Father Keane Suspended
The June 6,1980 issue of The Pilot (Boston) announced that Cardinal Medeiros had suspended Father John Keane. There can be no doubt that the principal reason for this is that Father Keane continues to say the Mass which he was ordained to say, and that his fidelity to Catholic tradition has been attracting increasing numbers to his three chapels. The Cardinal announced that he had taken his decision "with a heart full of sadness." His Eminence must now be much sadder and hopefully wiser as the only practical effect of the suspension has been to attract many more Catholics to Father Keane's Masses. In the face of the liturgical anarchy prevailing in the Catholic Church in America, the suspension of a priest for continuing to celebrate the traditional Mass most certainly constitutes an abuse of power and Father Keane merits the gratitude and the prayers of all our readers for his courageous decision not to submit to it. He has decided to remain faithful to the Mass of his ordination and to the hundreds of Catholics who have relied upon him to celebrate it for them. The anomaly of Father's suspension within the present context of liturgical anarchy has not been lost even upon the secular press. We reprint here an editorial which appeared in the July 1980 issue of The South Boston Marshall, a secular newspaper, together with an article in defense of Father Keane which appeared in the same issue. In addition to this we have reproduced an article from the February 3, 1980 issue of the Boston Sunday Globe which gives the background to Father Keane's apostolate.
Father KeanE's Ministry To Please God
By FRANCIS J. SCOTT
The suspension of Father John J. Keane is without any real effect but to those who love and support him it is a singular honor resolved to those priests who will not compromise the faith. As Father Keane explains what the Cardinal suspends, "is the right of recognition of what I do." And what does Father Keane do? He does what he was ordained to do, what every priest before the Post-Vatican II Reformation has done and has promised to do under pain of sin and for which he promised obedience to the bishop. He never promised, nor could he promise to follow the new church, its new Mass, new sacraments and new catechism.
The suspension forbids him from saying the New Mass and all its attending effects but his oath against Modernism and his Profession of Faith made at the time of his ordination already forbids those things.
Father Keane is charged with disobedience, but is he really disobedient? The first thing one must realize is that no Catholic can hold, either as an article of faith, or as a basis for a rational personal opinion, that the bishop or even the Pope is incapable of error. Every human being has an intellect and a will. The intellect can be in error and the will can lead one to sin. However, it is true that when the Pope makes a solemn pronouncement or ex cathedra pronouncement (which he rarely does), he is protected from error.
Several authorities in the Church teach that one does not have to obey the Pope in all circumstances. I will quote just one to make my point. In his great work, De Fide, Suarez makes it clear that, "If the Pope lays down an order contrary to right custom, one does not have to obey him." The right customs for the Mass and the sacraments have been codified by the dogmatic Councils, especially the great Council of Trent. Following th Council Pope St. Pius promulgated, in perpetuity, the right custom for Holy Mass and guaranteed in his Bull Quo Primum that no priest would ever be obliged to say Mass any other way than as prescribed in the Roman Missal (also known as the Tridentine Mass). The Mass celebrated by Father Keane is the right custom and any censure or suspension for doing so has absolutely no effect. This good and faithful priest has established chapels out of practical necessity as he has been denied the use of Church property to do what the Church teaches.
We who have remained faithful to the One Church founded by Christ; faithful to the traditions established by Christ, by the Apostles, by the Church Fathers, by the great Councils, and by the saints and Popes; it is we who are in obedience. It is those who seek some new kind of unity who are professed innovators, who teach us to break our habitual attachment...to the unchangeable traditions of the Church who are in disobedience. How could God, in whom there is no "self-contradiction", ever ask us to obey an order that requires us to abandon His Spouse, the Church. It is rather those who have abandoned the ship, the Bark of Peter—even though it would seem that they do so with the approval of the "captain"—who are in disobedience. Those of us who have been given the grace to stay aboard can truly say with St. Augustine: "What they (the Church Fathers) believed, I believe; what they held, I hold; what they taught, I teach; what they preached, I preach; and what they obeyed, I obey!"
Such a statement no one who has accepted the spirit and teaching of the new Church can proclaim. Instead of condemning Father Keane they should profit by his example when he says with St. Peter Damian, "More than the Lord Pope, I wish to please the Pope's Lord."
|
Editorial On Father John J. KeaneReverend Father John J. Keane, Pastor of St. Roger & St. Mary Chapel in West Roxbury as well as chapels in Lawrence and Scituate was suspended last month by Humberto Cardinal Medeiros for what the Cardinal called disobedience. Cardinal Medeiros cites Father Keane's refusal to desist from offering the Mass in Latin, refusal to use the modern day missal, refusal to stop conferring sacraments, refusal to accept a parish assignment as criteria for this suspension. As Father Keane explains. "What the Cardinal has suspended is his right of recognition of what I do." Father Keane is a Traditionalist Roman Catholic priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the old style Tridentine Latin form. He has vowed to uphold the law of the church and of God and to keep his solemn ordination vows which did not include the present day trend toward Modernism so prevalent in many of our churches today. He is a priestly man dedicated fully to God and the salvation of souls. His love of the priesthood and all it entails, to which he was called by God, is exemplary. In his three chapels, at all Masses, novenas and celebration of the sacraments you will find overflow capacity. And those in his congregations are full of love and respect for him and his dedication to his vocation. You will see this for yourself on the letters to the editor page of this edition. There you will find a genuine outpouring of love and support for Father Keane from those who know him best ... his congregation. In Holy Scripture, Psalm 109, verse 4 it is stated. "The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent: 'You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedec."' Contained in Psalm 118 verse 105-112 is praise of God's Law, which is applicable in Father Keane's case:
|
|
Update / By James Slack Hope for Latin Mass The ban on the Latin Mass in the Archdiocese of Boston came in December 1971, ending a transition period of nearly two years during which Catholics had been introduced to the English liturgy authorized earlier by the Second Vatican Council. Worship habits that trace their beginnings to childhood are not cast aside easily. In Boston as elsewhere, the official scrapping of the Latin rite triggered among some Catholics a dissent ranging from spirited grumbling to open revolt. Rev. John J. Keane, then assigned to St. Rita's parish in Lowell, became a symbol of that revolt, risking suspension of his priestly faculties for his stubborn refusal to obey the decree handed down by Humberto Cardinal Medeiros. In time, Fr. Keane found himself without an assignment and, in October 1973, he established in West Roxbury his Sts. Roger and Mary Chapel to provide a worship place for Catholics who shared his determination to resist what they had come to regard as the malice of change. It seemed a fragile undertaking but quietly, over the years, Fr. Keane's following has grown enough to warrant the founding of St. Patrick's Chapel in Scituate, which is open during the summer months, and St. John the Baptist Chapel in Lawrence, where a Latin Mass is offered every Sunday. "We started out with about 150 persons," Fr. Keane said. "Now we have 650 in West Roxbury alone, another 200 in Lawrence and, during the summer season, at least 100 in Scituate." Fr. Keane said the other day that, for more than six years, his on-again-off-again dialogue with diocesan officials has been marked often by tension, even antagonism, but this is changing. "I think it's the spirit of John Paul II, filtering down through the levels of the church, that is causing the shift in attitudes," he said. "The Holy Father has said that, clearly, there is room for the Latin Mass in the church."
|
Current Issue
