But as to what priests should wear, or whose feet are washed - those are things he may decide at his pleasure, are they not?

Of course he can. But many Catholics are uncomfortable waking up each morning, checking Father Z's site or whatever, and/or finding out by accident what rubrics changed overnight. Is it too much to ask for a statement or direction if more liberalizations are planned? Normally rubrics are solid and unchanging over periods of many years. Have we now entered a era of rapid changes to accommodate a rapidly changing world? I sure hope not. This would be anathema to an orthodox Catholic.

There are even seminary graduates who apparently feel that varying a liturgical custom and murdering the innocence of a little boy are of the same order of importance.

But there is a difference, and the difference is very important.

Sounds like we're on the same page in this regard.

Regarding Pope Francis, I’ve decided to intentionally not to pay too close attention to his actions and words for now. He’s new in his position. I might actually wait a whole month or something before I get ready to put him under a microscope and jump down his throat for misdeeds, real or imagined.

Which is wise and prudent, and something I too had planned on doing until this current issue arose two days ago.

I'm trying to work through it myself, and a lot of folks I know personally are really frustrated by this and having a hard time sorting it out. If even Fr. Z is flustered by these developments, I don't feel so bad for being flustered.

As I said earlier, I attend the Novus Ordo mass daily. I attend the TLM almost every Sunday. Honestly, I attend the latter on Sundays not so much because I love the TLM, but because I hate liturgical abuse, and there are none at the TLM.

To see our Pope ignore the rubrics is to my sensibilities very troubling.

Dear Dr. Brian Kopp,

“If we can eat meat on Fridays now, but we couldn't before, why can't we have women priests now, which we couldn't before?”

Precisely, Brian.

My own late mother found it difficult to make the distinction. She was pro-abortion for many years, probably pro-contraception to her death (although at 77, the practical aspect of her belief had long since faded into irrelevancy), and she'd often justify these false beliefs by declaring, “Well, if the Church could change the prohibition against meat on Fridays...”

But she grew up dirt poor in the Italian ghetto in the first half of the 20th century, taught by Irish priests who looked down on their charges, thinking them incapable of understanding the finer points of Catholic teaching. It was news to her when I'd try to explain the difference between dogma, doctrine, and discipline.

She knew how to feel like a Catholic, how to act like a Catholic, but never how to think, how to reason as a Catholic. I think that's in part because of the execrable catechesis that is generally provided by the Church in most times, in most places, and in part because we live in a society to which a Catholic way of thinking is alien.

sitetest

—— Peters and I are actually concerned about the good order of the Church. A canonist and a man in Holy Orders ought to be. Winters, on the other hand, writes for the paper of record for dissenters and antinomians.

What this foot washing issue does is reveal how vast the gulf is now that divides those who maintain that order, law and reason are necessary in the Church and society and those who, like gnostics who possess secret powers of interpretation of even more secret teachings, apply super-principles which trump lesser matters such as reason, law and order. ——

This perfectly expresses the problem.

The spirit of disobedience that has bedeviled the Church since Vatican II has been reawakened with one simple act.

I sense an monumental pastoral error.

With respect to all, I don’t think this violates Canon Law. If it does, where is the appropriate citation?

Secondly, a local ordinary has pretty broad discretion on the application of various rules concerning both the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, as well as keeping/not keeping of certain feast days/fasts (e.g. St. Patrick’s Day during Lent), etc.

So, did Pope Francis take latitude in a ritual? It would appear. Is this one case the big deal others are making it? I’m not so sure, but could be wrong.

Wow the Catholics who are objecting to the feet cleaning sound like the Pharisees who objected to Jesus’ disobeying of the jewish law. When your laws get in the way of the beautiful thing the Pope did, you and your laws have issues.

Washing girl’s feet is wrong because the Church says so

Not quite. It is not wrong for you, me, or any priest, or the pope to kneel and wash anyone's feet as a sign of service we owe all others. Well, so long as the person whose feet are being washed consents, and the parent consents, and it is understood correctly as a symbol of humble service and not some flirty thing.

The only possible wrong here is purely skewing of the rubrics. The rubrics say "wash the feet of select men (viri)" and the pope washed the feet of men and then also washed the feet of select women, instead of proceeding to the next rubric straight way.

In other words, he improvised a bit in a rite that itself is not very old: it dates, correct me if I am wrong, to 1955. And he is not any priest but the pope. Legalistically, it is not a big deal; I would hesitate to call it abuse of liturgy. Any priest that would take this example and, in what would be true abuse, ad-lib through the Eucharistic prayer would be a complete fool. Yes, we have such fools, but we can't allow their obtuseness limit good priests, which our pope certainly is.

A greater concern that I see is not legalistic but theological. Christ washed His disciples' feet in order to prepare them specifically for priestly service, not generally for a life of charity. The former understanding necessitates them being men because priests are all men. The latter understanding is novel, and does not fit the narrative of the Last Supper. That is a problem for me.

The spirit of disobedience that has bedeviled the Church since Vatican II has been reawakened with one simple act.

I sense an monumental pastoral error.

Fortunately, the Vatican monitors these discussions now and takes them into consideration. They read the blogs, more than most people realize. I know this from my own statcounter account and from talking to other bloggers.

The controversy forced Fr. Lombardi to address this scandal. That's a good thing. They're listening, they know this stirred up a hornet's nest, and hopefully this will be related to Pope Francis and he will realize this kind of action has real world consequences.

See my tagline.

What you post about the conflation of abortion and the death penalty (and other things like welfare that got woven into the ‘Seamless Garment’) is true and has done great damage to American Catholicism (to the benefit of the democrat party).

However, I strongly believe that Pope Francis has a strong “Phase 2” in the works. I think his goal is to first re-evangelize and then re-assert authority on the truly important matters. If you read comments on lib websites, you’ll notice that many of the commenters now continually take shots at Pope Francis after initially cheering him. I think they fear that he may bring people back to the Faith.

Dear Dr. Brian Kopp,

We are fortunate to live somewhere where there are many, many Catholic parishes to attend. We love the pastor of our territorial parish, but he's a big ham up on the altar, and I've just gotten too old and crotchety to put up with it. We rarely, if ever, attend Mass there.

These days, we usually just go down to the Shrine (the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception) in DC. Msgr. Rossi runs a pretty tight ship, and Masses there range from Masses celebrated with no egregious deviations from the rubrics to Masses celebrated by priests who took the time to do it right, letting the light of Christ shine through the liturgy rather than their own egos.

I'll continue to wait with Pope Francis. I wonder whether actions that would appear reasonable in one culture - Latin America - might not be quite right on a wider stage. Perhaps the new pope will learn that what flies in Buenos Aires may be less helpful to the Universal Church. I don't know. Maybe I'm just too rule-bound and uptight, LOL. For now, I'll just wait and watch and hope that he'll catch on and do a bang-up job of it.

sitetest

Christ washed His disciples' feet in order to prepare them specifically for priestly service

Really?

John 13:14 says " If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet."

It is not the custom that priests only wash other priests feet, correct? So we know that the term "one another's feet" applies to the non-ordained.

Very few of the men whose feet have been washed at Mass in this ritual are being prepared for priestly service, correct?

So, since the ritual does not apply only to priests or candidates for the priesthood, what's the big deal?

Think how much of this angst could be put away, how much good will our Pope Francis could instantly create, if, unlike his predecessor, he simply offered a humble low Traditional Latin Mass in the near future?

It need not be a papal mass at St. Peters or the Lateran. Just a simple humble low PUBLIC Traditional Latin Mass at some out of the way chapel or parish.

Since he does not feel bound by precedence or rubrics, he need not worry about lacking all the trappings and papal household elements his predecessor may have felt were necessary to “do it right.”

The Mandatum Files

The Problem

In many parishes around the country, the mandatum - the washing of the feet - is performed incorrectly.

The washing of the feet is supposed to be done (a) by a priest (b) upon men.

Instead, it is done by those not ordained to Holy Orders.
Or it is done on women and children instead of men.
Or the celebrant washes not the feet, but the hands or other body parts.

The Last Supper is the ritual wherein Jesus established both the Eucharist and the priesthood that performs the sacrifice of the Mass.
While very liturgical abuse is a tragedy, liturgical abuse of the Holy Thursday Mass is among the worst of abuses, since it mis-represents the priesthood, through which the sacraments come to us.

The law of prayer is the law of belief.
If we don't pray the Mass of Holy Thursday correctly, we suborn our own priests.
When they abuse the right, they suborn and disrespect themselves.
Liturgical abuse, especially this liturgical abuse, is as unjust as a suicide.

This website is meant to address the common excuses used by laypeople and ordained men for their refusal to be obedient to the Catholic Faith.

The Mandatum Files

A depository of information on the Holy Thursday Mandatum rite in the Catholic Church.
Learn about the rubrics for the washing of feet!

Pope Francis changed a seemingly small rubric in the ceremony of foot-washing, when he washed the feet of girls at the Rome juvenile detention center.

Almost everybody concedes that

he had the authority to do it (as Bishop of Rome, he's also chief liturgical authority for the Diocese of Rome), and
he had the best of intentions (to show what it is to serve and love the lost sheep)

BUT... he also gave an example of disregarding the rules, instead of using his legitimate power to actually change the rule (he could/should have first formally legislated, "From here on in, you can wash the feet of girls/women").

But he didn't, he just did his own thing on the spot.

The EneMedia have apparently latched onto this as a signal for "Whee! The Catholic Church has declared a New Age of No Rules", and in fact, some of the looseygooseys in the priesthood are sure to see it as just that ("Yahoo, the Pope disregards rules for the sake of compassion, and so can I. Next up, I'm marryin' lesbians...")

In sum, this would not have been the Pope's intention, but this may be the result.

Stay tuned!

Watch and pray!

I don't believe that this is the intent of the Holy Father, but to some degree it is already the result.

Agreed. I read through some of the comments on his original thread regarding the washing of 2 women's feet. One poster commented that in a matter of minutes, her parish pastor tossed two men from that night's lineup and substituted two women. Fr. Z gave Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt suggesting that he did this as an act of charity, something he has done for years as a cardinal and has not yet made the mental conversion of its implications on the church as a whole. Let's give him some time to adjust to this new role. I sympathize with the pope as I too prefer a simpler life. Give him some time.

As an aside to the main argument, kissing a woman anywhere on her body (unless maybe she's really old, sick, etc.) can easily be sensual; men are "programmed," if you will, to be excited by same.

So by PF's actions, is he unknowingly "promoting" something not completely upright and holy? Jesus never kissed the feet of women, and it might be well and good if we followed suit (Church rule).

Prayers for Pope Francis!

Dear Excellence, "brothers and sisters" can be used in different senses.

One may mean "brothers and sisters in that we are all one part of the human family, sons of Adam according to the flesh."

(This makes us brothers and sisters because of our relationship to Adam, our common ancestor.)

The Bible refers to God as the "Father [meaning Creator] of all" (Ephesians 4:6)

(This makes us brothers and sisters because of our relationship as creatures of God, our Creator.)

What we are NOT, is brothers and sisters to Muslims as born-again in Baptism or in the Christian Faith, since they do not share our Baptism or the experience of being born-again or the Adoption. They are not of the household of the Faith. They are not our brothers and sisters "in Christ". Nor would they claim to be.

So they are our brothes and sisters in some ways, but not in others.

I’m not too concerned about this aspect, though I’ve seen it expressed by several female posters on several blog posts. I don’t think the grandfatherly PFI is placing himself in the near occasion of sin in this regard at this point in his career.

On the other hand, Jesus did permit his own feet to be anointed by a women who was a known sinner, and she cleansed His feet with her hair.