Dear Parishioners,

This will be my last article concerning “Ad Orientem”. Those who have read them, I believe now understand the importance of this posture. I will begin to speak about it also in my homilies, to assure that all are well informed. I know that many believe that Bishop Morlino is “off his rocker” and only he and Fr. John are concerned about “Ad Orientem”—No one else in the Catholic Church is even thinking about this. This thought is totally false. The Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Sarah, has asked all Bishops and priests of the Church to please celebrate the Mass, “Ad Orientem”. It is true that after he made this pronouncement, the Pope’s spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi did clarify afterwards that Cardinal Sarah did not have the authority to change the G.I.R.M. (General Instruction of the Roman Missal) on his own, and that wasn’t his intention. Cardinal Sarah was just trying to teach the faithful and make known the answer given to Cardinal Schornborn’s query, in which it is stated that both forms are legitimate (ad populum and ad orientem) but tradition, architecture, and the true meaning of the Mass are certainly on the side of “Ad Orientem”. Pope Francis has not contradicted anything that St. John Paul II or Pope Emeritus Benedict have established concerning this. If you read the following article online, you will see that it is the right of any priest to celebrate “Ad Orientem”. How to Popularize ‘Ad Orientem’ Without Disorienting People

Within this article, there is an imbedded video which can be reached directly through the following address on You Tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CWgpwZzeFI. I encourage everyone to be open minded, tolerant, and progressive enough to read this article and watch this video. My final point concerning “Ad Orientem”, and this is well founded in Chapter 3 of Pope Benedict’s book “Spirit of Theology”, is the openness to the Supernatural. When we are facing each other at Mass, I, the Priest, facing you, and you the lay person facing me, and in some churches each other; we are in a horizontal and closed communications loop, the vertical outreach to the infinite and supernatural of God is shut down. The Mass, which by design, is our encounter with the infinite and good God, becomes focused on you and me. God is pushed out, at first figuratively, but then even physically. How many churches after years of “Ad Populum” removed their tabernacles from the church, and their crucifixes, even statues and kneelers—anything that directs us toward God and the Supernatural. You know the tree by its fruits. The “Ad Populum” posture has played a definite role in the condition of decline that the Church finds itself in today.