Mystery Solved

If Rorate Caeli had just bothered to look outside its epistemic closure bubble for ten seconds, it would not have been difficult to understand why Bp. Olsen told the embittered malcontent running Fisher-More why he couldn’t celebrate the EF. Here’s what Universae Ecclesiae, an instruction from the Church on this matter actually says:

19. The faithful who ask for the celebration of the forma extraordinaria must not in any way support or belong to groups which show themselves to be against the validity or legitimacy of the Holy Mass or the Sacraments celebrated in the forma ordinaria or against the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church.

And here’s what Dr. Taylor Marshall describes the Administration doing at Fisher-More:

FMC hosted a public repudiation of Vatican 2 and the Ordinary Form of the Mass in April of 2013 that was so offensive that my wife and I walked out of it before it’s conclusion. That did not do much to heal the breach with the local diocese or presbyterate and it contributed to the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) discontinuing their support and presence at FMC. The current FMC website advertises that the FSSP provides a chaplain, but this is not true.

At the same time, Michael King estranged himself from the diocese of Fort Worth by not allowing the Ordinary Form (as stipulated by the previous ordinary Bishop Vann of Fort Worth). He also contracted an irregular/suspended priest without faculties, and hired “trad resistance” faculty while there was no bishop in Fort Worth to check these developments. Mr. King was able to create a community in his image (he affectionately referred to himself the “father” of this community) during the episcopal inter-regnum of the diocese of Fort Worth.

Clearly, a bishop’s intervention was inevitable. The current controversy really has nothing to do with the Latin Mass per se. The Latin Mass is at the center because Michael King is politicizing the Latin Mass in his favor, knowing that “bishops vs the Latin Mass” is red meat for some traditionalist blogs.

There’s your problem right there. (A problem anybody but a blind man could see when King was hosting loons like Fr. Nicholas Gruner.) Deploying the EF as an assault weapon against a Council of Holy Church and using it to blaspheme the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the OF is directly contrary to Summorum Pontificum. Directly. Contrary. The bishop was not only within his rights to act, but he did exactly the right thing and would have been wrong not to act.

But wherever shall students go to participate in the EF? Oh, I don’t know. How about up the road two miles where the EF is offered with the approval of the bishop, who turns out not to be the persecuting monster Rorate Caeli and their sycophants shriek that he is. I walk that on any given day.

One would think that after this ridiculous spectacle and the stupidity of declaring Francis “The HORROR!” within minutes of his election–all on the word of some Argentinian Holocaust-Denying nutjob–no one would ever take Rorate Caeli seriously again. But the pride and arrogance of the Reactionary is resiliently unteachable. They may be massively wrong and deeply destructive of the Church and of innocent people, but like Buzz Lightyear, they are always sure. It goes with being the bestest, purest, most awesome and perfect Catholics on the planet.

Reactionaries perpetually complain about “do nothing bishops who do not protect the Church from its enemies.” Behold! Your prayers are answered, boys. You have a good and courageous shepherd who has weathered the brickbats of the Church’s enemies in order to do the right thing. Thank you, Bishop Olson.