Some news from across the Tiber

The confessional is empty

It appears that the Pope's recent message on the need for Catholics to rediscover Confession has been heard loud and clear in the marble city (at least by its Archbishop). The archdiocese of Washington is launching a major campaign to bring people back into the confessional. Concern has been growing for years that the Roman Catholic Church is effectively becoming a church of six sacraments. The story can be read here.

Send in the clowns

Inside the Vatican (an outstanding publication) has posted a fascinating interview with Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the Secretary for the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship. The archbishop demonstrates a serious concern for the way the post-conciliar liturgical reform was handled among many other things.

What I wished to insist on in those interviews was that the post-conciliar reform of the liturgy has not been able to achieve the expected goals of spiritual and missionary renewal in the Church so that today we could be truly happy about it.

Undoubtedly there have been positive results too; but the negative effects seem to have been greater, causing much disorientation in our ranks.

The churches have become empty, liturgical free-wheeling has become the order of the day, and the true meaning and significance of that which is celebrated has been obscured.

One has to, then, begin wondering if the reform process had in fact been handled correctly. Thus, we need to take a good look at what had happened, pray and reflect about its causes and with the help of the Lord move on to make the necessary corrections.

Obviously this sort of frank discussion should be encouraging to orthodox (small "o") Catholics. It also dovetails well with the article by Fr. Fartaglia mentioned here. The entire interview has been posted over at NLM for those interested.