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Tomb of St. Stanislas Bishop and Martyr – Wawel Cathedral
Continuing our Restoration theme, todays news from two parts of Europe, namely Poland and the UK.
With respect to the UK, what is interesting to observe is the progress that the Immemorial Mass of All Ages is making, even in the face of the headwind that is Francis. What’s nice to see is that even at the height of the “spirit of VII” reactionary assault of 2014, no territory was lost. In fact, one can even venture to say that the worst of this version of the “Francis Effect” has passed, and it has become a spent force.
With respect to Poland, here what is interesting to observe is how the TLM is breaking into the Cathedrals. Even if only in some side chapels, the infrastructure is being rebuilt. This is time-consuming. I have read somewhere that it only takes a couple of days to teach a priest to offer the TLM, but the scholas, choirs and organists take much longer. And if anyone has traveled to Poland in the last few years, you would no doubt be shocked by the awfulness of the “organist”. We are talking nuns doing karaoke. AT BEST!
Below are the two posts that I am reproducing…
FOR THE RECORD:
Cathedral in Poland, where the Tridentine Mass is celebrated at Wawel Cathedral
Krakow – side chapel of the Wawel Cathedral of St. Stanislaus B&M and St. Wenceslas.
Bialystok – old Parish church within the complex of the Archdiocese Basilica of the Assumption.
Opole – church of St. Alexander located within the Cathedral complex of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
Gliwice – church of the Holy Trinity is located in the Cathedral complex of Sts. Peter and Paul in Gliwice.
Sandomierz – Cathedral Basilica church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Legnica – cathedral of Apostles Sts. Peter and Paul.
Swidnica – Cathedral of St. Stanislaus and Wenceslas.
Rzeszów – Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The Mass dates you can learn from our maps
See original here
While on the other side of Europe, from the LMS Chairman we get this rundown of Masses offered in the UK and Wales: (see original here)
61 Traditional Christmas Masses in England and Wales
See the whole list of Christmas Masses here, and Masses for the Epiphany here.
The Latin Mass Society is advertising a record number of Masses in the Extraordinary Form being celebrated this Christmas. Counting Midnight Mass and the Mass of Christmas Day, there will be no fewer than 61 celebrations this year. This represents an increase of 11 since last year
2012 – 44
2013 – 50
2014 – 50
2015 – 61
It is interesting that there was not increase between 2013 and 2014. In many ways I have the impression that there was something of a pause in the development of the Traditional Mass around that time. But that is over now, and it is not difficult to see where the growth has come from. We have a whole group of new centres for the celebration of the Traditional liturgy coming on-stream this year: the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in Preston, the Fraternity of St Peter in Warrington, the Friars in Gosport, the Oratory in York, a new EF Mass venue in Bedford, and so on. Who would have thought, ten years ago, that there would be celebrations of the Traditional Mass for Christmas in six churches in the Archdiocese of Liverpool?
That there would be a Traditional Mass for Christmas in places like the University Chaplaincy at Leeds, or Portsmouth Cathedral?
That there would be traditional High Masses – with celebrant, deacon and subdeacon – in five different places for Christmas? In Sheffield, Birmingham, Warrington, New Brighton, and Gosport.
We have a long way to go, in making the Traditional Mass genuinely available to Catholics in England and Wales. But thanks to the tremendous work of the priests who love this Mass, and to the faithful who support them – including the Latin Mass Society – we are moving in the right direction.
Support the work of the LMS by becoming an ‘Anniversary Supporter‘.
The Deus Ex Machina Blog 
Thank you, for your fine report. The tomb of St. Stanislaus is not in some side
chapel. It is at the crossing and is the most sacred spot in Wawel Cathedral.
After Chestochowa it is the most venerated place in Poland. Keep posting
the excellent commentary.
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I am a tradition-minded priest workiking in Poland and although the statistics you present may seem impressive, I can guarantee you that the bishops of Poland are ruthlessly persecuting the Traditional Latin Mass and it s followers….especially priests! In my diocese, the heads of deaneries have been ordered by the bishop to immediately notify him of any priest who even dares to think of saying the TLM privately or publicly. The only reason the post V II church has survived as much as it has in Poland is because it still functions on the last sputterings of Tridentine piety and the bishops well know that it would not take much for the faithful here, (young and old alike), to return to Tradition. And so they relagate the TLM to groups like the Fraternity of St. Peter while willing and able bodied diocesan priests desiring to celebrate the TLM are ruthlessly persecuted. In addition neo-protestant and sect-like groups such as the Neochatechumate Way are given a decisive green light for any “apostolates” they wish to undertake.
So unfortunately I must tell you the TLM is a long way from being accepted by the hierarchy here.
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Dear Fr. Pio,
Thank you very much for your comment.
I follow the situation in Poland since I travel to the country quite frequently.
From what I see, you are correct that a large part of the heirarchy is trying to suppress any Restoration to Tradition.
You are also quite correct that they promote heretics like neochats, focolore and any other wierd groups who do something that they have never seen before. Thing “Boshobora”…
My observation is that the force behind the intransigent bishops is the radicalized female religious. Any sing of Restoration and some crazy nun goes running to Gazeta Wyborcza to complain. And the bishops just want peace and quiet.
And yet…. We have the TLM spreading in Poland. It might be slow, but it is spreading. And it is due to pious priests like yourself.
From now on, I will keep you in my prayers and please do likewise…
And on more thing. To all the priests who are persecuted for trying to restore all things in Chirst, this blogger says…
CZEŚĆ I CHWAŁA BOHATEROM!
Z Bogiem,
S.A.
PS If you would like to comment on anything in the Polish church and convey the information to the English speaking blogosphere, please feel free to use this blog as a medium.
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Dear S.A.
Bog zaplac for the prayers! For now I am relegated to my small oratory in my room where I privaely offer the True Mass every day. Maybe one day Our Good Heavelny Father will permitt me to celebrate it publicly. I am not worthy of any of the graces that flow from it, but I hope that even in these underground conditions, graces may be won for the cause of true Restoration. Thank you for your blog. It serves as an anchor for me in some very rough seas.
P,S, There is a growing number of diocesan priests in Poland like me.
In Mary Immaculate,
Fr.Pio Kowalski
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Dear Fr. Pio,
“I can guarantee you that the bishops of Poland are ruthlessly persecuting the Traditional Latin Mass and it s followers….especially priests!”
I certainly sensed this back in my last visit in 2008. I had hopes that the profusion of regular TLMs listed over at Wikki Missa, along with other data points, might mean that this opposition was slackening.
Alas, it would seem that things looked brighter than they actually are.
In America, it has seemed that only the complete passing from the scene of prelates who came of age during the Council and its aftermath (up through the 70’s, and perhaps the 80’s as well) would really create the shift needed to open up the terrain to a restoration of traditional liturgy (and catechetics). These are men too invested in the narrative they grew up with, and beaten into conformism by years of climbing the greasy pole of diocesan management, to expect much else. Even in Poland.
Still, the situation seems a little better than it was 10 years ago, yes? At least there are *some* opportunities to be exposed to the traditional Roman Rite for young people, even if they must still go somewhat out of their way to seek it out.
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The Polish TLM growth really is astonishing. And it defied my expectations.
When I first visited Poland in 2006, the presence on the ground was very modest; the indults of John Paul II had made little impact in his native land. In Krakow, there was just one regular TLM, a Sunday TLM in a tiny baroque church in the Kazimierz maintained by the FSSP. I rapidly developed a concern that the relatively conservative nature of the N.O.’s implementation in Poland – on the average, it’s probably the best it is anywhere in the world (which is not a difficult feat, I know) – was going to be a hindrance to attraction to the TLM. Because we all know too well, that the areas of the worst abuses and ars celebrandi tend to be fertile ground for tradition in general (and the SSPX in particular) whenever tradition is given any exposure at all.
But in 2008, I returned to Krakow, and found…five regular TLM’s, and one regular Latin Novus Ordo at Wawel Cathedral. Even allowing for Summorum being promulgated in the interim, that was astonishing growth in just TWO YEARS.
And now, in 2015, we find that the what happened in Krakow has been replicated in the rest of the country. In 42 dioceses in a country of 33 million Catholics, there are, by my rough count, something around 200 regular TLM’s. Per capita Catholic, that’s a better rate than even the United States, the Promised Land for Tradition in the world (over 500 weekly TLM’s for a population of 70+ million Catholics, depending on whose numbers you take. I don’t have a clear sense of what actual average *attendance* is like, but I can’t imagine it’s any worse than the norm over in the U.S.. And they’re contributing a hefty number of traditionalist priestly vocations now, too.
Tradition really has taken off in Poland. There’s an interesting story to be told there.
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HI Richard,
Thanks for the background.
I think it also needs to be said that JPII was a unapologetic VII type.
Being an “aspiring philosopher” with a limited intellect, he found Thomism a bit challenging. Therefore he, like the other neo-modernist (non-perfidious) types before him, went down the easy mysticism route.
To cover up his lack of intellectual acumen, he was happy to suppress Thomist and rationalism just as a means of self defense. So he never critisised VII, since due to VII a intellecctually challenged, yet charismatic type could have been elected pontiff. Think Francis!!!!
This extended unfortunately to his underlings, think cd. Dziwisz, who promoted mysticism by creating a “JPII cult” around him.
Yet things are changing. On my recent trips to Poland, I have come across a number of instances where people said that JPII was a great leader, but a bad churchman. Which surprised me.
I think the current young Church leadership, i.e. Gadecki, Hoser are top rate intellects who recognize the limitations of a faith based solely on “immanence”. They have loosened the reigns, and what we are witnessing is exactly the situation that you describe in your post.
S.A.
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Hello S.A.,
Thank you for the kind reply. I really can’t disagree with any of it. Speaking with a prominent Polish scholar of John Paul II’s philosophical works, it became clear that most of it wasn’t any more intelligible in Polish than it was in English translation. It was also clear that, to echo your comment about him being a bad churchman, Wojtyla was just as poor an administrator in Krakow as he was in Rome (but a hard man not to like).
Cdl, Dziwisz was quite kind to me in my limited interactions with him, but it’s been apparent that he has been dining out on the John Paul II cultus for his entire episcopal career, in a manner analogous to what Weigel has been up to over here. It will be interesting to see what comes after him. One senses that, as the John Paul II days pass further into the past, his legacy will not have the staying power that many thought. A generation is emerging now that has no memory of the Solidarity glory days.
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Hi Richard,
Your analysis is a bit optimistic w/r/t the future of the Polish church.
From what I see, there are various strains within the Polish church just like any other church were Tradition has not be completely eradicated. Ireland comes to mind.
What we see in Poland is that every priest, and especially bishop is an “interpreter of the spirit of JPII”. Given the different strains, arising for the most part from the old Soviet “agent apparatus”, the “spirit/JPII” is used by what is called the “church of Wyborcza” (anti clerical post communist news paper) to create dissent within the clerical ranks. And one of he flash points is Tradition.
So the bishops are wise to tread carefully, not wanting to open up internal battles where they are not needed.
Yet, one of the unintended consequences is that this attitude allows the dishonest “ex soviet apparatchiks” in Roman collars to suppress good priests like our Fr. Pio.
That is not to say that all anti-Tradition clerics in Poland are of the above variety. Yet the threat of these folks running to “Wyborcza” and dropping the dime on any priest who wants to offer the proper mass, is threatening in itself.
The best way the Polish episcopate can go about Restoring all things back to Christ is to reintroduce Thomism back into the seminaries. It is this battle that the episcopate can will relatively easily. From what I understand, the seminarians (good majority) just love the TLM. Just like the ones in the US, UK, Germany and Ireland for that matter. If this is sold under the name of “diversity”, the Church in Poland will be reformed in one generation.
S.A.
PS I would be interested in what Fr. Pio thinks about the above.
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“The best way the Polish episcopate can go about Restoring all things back to Christ is to reintroduce Thomism back into the seminaries.”
It’s ludicrous that it has not been done yet.
But I agree – this would be a giant step in the right direction.
Along with, of course, mandatory training in the Traditional Rite. Of course, even having it as an *elective* offering (and I mean one that can be taken without lethal reaction by one’s ordinary) would be a great help.
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Yes it has not been done yet because it would be an affront to not only the legacy, but “the spirit of JPII”.
There is an old saying that those who can’t do, teach. I would paraphrase this saying to: those that don’t have the mental capacity for Thomism, do mysticism. It’s been the case in the Church ever since the scholastics came onto the scene.
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PPS I am in Poland for the holidays. I was at the SSPX chapel in Warsaw this morning for the high mass. They had a female schola that was just awesome. Not that far away from this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjDIp7oIg5o
I was impressed!!!!
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Dear S.A.
The reistance of the Church in Poland to the Soviet-enforced communist system was not as monolithic as one may tend to think. There were a few dominant camps within the Polish Episcopate which dealt with both local and national problems in various ways. After the the ecomonic and political changes in the late 1980’s and during the 1990’s to the present, the Polish bishops could be categorized by their political leanings just as in many countries of the West. The percentage of priests and bishops who actually co-operated with the objectives of the Communist regime, (in both small and significant ways, for whatever reason),, was shockingly high. And unfortunately many of these unsavoury apparatchik-type relationships have remained in place to this day.
It is primarily (in my opionion), the bishops who supported the direction of the previous ruling party, (Platform Obywatelski….recently booted out of government by general elections and directily opposed to the Roman Cathlic Church’s teachings), and their underlings who are so vehemently opposed to the TLM, since it interferes with their deconstrunctionist tendencies within the Church and society itself…a trend which has lead to much confilict within the Polish Episcopal Conference.The only thing that seems to have changed the situation somewhat and united bishops (at least publicly) was the Synod on the Family, in which most bishops saw an actually threat to the INSTITUTIONAL integrity of the Universal Church and the Church in Poland as well.( And yes….bishops and their chanceries too must eat! ) All bishops of the country signed a letter to Pope Francis upholding tradition Catholic teaching and practice concerning matters of marriage and sexual morality. But was that percieved threat to the integrity of the institutional Church enough to make converts to a return to Tradition? I think not. Most recently it was announced in the Archdiocese of Lublin, that the administration of the centuries – old Jesuit church in the city of Lublin has been given over to the Neo-catechumenal Way….in effect with no clerical oeversight.The Jesuits pulled out because of a dirth in vocations …another sign of the “new springtime” promised us by the V II crowd. When this news raised eye-brows and caused wide-spread consternation….it was added later by archdiocesan officials that a clerical administrator had been appointed to share in the duties. Well here we go again! The ecclesiological-ligturgical revolution is alive and well in Poland. Attend Sunday Mass and you will witness a plethera of “extra-ordinary ministers of the Eucharist” beoming very ordinary through heavily funded and supported diocesan training courses, as female lectors have come to dominate the presbiterium during “Liturgy of the Word”. At this rate and with secualar feminism on the rise, I predict it will not be long before they two are included in “eucharistic minister” training programs, ( open now only to men) and will be distributing Holy Communion alongside their very, very V II priests..
A return to Tradition for such bishops clerics and laity is being deflected every step of the way as an assault upon their HOMOCENTRIC world view and church.The die is cast. The only thing this wing of the Polish Church lacks …is the wide support of the faithful who seeing such rot are either leaving in droves and chosing secularism as their life – guiding ideology or filling the chaples of SS Pius X and other centers of true Catholic worship.(Most happily this includes the young some of whom are discovering their true spiritual inheritance…..TRADITION.
Sincerly yours in Christ and Mary Immaculate ..from the front lines in Poland.
Fr; Pio Kowalsk
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