Who Needs Isis? AmChurch Meat Grinder Hitting Our Saviour Church NYC?
Another thing I’ve seen over and over for the past twenty years and more is the politely stated, politically correct, and sensitive velvet glove that is worn on the outside of a giant destructive machine known as AmChurch.
These guys come in with a smile and speak of pastoral needs, concern for the poor, and the bishop and such, and have a way of alienating people who love the Church and the gifts that beautiful churches are to the poor and needy. I’ve seen it in the past when a guy comes in and what starts off as renovating the painted images, ends up in statues being tossed, candles replaced with electric lamps. I’ve seen worse where the high altar was destroyed and the church rendered into the pagan-inspired church in the round design. (uggh).
In the 70s and 80s, these guys would whitewash and entirely obliterate. In the 90s, they were slightly subdued. Today, they seem to have this half-approach. The primary target is the alter rail and high altar (if it remains) and any artwork except for the minimum. Have no reservations, however. Destroying the altar rail and the artwork and statues is still wreckovating. period.
I don’t know what is happening precisely at Our Savior Church in New York, but this report came yesterday by way of Fr. Z’s blog. Artwork is being ripped off the walls.
BEFORE:
AFTER (note the emptied columns):
Reports Fr. Z:
I was told at one point that the altar rail was slated for demolition. However, as one person clarified for me, the workman only cleaned it. When people had seen workmen concerning themselves with the rail they protested to the Archdiocese. Fr. Robbins thereafter said that it was not ever his intention for it to be removed. Or so it goes.
via NYC – What’s up at Our Saviour Church where Fr. Rutler used to be pastor? | Fr. Z’s BlogFr. Z’s Blog.
Fr. Rutler was at this parish for about 12 years. His August 2013 farewell to the parish is posted on a bishop’s blog, here. I want to highlight something here…
LOOK at the BEFORE of that Church. Earlier today, I wrote about the Mass Mob spectacle in Detroit. I noted that phenomenon is mere stage tricks and that the day to day pastoral care of the parish is what will bring sheep back (particularly making confessions available all the time). I enter Exhibit A from Fr. Rutler’s farewell:
Since 2001 our flock has doubled, and there have been among them nearly a dozen who have been called to the priesthood. While I am the only priest in this parish, the visiting priests who assist in various ways have been a great support. I have heard in these twelve years possibly around 45 or 50 thousand confessions, and my fellow priests may have doubled that. […]
The volunteer faculty of our CCD classes, which have grown ten-fold, could more than match the finest of any school, and young people come from long distances for the Pre-Cana program which is unsurpassed for its sound teaching of the joy of true marriage. The holy Liturgy has been accompanied year after year by our music director and choir.
[…]
The good people of our parish, along with our extended family far and wide, have sacrificed to change the financial situation of this parish. Twelve years ago we were burdened under millions of dollars of mortgage and other debts and costs for the repair of a building in which everything seemed to be collapsing at the same time. All that has been reversed, every penny of debt is paid, and the church has virtually been reconstructed, along with the installation of a new organ and many other improvements, renovations and fine art. Our Lord was not fortunate in the one he chose to hold the moneybag, but the same Lord mercifully sent me trustees whose selfless devotion in these challenging years will bring them a reward more than I can give. There may have been times when my concern about the dire financial situation of our church made me seem, in the vernacular expression, cheap.
Read that the way I did: the parish was thriving without gimmicks. Fr. Hardon and I would agree that the 50,000 confessions had something to do with that. Then read the next thing I saw: SACRIFICES to make the church beautiful and fully restored.
This new guy is destroying the sacrifices of those who came before him.
No matter how many times I’ve seen it, and myself seen something I sacrificed to restore or support trampled underfoot, the smiles of the AmChurch and its social concern for the poor is always shown as mere sacrosanct hypocrisy when they wreckovate a church. May God have mercy on us.
That’s the meat grinder of AmChurch: you are lectured about concern for the poor, pastoral care, charity, and the need to advance the faith. Meanwhile, with the other hand, the things of faith are destroyed.
Speaking of the destruction, last September, a mere month after Fr. Rutler was moved out, the Latin Mass was ended, as was reported on First Things.
And that’s the way it goes — things of beauty are ground into a dry pulp, and people can’t figure out why no one goes to Mass anymore.
AmChurch
This article, Who Needs Isis? AmChurch Meat Grinder Hitting Our Saviour Church NYC? is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/who-needs-isis-amchurch-meat-grinder-hitting-our-saviour-church-nyc/
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You’re like decades late with this assessment, and yet you still have not drawn a coherent conclusion. How do we oppose this? Go to SSPX. Send Rome the message: repudiate Vatican II completely, rebuild our Church.
Janet,
With all due respect, I remember Lefebvre’s schism first hand. Granted, I was in High School, but they are not the answer. Schism never is. Plus, it’s always been more interesting to me to consider how much Lustiger’s appointment had on causing this ultra-french Lefebrvre to leave the flock.
Meanwhile, I have been offering solutions – perhaps you skipped over the confessions, or didn’t read the numerous articles here for the past four years. I can’t fault you for not realizing that I’ve been writing on these topics since 1991, since most of what I wrote in the nineties was under a variety of pseudonyms. I can fault you for suggesting that schism is a solution to the Church. It’s never worked. Even the Orthodox admit that, but nobody is sure how to put that humpty back together.
Don’t you see the contrast, though? Mass mobs and wreckovation versus the report Fr. Rutler gave? Real catechism and the continual offering of the sacraments, particularly confession, has been the solution I’ve offered over and over again — and Fr. Rutler’s report states the same. If that is vague or not coherent to you, then perhaps we are beginning to understand why the SSPX appeals to you?
It’s the poor who benefit most from beautiful churches. So why destroy them?
Lila, that’s exactly right! Poor people deserve a beautiful place to worship God as much as anyone else. And maybe it is the only place where they can escape into beauty and find some nice things in their life.
Pope Saint Pius X died 100 years ago in 1914. This year marks the 24th anniversary of Abp. Lefebvre’s death and on whose tombstone are the words from Holy Scripture, “I have handed on what I have received.”
Now, if anyone handed on the Faith, it was him! And to take that a step further, what he handed on, we receive when we go to any SSPX Church.
As far as calling the SSPX in schism…Nope, I’m not buying it…this is pure anti-SSPX propaganda.
Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated 4 bishops and claimed the action was needed out of necessity as outlined in Canon 1323 of Church law in order to continue having traditional priests, and to maintain the traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments. As far as I can tell, no schism was intended or incurred as contained in Canon 751 of Church Law. Archbishop Lefebvre himself insisted that there was no intended challenge to the authority or papacy of Pope JPII, but only a sincere effort to help preserve the integrity of the priesthood, the Latin Mass and Sacraments, and to safeguard orthodoxy in the face of rising Liberalism and Modernism in the Church.
The definition of schism fits the Sedevacantists, but not the SSPX.
I’m with Janet Baker on this and defend the SSPX…beginning with the following:
A Congregation of Catholic priests dedicated to the preservation of the Catholic Faith and Priesthood
“I have left me seven thousand men that have not bowed their knees to Baal.” – Romans 11: 4
“God has reserved for Archbishop Lefebvre what is possibly the most important role assigned to any prelate during this century; the task of preserving the Catholic priesthood during this period of universal apostasy.’ – Michael Davies, (Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, Vol I, August, 1979, pg. 11)
Viva Cristo Rey!
Greater things are said of Photius. Yet, there are the Orthodox, over there. Who knows what great glory might have been in God’s hands for him had he not driven a schism. Look at Job.
Thanks for your work, Mr Manos. I agree that sticking with the Barque of Peter is the only correct way to go. Rejecting the real Rome, the Successor of Peter that we actually have, for our own personal interpretation of Tradition will do no good for anyone.
Dear Sandra, your comment is greatly appreciated……Truth must be defended, even if nobody wants to hear it. The ‘reformers’ have dismantled the sanctuary, to destroy the universal flame of the Church……..slowly but surely, have shamefully rejected ‘her’ historic past.
Let us state facts here. It is NOT SSPX, that have devastated the ‘Vineyard of God’. In truth, they have kept the Faith, and are constant reminder of what we have lost!…….Divine Providence!
They have no blood on their hands for the devastating changes of the Faith in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul! This is no small fact…….offer it up!
The above article is just scratching the surface of the ‘revolution’, in the last 50 and some years……. against Holy Tradition, against the Holy Liturgy……is there a wonder that, they (Modernists) have been destroying all that is Catholic, including our churches.
Who would dare to compare the so-called ‘table’……. to the ‘High Altar’, where God is worshiped as He ought to be?
How do we justify such lies, that the Catholic Faith is equal with false religions……..that’s blasphemy! Is the Catholic Church the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, or is it not?
Faithful Catholics ought to lament as did St. Dominic: “My God, my God, what is to become of poor sinners?”
Faithful Catholics justly lament, looking up to Heaven……..
Too many ‘shepherds’ have been in lethargy (or in favor of the ‘revolution’), ashamed of living their God given Catholic Faith, afraid of ‘men’ rather then God…….they have allowed ‘evil to reign’………the consequences are tragic, millions of lost souls……..Miserere!
I hear an echo from long ago…….. a loving cry of holy Pope Pius VI:
“All of you Catholics….We have exhort you, with all our heart, to remember the Religion and Faith of your fathers, to remain faithful to it, since religion is the first and greatest good, because it will procure for you eternal felicity in heaven, and is yet on earth the only means of assuring the salvation of empires and the happiness of civil society. Guard against the preaching of deceivers, of the philosophies of the century, which would lead you to death; distance yourselves from all usurpers under whatever guise they present themselves, Archbishops, Bishops, priests; have nothing in common with them, above all in the practice of religion.” (April 13, 1791)
Viva Cristo Rey!
Why do some people erroneously assume that everybody is on facebook…….?
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“Ordinaries must be very careful to see that sacred furnishings and works of value are not disposed of or allowed to deteriorate; for they are the ornaments of the house of God…” Sacrosanctum Concilium 126
Why do they hate Vatican II so much?