Viva La Riforma!

The Raleigh, North Carolina diocese seems to be ahead of the curve in the "Reform of the Reform". Last week the pastor of a prominent parish announced that Bishop Burbidge has requested that the distribution of Holy Communion with the common cup be stopped, along with the hand shake at the kiss of peace (and that therefore both practices would be heretofore discontinued in that parish). Bravo Bishop Burbidge!

Also, on Sunday, 30 August last there was a Solemn High Traditional Mass offered at Saint Mary's Shrine in Wilmington (the first of the monthly 7PM, last Sunday of the month Traditional Masses to be offered there) at the insistence of the bishop, with his vicar general, Monsignor David Brockman, assisting, and all to the apparent chagrin of the heterodox pastor Fr. Kus. Get a glimpse here of the glorious Mass of the ages in that worthy temple of my youth.

http://www.youtube.com/user/WilmTLM#play/uploads

Couple this with the the fact of the Bishop's routine acceptance of the Traditional Mass (which, at the request of the faithful, he has had in his own Cathedral for well over a year) and his promotion of excellent seminary formation. Just notice, for instance, his almost exclusive use of Saint Charles Borromeo (all but replacing the previously heavily used and notoriously unorthodox and immoral Theological College, Washington D.C. and Saint Mary's, Baltimore). Indicative of this diocesan shift back to the Catholic faith is the vocations office photo on the diocesan home web-page (above), with all the seminarians in cassocks!

http://www.dioceseofraleigh.org/how/vocations/priest.aspx

Obviously Burbidge is one of the bishops who are attempting to adopt the mind and heart of our chief shepherd on earth, Pope Benedict XVI, in episcopal obedience to Christ, in this most necessary saving of pride in the Catholic patrimony. This much needed new movement toward loving and safeguarding and promoting the Catholic cultural patrimony as a service to Christ, to the Church and to the world shall be called the Benedictine reform of the reform, during which we are all thrilled to live!

The next step is for the bishop himself to publicly offer the traditional Mass. Maybe he is prepared to do so, after the Holy Father himself should do it! That reminds me, when will His Holiness finally grace the world again with a Solemn High Papal Mass!!! He did have the Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship offer the traditional Mass in the Papal Cathedral recently. That would surely inspire not a few of the Burbidges of the world to consider doing the same.