This is an earthquake. For two reasons:<\/p>\n
First, this is Pope Benedict\u2019s latest initiative in what is now clearly a papal policy of trying to rally the vibrant, sacramental Christian churches around the Papacy in response to the collapse of the other mainline Christian churches and the on-coming threat of jihadi Islam, especially in Europe. As such, by offering concessions in exchange for lost sheep returning to the Church and the Sacraments, the Holy Father is seeking to build up a new Christendom and to gather in the still-faithful remnants of the collapsed Protestant Churches \u201d\u201c hierarchy, clergy and laity together. The intended symbols of this new, united Christendom, in my estimation, will be the Papacy and the Mass, including the newly revived Extraordinary Rite of the Mass, which now under Benedict\u2019s motu proprio, is required to be the liturgy celebrated at all international gatherings….<\/p>\n
The second possibility is more elusive because we haven\u2019t yet seen the text of the Apostolic Constitution.<\/p>\n
Will the new structures contemplated by the Pope and his men establish a precedent for the Orthodox, Lutheran and other Christian churches which have the Mass, are hierarchically-based and sacramentally-centered, to become \u201csister churches\u201d\u009d to Rome?<\/p>\n