30 pm. Those who attend it will fulfil their Easter Sunday obligation, and the clergy present will be dispensed from reciting privately the Compline, Matins, and Lauds of Easter Sunday.

Some among the faithful misinterpret the fact that the Paschal Vigil fulfils the Easter obligation, no matter the hour of its celebration, and make a big noise about it saying that this is a modern practice. They are wrong and they cause harmful confusion. It is erroneous to compare this exceptional case in the old missal to the Novus Ordo practice of anticipating Masses the evening before. A Novus Ordo anticipated Mass is considered a Sunday Mass, not the Mass of a Vigil.  

The Masses of the Vigils of Pentecost and Christmas are not the Masses of those feasts, and neither is the Easter Vigil a Mass of Easter Sunday. The Paschal Vigil is in itself its own liturgy.  Its fulfilment of Easter Sunday obligation is granted by privilege in 1955, when the morning Vigil was transferred to the evening of Holy Saturday. The privilege was given in order to encourage the faithful to attend the long ceremonies of the evening and night without having to come back again for Easter Sunday Mass a few hours later. Whereas the practice of anticipating Sunday Masses in the Novus Ordo dates only from the post-conciliar Instruction Eucharisticum Mysterium, 25 May 1967, and it is designed to facilitate the needs of people who are entangled in a secular culture that does not recognize the value of Sunday. One issue has nothing to do with the other. Simply put: the Mass of the Paschal Vigil is not an anticipated Easter Mass; but attendance at the Paschal Vigil does fulfil in law the Easter Mass obligation. 

On a personal note: when facing these somewhat awkward situations one cannot but hope that the venerable practice returns and that the offices of the Sacred Triduum may take place again in the morning, at least as an option. The reformation of the Holy Week (Decree Maxima Redemptionis, 16 November 1955), which the priests of the Society of St. Pius X must accept as legitimate and therefore follow with more or less enthusiasm, failed to consider realistically the radical shifting of attitudes and customs in the late fifties. The reformers did not consider that the practices of their day were already changing; one example is the introduction in the sixties of the revolutionary notion of the "week-end," which terminated Saturday morning work and school attendance, and paradoxically made it possible for many to attend the millenary morning Vigil. The reformers did not imagine that, only four decades later, the day would arrive in which one priest would take care of various parishes, instead of a parish having two or three resident priests, hence reducing the number of liturgical functions. They did not know that profound social changes would bring about dramatic modifications in urban spaces, so that in any large city no decent and sane person would be caught at midnight in certain neighbourhoods, still less in the night buses or trains –if they are at all available on a public holiday!  Consequently, many faithful in rural areas without a local priest cannot travel at late hours nowadays to attend the Paschal Vigil, and many faithful in metropolitan areas who depend on public transportation or whose safety is endangered at night cannot travel either. No doubt this explains why the Paschal Vigil in Dublin, when last celebrated at 11 pm, was attended by no more than twenty people. May many of you take advantage of this year's availability. 

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The third point is the new Good Friday prayer for the Jews, mandated by the Holy Father via a Note of the Secretariat of State, 4 February 2008. Many are asking what are we going to do. We could simply reply that, since we are not beneficiaries of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum,this issue should be addressed not now but in the future. But it seems important to look deeper into it.

Of all the liturgical variations of the past decades, this one achieves the record of mutations since Pope Pius XII added in 1956 the genuflexion after the invocation "Oremus et pro perfidis Iudaeis." It will be beneficial to copy here all the alterations so that we can study the development directly on the texts. The gradual changes are in bold font. 

From the 3rd Century until 1955: For the Conversion of the Jews.

Let us pray also for the unbelieving Jews: that our God and Lord will remove the veil from their hearts, so that they too may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. - Almighty, eternal God, who dost not withhold thy mercy even from Jewish unbelief, heed the prayers we offer for the blindness of that people, that they may acknowledge the light of thy truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness: through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. 

1956, Pope Pius XII: For the Conversion of the Jews.

Let us pray also for the unbelieving Jews: that our God and Lord will remove the veil from their hearts, so that they too may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Let us kneel. Arise. Almighty, eternal God, who dost not withhold thy mercy even from Jewish unbelief, heed the prayers we offer for the blindness of that people, that they may acknowledge the light of thy truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness: through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. 

1959, Pope John XXIII: For the Conversion of the Jews.

Let us pray also for the Jews: that our God and Lord will remove the veil from their hearts, so that they too may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Let us kneel. Arise. Almighty, eternal God, who dost not withhold thy mercy from the Jews, heed the prayers we offer for the blindness of that people, that they may acknowledge the light of thy truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness: through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. 

1965, Pope Paul VI: For the Jews.

Let us also pray for the Jews that God and Our Lord would deign to shine his face upon them, that they themselves would acknowledge Jesus Christ Our Lord as the redeemer of all. Let us pray. Let us kneel. Arise. Almighty and eternal God, who gave your promises to Abraham and his seed: graciously hear the prayers of your Church, that the people of your old acquisition may merit to come to the fullness of redemption.

 1970, Pope Paul VI: For the Jews.

Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.  (Prayer in silence. Then the priest says:) Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.  

2008, Pope Benedict XVI: No title given.

Let us also pray for the Jews: that our God and Lord may enlighten their hearts, so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, Saviour of all men. Let us pray. Let us kneel. Arise. Almighty and eternal God, who wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of  truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters into Your Church, all Israel may be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen. 

It would have been wonderful that the Holy Father impose his new prayer to the Novus Ordo, where the astonishing mutation of 1970 is said every year, apparently asking God to keep the Jews faithful to Judaism until they reach full redemption. But the Sovereign Pontiff has only legislated for the traditional rite; the first time this happens since the reformations. The pope's new prayer has raised a fury among those modernist Catholics who have been taught in the spirit of the 1970's unbelievable text, it has reminded the Jews of the fact that only Our Lord is the Saviour of all men, and it shows that our Holy Father is not a gender-inclusive language freak ("all men"... what about women?). All this is very good indeed.

However, those Catholics who are faithful to Tradition are legitimately suspicious of any tampering with the old liturgy, and they cannot be blamed if they think it prudent for the time being to wait and see. Pope Pius XII (Encyclical Mediator Dei, 20 November 1947) taught us that true liturgical development improves, enhances, and clarifies both the lex orandi and the lex credendi. Is it the case here? A perfectly clear and orthodox millenarian prayer has been changed into a new one open to confusion, even if it is per accidens. In fact, Cardinal Walter Kasper declared to Vatican Radio last 7 February 2008: "When the Pope presently speaks on the conversion of Jews, then you have to understand correctly. He cited literally the eleventh chapter of the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans. The Apostle says that we, as Christians, hope that when the fullness of pagans enters the church, then Israel will completely convert. This is an eschatological hope for the end of the ages, which does not mean that we have the intention now to be missionaries to Jews as one sends missions to the heathens." Since some incredulous father of the church told me after a recent conference that these words do not appear in the version found in the English webpage of Vatican Radio (true), I copy from the original German page of the same Vatican Radio: "Wenn der Papst nun von der Bekehrung der Juden spricht, dann muss man das richtig verstehen. Er zitiert wörtlich das elfte Kapitel des Apostels Paulus aus dem Römerbrief. Dort sagt der Apostel, dass wir als Christen hoffen, wenn die Fülle der Heiden eingetreten ist in die Kirche, dass dann ganz Israel sich bekehren wird. Das ist eine eschatologische endzeitliche Hoffnung, bedeutet also nicht, dass wir die Intention haben, nun Judenmission zu betreiben, so wie man Heidenmission betreibt."

And in his letter of 13 February 2008 to Rabbi David Rosen, Chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, the same Cardinal Kasper clarifies once more: "The reformulated text no longer speaks about the conversion of the Jews as some Jewish critics wrongly affirm. The text is a prayer inspired by Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 11, which is the very text that speaks also of the unbroken covenant. It takes up Paul's eschatological hope that in the end of time all Israel will be saved. As a prayer the text lays all in the hands of God and not in ours. It says nothing about the how and when. Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands." 

It is therefore undeniable that the new text can be interpreted and is actually being interpreted in an unorthodox manner, and this by none other than the President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and of the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews.

On the other side, the prayer can be understood in a perfectly Catholic context. Listen to Abraham Foxman, US national director of the Anti-Defamation League, 5 February 2008: "We are deeply troubled and disappointed that the framework and intention to petition God for Jews to accept Jesus as Lord was kept intact. Alterations of language without change to the 1962 prayer's conversionary intent amount to cosmetic revisions, while retaining the most troubling aspect for Jews, namely the desire to end the distinctive Jewish way of life."  This is the same Abraham Foxman who wrote in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11 July 2007: "In the past four decades, a conceptual revolution has taken place in the Catholic church's relationship with the Jewish people. The first step came with Vatican II and its landmark document Nostra Aetate in 1965, which repudiated the centuries-old "deicide" charge against all Jews, stressed the religious bond shared by Jews and Catholics, reaffirmed the eternal covenant between God and the People of Israel, and dismissed church interest in trying to baptize Jews. This theological revolution then moved forward dramatically through the papacy of Pope John Paul II. Further documents rejected the destructive doctrine of supersessionism – the notion that Christianity supersedes Judaism as the true religion." 

Isn't it a paradox that Mr. Foxman (arguably the instigator of this change) interprets the prayer in a Catholic perspective, whereas Cardinal Kasper does not? 

Unwilling to contribute to the present confusion, and awaiting further developments, in the chapels of the Society of St. Pius X we will pray this Good Friday with the same words used by our predecessors in the True Faith, asking for the prompt conversion of our Jewish brothers and sisters, "that our God and Lord will remove the veil from their hearts, so that they too may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ." 

With the blessings and grateful prayers of your priests in Ireland,

                                                                            Father Ramón Anglés