Something Beautiful in Albany: Mass in the Extraordinary Form—UPDATED

This popped up on the Facebook page for the Diocese of Albany, and it’s worth noting:

Solemn High Mass in the Presence of the Ordinary to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of The Extraordinary Form in the Albany Diocese. Both Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger and Bishop Emeritus Howard Hubbard concelebrated.

The Mass took place at St. Mary’s Church in Albany.

A few people have noted that there is no “concelebration” in the Extraordinary Form. It appears, however, that Bishop Scharfenberger and Bishop Emeritus Hubbard both took part.

See more pictures here. 

UPDATE: Fr. Z has additional background — and a rant — here. 

Father Zed credits the “concelebration” error to yours truly. N.B.: I was passing on a direct quote from the Diocese of Albany website, which I quickly clarified.

Nonetheless, his point:

Allow me to riff a little on the “concelebration” thing for a moment.

What Deacon Kandra get a little wrong here is that, there was NOT concelebration in the modern, common usage of the word. What happened was Solemn Mass in the presence of the Diocesan Bishop.  A priest said the Mass and bishops were present.  In this case the variant was that the bishop, the diocesan ordinary, participated in cope and miter. There are also provisions for the bishop to be in cappa magna.

…Professionals are expected to know the tools of their trade, basic and advanced. Priests are to know the Rites of their Church. The Roman Rite is more than the Novus Ordo, in English, “facing the people” with a four-(Protestant) hymn sandwich to the accompaniment of a piano.   It’s a great deal more than that.   Just because “that’s what we do every weekend done at St. Idealia” in the Diocese of Libville under Fr Bruce Hugalot , and the actual Roman Rite doesn’t seem to be very useful there, that doesn’t exonerate clerics from learning their Rite!   There is also the issue of identity and integrity.

WE ARE OUR RITES.

That goes for Catholics in the pews and clerics at the altar.  We are our rites.  And if you don’t know and never experience half your Rite – nay, rather far more than a mere half – the… who the heck are you?

C’mon, men!  Learn your Roman Rite!