FOCOLARE - HOMOPHOBIC CATHOLIC MOVEMENT, INCLUDING FOUNDER CHIARA LUBICH - SETS UP GAY BRANCH

 

Copyright Gordon Urquhart/Kalamos.org 2023, from Man4Man1 production, 1993 

One of the most homophobic movements in the Catholic Church and indeed within the Christian Right as a whole, the Focolare Movement, has made a startling U-turn and 14-16 October 2022  held its first conference at its Centro Mariapoli outside Rome, purportedly ‘in support’ of the parents of LGBTQ people and even LGBTQ people themselves.  They have called this new ‘branch’ ‘No One Alone’.  

Gordon Urquhart left the Focolare Movement, of which he had been a fulltime internal member for nine years, because of the brutal tactics they tried to impose upon him as a young gay man. Seventeen years later he wrote the best-selling The Pope’s Armada (Bantam Books, London, 1995, Prometheus Books, USA, 1999 - also editions in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Brazil), the first book to denounce the Focolare Movement and other Catholic groups as cult-like,  

‘I first came out to the leaders of the Movement when I was eighteen,’ says Urquhart.  ‘Eventually they tried to force on me three ‘solutions’: conversion therapy, an arranged marriage and chemical castration.  There was no choice.  They had sent me to a well-known Catholic psychiatrist in the UK who orchestrated ‘conversions’ and had even started preparations for the arranged marriage - carried out at arm’s length by the leaders themselves.  The Movement imposes blind obedience - although they describe it as ‘unity’ - on internal members.  I knew that if I did not leave, I would be destroyed.’

The Focolare Movement considers itself to be the largest single movement in the Catholic Church, present in over 180 countries with a claimed total membership of 2 million, including lay people, priests, bishops and cardinals.  The founder, Chiara Lubich (1920-2008),  an Italian primary school teacher,  was idolised by Pope John Paul II who praised her ‘female genius’.  Focolare’s status as an approved Catholic movement has given it great influence in politics and international institutions such as the UN, the EU and the Council of Europe, as well as in the Church.

In view of the Focolare Movement’s decades of extreme and ever-worsening abuse of gay members, their apparent change of policy is inexplicable and deeply worrying.  ‘How can proven homophobes claim to offer genuine help and support to LGBTQ people,’ asks Urquhart, pointing out that the Focolare Movement has longer been a practitioner of Historical Negationism, obliterating or even falsifying negative aspects of its past, so that the public is presented with a wholly hagiographic account of its history.  A typical example of this was a dramatised bio-pic of Focolare founder Chiara Lubich Love Conquers All produced by the leading Italian TV station RAI UNO last year, with Lubich played by glamorous Italian actress Cristiana Capotondi, who can currently be seen in The Ignorant Angels on the Disney Channel, ironically on the subject of a woman who discovers that her dead husband was bisexual.

Lubich herself who has just cleared the first stage of the Catholic Church’s canonisation process and is now officially a ‘Servant of God’, was rabidly anti-gay.

‘A close friend of mine - let’s call him Valentin - who was an internal member of the Focolare Movement with vows, once told Chiara Lubich in a private conversation that he was gay,’ says Gordon Urquhart,’ “That’s fine as long as you resist the temptation,” she told him: “but I would prefer you to be knocked  down by a truck than ever perform a homosexual act.”  In other words, here was a woman who thought that it was better to be dead than be a homosexual.’ 

Later Valentin was subjected to an experimental ‘sleep’ conversion ‘cure’ whereby he would take sleeping pills at night, wake up in the morning and take more pills to sleep all day.  Needless to say, the ‘cure’ didn’t work,  but induced more distress and confusion.  Valentin left the movement but stayed in therapy for thirty years.  In the mid-eighties, a leading priest-member of Focolare told him that promiscuous sex could be forgiven, but if he formed a relationship with another man, this would make his sin ‘permanent’.  Shortly after, Valentin tested as HIV positive.

‘Valentin’s experiences helped me decide to leave Focolare,’ says Urquhart, ‘because I didn’t want to go down the same path.  Nevertheless, even after I left the Movement, I was still pretty brain-washed and I did follow their suggestion and marry.  Ir was not until almost ten years later that I started to live openly as a gay man.’

Urquhart believes that Focolare’s treatment of homosexuals got worse over the years, following his departure.  ‘One reader of The Pope’s Armada, Carlos, sent me the dossier of his successful application for asylum in the US around 2000, on the basis of ‘religious persecution’ by the Focolare Movement because of his gayness,’ he recalls.  ‘Even though this young man was leading a celibate life, and he had been a trusted member of the Movement for many years, when he confided to his Focolare leader that he was gay, he was treated appallingly. He was packed off to the centre of the movement in Rome and he suddenly found himself before a kind of kangaroo court of ‘expert’ leaders of the movement who subjected him to an interrogation on his sexual feelings, even asking him, “Does Christ come into your sexual fantasies?” ’  As well as being a  violation of human rights, this action is contrary to the canon law of the Catholic church because it represents ‘enforced manifestation of conscience’ - an 'enforced' confession, without the usual seal - and a confusion between the 'inner forum' and the 'outer forum', that is, between the leadership and those performing pastoral care, which must be confidential. This combining of the two is banned in the Catholic Church.

Once the committee had decided that Carlos was irredeemably gay, he was given a one-way ticket to his very homophobic central-American country and family - whom the movement had already informed about why Carlos was being expelled.  He was ordered to tell his Focolare colleagues that he was leaving because his mother was sick, and had to endure the torture of being offered comfort and reassurance while knowing that he hed been booted out.

‘I would compare Focolare’s current pro-gay U-turn to a commandant from a Nazi death-camps,  arriving in South America, setting up a synagogue and calling himself a Rabbi,’ says author Gordon Urquhart: ‘it’s that absurd.  What we are really looking for are the Nuremberg Trials and Denazification.  True repentance begins with admitting your past offences and making amends.  On the subject of abuse, Pope Francis has recently said that, when it happens in the Church, “the Church must ask forgiveness is not enough.” But Focolare has not asked for forgiveness in the case of the many lives of LGBTQ people it has damaged or utterly destroyed. It has made no attempt to face its past history as leading homophobes and opponents of the human rights of LGBTQ people.  Once again, Historical Negationism.’

 

‘I see this as a coverup and a cynical attempt to curry favour with the more open policies of Pope Francis,’ says Urquhart.  ‘The name of the new ‘association’, ‘No One Alone’ is taken from the writings of Chiara Lubich who said “We should leave no one alone”.  To me this is white-washing her actual homophobia.  Besides, the way of thinking behind this approach is dated and out-of-touch: who says LGBTQ people are alone in this day and age? And the last place they should be looking for company is with Focolare.  This is a method of not just ignoring their past but hiding it.  I have evidence that they are deliberately contacting ex-LGBTQ members in order to shut them up.  But Pope Francis says "The Church must not try to hide the tragedy of abuse of whatever kind".'

Recently, former LGBTQ members - excluded because of their sexual orientation - tried to establish relations with the focolarini. One received an apparently sympathetic reaction from former president Maria Voce (president 2008- 2021). She advised him to get in touch with a certain focolarino. To the dismay of this young gay man, the person indicated by Maria Voce wanted to put him through conversion therapy. 'It is becoming clearer and clearer,' says Urquahrt, 'that the solution to the various types of abuse that have been practised in the church in recent years cannot be 'in house', that is, under the control of those the abusers represent. As Antoine Garapon, chosen by the Conference of Clergy and Religious of France to head a completely independent commission to bring justice to the sexually abused by the clergy, said, "The problem of the church has been the attempt to play all roles: to be close to the victims, to be the institution of the perpetrators and at the same time to do justice. It is necessary to involve an independent third party to do justice." In my opinion, this new 'Nobody is Alone' branch is an attempt by the focolarini to make themselves look good to Pope Francis who would no doubt be repulsed by their treatment of LGBTQ people so far, without accounting for the past. The focolarini would do anything to avoid Vatican-imposed control - like an Apostolic Visitor - despite countless abuses of members and their questionable teachings.'

What response would Urquhart like to see to Focolare’s homophobic past?

‘Certainly not running conferences to demonstrate their new found sympathy to the people they have persecuted for decades,’ Urquhart responds.  ‘I see that as extremely dangerous and frankly fake.  Focolare has been notoriously poor in responding to many other abuses in the movement such as sexual abuse of minors, also deliberately concealed, modern slavery, arranged marriages, hidden suicides.  As a victim of Focolare’s devastating methods, and, even more, deeply anxious about others who have suffered worse than I have, I think that in this case, the only valid action that president Margaret Karram and co-president Jesus Moran can take is to get down on their knees before their many LGBTQ victims and beg forgiveness and in some cases offer financial compensation.  But anything more than that would be absurd.   Focolare is the last organisation that gay people should approach for genuine support or understanding.’

Email: congregavit@gmail.com

Gordon Uquhart:

00 44 7873 592 585

popesarmada25.blogspot.com

OREF - ORganization Ex Focolare:

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=oref_organizzazione%20ex%20focolari

FOCOLARE MOVEMENT PRESS OFFICE

Via di Frascati, 306

Rocca di Papa (RM)

Italia – 00040

Tel.  00 39 / 06 947 989    

La messa cattolica: un atto di culto comunitario, uno spettacolo o un rito misterico gnostico?

Un gruppoo tenace e bellicoso di cattolici tradizionalisti va su tutte le furie contro gli ultimi documenti di Papa Francesco sentendosi privati di ciò che ritengono essenziale per loro come cattolici e cristiani: la messa pre-conciliare in latino.  In risposta, ci si potrebbe chiedere perché dovremmo volere che il nostro culto sia in una lingua che la stragrande maggioranza del mondo non capisce - e nessuno parla.  

Ho vissuto le riforme del Concilio Vaticano II.  Ho imparato il latino a scuola e l'ho trovato uno strumento estremamente prezioso per la linguistica, sia nel caso dell'inglese che per le lingue romanze e molte altre.  Soprattutto, ne amo il peso, la precisione, la concisione.  Come aspirante chierichetto, ho iniziato a imparare le risposte della messa in latino all'età di sei anni, anche se non ho potuto iniziare a servire sull'altare prima dei sette anni e della prima comunione.  Un chierichetto più grande veniva a casa nostra e mi insegnava le risposte a memoria.  Non mi veniva mai suggerito di capire cosa significassero, ma solo di ripeterle a pappagallo.  Questa era la cultura della messa in latino. Io l’ho vissuta ed è una iullusione suggerire il contrario e che l'epoca pre-conciliare fosse caratterizzata da una maggiore devozione.  Molti frequentatori della messa, per esempio, recitavano il rosario più e più volte o guardavano i santini nei loro messali mentre la messa procedeva allegramente tra il sacerdote e i servitori dell'altare - tutti con le spalle alla congregazione.   La congregazione era separata dalla celebrazione della messa e fra loro.

Quando, anni dopo, ho imparato a parlare l'italiano, ho ripassato per la mente le risposte in latino (che conosco ancora a memoria) e, per la prima volta, ho capito il loro bellissimo significato.  Ma la messa in vernacolo è un culto comunitario significativo - per me, il collegamento definitivo tra i fedeli e il divino, sia spiritualmente che fisicamente. 

Penso che uno dei grandi errori nella controversia sulla messa in latino sia che coloro che vi sono così attaccati non riescono a vedere che l'attaccamento - come il mio amore duraturo pure per il latino della chiesa e quello profano - è principalmente, o puramente estetico.  Se si vuole una grande esperienza estetica, perché non mettere in scena ogni domenica la Missa Solemnis di Beethoven o una messa di Schubert?  In realtà, la Chiesa - anche prima del Concilio - non ha mai dato il permesso di celebrare liturgicamente le messe da concerto.  Possono essere un'esperienza spirituale?  Certamente.   Ascoltare una sinfonia di Mahler può essere un'esperienza spirituale travolgente.  Sentire Judy Garland cantare It Never was You (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQlwINqlHFE) di Kurt Weill è un'esperienza spirituale.  Ma nel culto comunitario, l'estetica è una distrazione da ciò che conta davvero.    La riforma liturgica (iniziata molto prima del Concilio Vaticano II, in particolare sotto Pio XII, che oggi non è considerato un innovatore) riguarda il culto comunitario e il fatto di renderlo più genuino e significativo per tutti i partecipanti - e quindi più sincero.  Si tratta di comunicare tra noi e con Dio.  Perché scegliere una lingua morta per farlo?   

Un'illustrazione molto chiara di questa confusione è il fatto che uno dei più vistosi contestatori del passaggio al vernacolo alla fine degli anni Sessanta era Leonard Bernstein, che amava tanto la messa in latino come linguaggio di compositori e opere d'arte gloriose come quelle di Beethoven, Bach, Mozart e Verdi.  La sua preoccupazione era puramente estetica.  Non era un cattolico, anche se forse era anche affascinato dagli aspetti esteriori del cattolicesimo, quelli che i miei amici anglicani chiamano "odori e campane".  Quindi la sua preoccupazione principale non era certo quanto la messa fosse adatta come forma di culto comunitario per i cattolici di tutto il mondo. È interessante, tuttavia, che quando Bernstein fu incaricato da Jackie Kennedy-Onassis di scrivere la sua Messa in memoria di John Kennedy, questa era estremamente contemporanea, principalmente in inglese, vicina nello stile a uno dei suoi musical di Broadway, perché il suo obiettivo era la comunicazione.  

Uno dei motivi per cui i Vangeli, gli Atti degli Apostoli e le epistole sono ancora così reali (probabilmente più per coloro la cui sensibilità non è stata offuscata da un'eccessiva esposizione in contesti come la scuola e la chiesa e che non hanno fatto alcun tentativo di valutarli di nuovo da adulti) è la loro assoluta semplicità.  Gesù è stato uno dei più grandi comunicatori del mondo.  Parlava in modo semplice a persone semplici.  Era anche uno dei grandi narratori della letteratura, che usava il potere unico della narrazione per trasmettere idee (e la narrazione sarà sempre sicuramente uno dei capisaldi dell’essere umano)  .  Uno degli aspetti più sorprendenti dei suoi insegnamenti è l'incredibile conoscenza dell'umanità che li pervade, la comprensione delle motivazioni umane, sia buone che cattive.  Mi vengono spesso in mente nella vita quotidiana quelle osservazioni evangeliche molto pratiche sul modo in cui le persone si comportano.  Sono ancora validissime.  

Questa schiettezza, questa voglia di comunicare, si nota anche nel modo in cui è scritto il Nuovo Testamento.  C.S. Lewis ha fatto notare - ed è importante ricordare che la sua professione principale era quella di professore di letteratura inglese a Oxford - che se i vangeli sono falsi, è sconcertante come quattro persone diverse nel primo secolo d.C. abbiano in qualche modo acquisito le competenze del romanzo moderno che sarebbero emerse solo in altri quasi 2.000 anni dopo.   Che cosa c'è di più semplice e diretto della storia della Passione di Gesù?  Con il suo complesso, ma preciso riflesso della politica dei tempi; la sua commovente storia di odio verso una persona che si è distinta per la sua povertà, tenerezza, compassione e rifiuto del potere; le orribili sofferenze fisiche e spirituali che culminano in una delle forme di esecuzione più dolorose e umilianti mai escogitate dall'umanità - ma alla fine una forza spirituale sconvolgente, che, che siate credenti o meno, si è dimostrata più forte della morte. 

L'antica eresia dello gnosticismo, o manicheismo, continua a rialzare la testa nelle chiese cristiane, secolo dopo secolo: l'idea che la conoscenza segreta di misteri nascosti sia più importante del vivere il messaggio d'amore del Vangelo.  Questo approccio ha origine in pratiche precristiane come i misteri eleusini dell'antica Grecia, con cerimonie tenute così segrete che oggi non ne rimane traccia.  L'ho sottolineato 30 anni fa nel mio libro L'armata del Papa, in cui esponevo le pratiche gnostiche dei cosiddetti "nuovi movimenti" nella Chiesa cattolica.  Sono rimasto sorpreso nello scoprire che proprio questo argomento è diventato una delle principali preoccupazioni di Papa Francesco (https://popesarmada25.blogspot.com/2021/03/catholic-gnosticism-according-to-pope.html).  Una delle ansiei di Francesco è che lo "gnosticismo contemporaneo" faccia sentire le persone "speciali", diverse, migliori degli altri.   Temo che questo sia un elemento dell'aggrapparsi alla messa in latino - in una lingua che nessun altro capisce e con rituali che nessuno può vedere.  Penso che questo senso di "mistero" che le persone sembrano trovare nella messa in latino sia pericoloso e possa portare a perdere completamente l'essenza del cristianesimo e della messa: l'amore e la comunicazione nella sua forma più diretta e semplice.   L'odio e l'amarezza, anche nei confronti di Papa Francesco stesso, che trovo nelle parole dei bellicosi sostenitori della messa latina - compresi vescovi e cardinali - non esprimono certo l’amore.

Il mondo, e non solo i cattolici, ha più che mai bisogno del messaggio d'amore del Vangelo, assolutamente semplice ed essenziale, verso il quale la messa in lingua volgare, con tutte le difficoltà pratiche che ha dovuto superare, si sta impegnando.  Questa è stata la decisione del Concilio Vaticano II nel tentativo di ritornare alla semplicità del Vangelo, il rinnovamento previsto da Papa Giovanni XXIII, il vero grande Papa del XX secolo.  Tutto il resto è una deviazione verso il nulla.  Tutto deve iniziare e finire con la semplicità del Vangelo, di Gesù.  

Katholic Kitsch vs life and death?

Tempertures are running high among those who feel that Pope Francis' recent documents are robbing them of what they feel is an essential as Catholics and Christians - the traditional Latin mass.  One might respond to this conviction by asking, 'Why would we want our Catholic (Catholic=universal) worship to be in a language that the vast majority of the world doesn't understand and no one speaks?'  To fight for this and to feel that it is an essential part of a religion that expressly desires inculturation and unity seems almost perverse.

But this trend is not so strange when one observes how snugly it fits into a widespread cultural phenomenon in Western society - the taste for 'retro'.  Steampunk is huge;  pseudo-historical fantasy has gone global with Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings.  But the majority of those who follow the fashion of what can only be seen as Catholic Kitsch (or perhaps Katholic Kitsch) - what Anglican friends of mine call 'smells and bells' - are young enough - and some very young - not to have lived through the great changes that brought about the Second Vatican Council.  

I, on the other hand, lived through the reforms of Vatican II.  I was twelve when it began.  From the time of the Counter Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church had enclosed itself in an ivory tower.  To some, of course, that appealed, but, of course, it certainly was not what Jesus had intended for his followers.  The intention of Pope John XXIII - the truly great pope of the twentieth century (listen on Youtube  to his 'moon speech' on the opening evening of the Council) was to throw open the windows of the Church.  And the achievement of this - which was a two-way process, - made Vatican II not just a climactic event in the Catholic Church but also the world.  Suddenly the Catholic Church which had seemded absurdly old-fashioned, even quaint, became a massive force for good, speaking a language - not only in the mass - but in the documents of the Council that the 'world' could understand. 

I learned Latin at school and found it an extremely valuable tool in linguistics - whether in the case of English, Romance languages and many other languages.  I love its weight, and its amazing concision and precision.   As an aspiring altar boy, I started to learn the responses for the Latin mass when I was six, although I couldn't actually start serving on the altar until I was seven and had made my first communion.  An older altar boy would come to our home and teach me the responses by heart.  There was no suggestion that I should understand what they meant, all that was expected was that I could repeat them parrot-fashion.  This was the ethos of the Latin mass in the fifties and early sixties. I was there and it's an illusion, in fact a case of historical negationism, to suggest otherwise or depict the pre-Council era as one of greater devotion.  Many mass-goers, for instance, would say the rosary over and over again - or look through the holy pictures in their missals, or read from their prayer-books - while the mass proceeded on its merry way between the priest and the altar servers - all with their backs to the congregation.   The congregation was separate from the celebration of the mass and from each other.  Catholic edcuctaion and practice was also pervaded by much superstition, with angels and saints given more prominence than Jesus and the essential gospel message.  At primary school we were told apocryphal stories, passed off as the truth, that priests were greater than angels.  Absolute nonsense that had nothing to do with the gospel messag.  

When, years later, I became fluent in Italian, I would run over the Latin responses (which I still knew - and know - by heart) and, for the first time, understand their beautiful significance.  But mass in the vernacular is meaningful communal worship - for me, the ultimate connection between the faithful and the divine, both spiritually and physically. 

I think that one of the big mistakes in the controversy over the Latin mass is that those who are so attached to it, fail to see that the attachment - like my own  enduring love for church Latin and secular Latin - is purely, or mainly aesthetic.  If you want a great aesthetic experience, why not stage Beethoven's Missa Solemnis or a Schubert mass every Sunday?  In fact, the church - even before the Council - never gaver permission for concert masses to be celebrated liturgically.  Could they be a spiritual experience?  Of course.  Listening to a Mahler symphony can be an overwhelming spiritual experience.  Hearing Judy Garland sing It Never was You (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQlwINqlHFE) by Kurt Weill is a spiritual experience, at least for some of us.  But in communal worship, the aesthetics are a distraction from what really matters.    Liturgical reform (which began long before the Second Vatican Council, particularly under Pius XII, not now thought of as an innovator) is about communal worship and making it as genuine and meaningful to all those participating - and therefore more sincere.  

A very clear illustration of this confusion is the fact that one of the most prominent protesters against the move to the vernacular in the late 1960s was Leonard Bernsteion who so loved the Latin mass as the language of composers and glorious works of art such as those of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Verdi.  His concern was purely aesthetic.  He wasn't a Catholic although he may well have also been captivated by the externals of Catholicism, its symbolism and ritual.  So his main concern certainly wasn't with how suitable the mass was as a form of worship for Catholics throughout the world. It's interesting, however, that when Bernstein was commissioned by Jackie Kennedy-Onassis to write his celebrated Mass in memeory of John Kennedy, it was extremely contemporary, mainly in English and close in style to one of his Broadway musicals, because his aim was communication.  

One of the reasons the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and epistles are still so real (probably more so to those whose sensitivities have not been dulled by over-exposure to them in contexts such as school and church and who have made no attempt to appraise them afresh as adults) is their utter simplicity.  Jesus was one of the world's greatest communicators.  He spoke simply to simple people.  He was also one of literature's great story-tellers, using the unique power of narrative to convey ideas (a power which will surely always remain one of the conerstones of being human).  It's enough to think of the many works in the arts representing or inspired by one of the parables - the good Samaritan, the prodigal son.  One of the most striking aspects of Jesus teachings is the incredible insight into the human condition that pervades them - the understanding of human motivation, both good and bad.  I am often reminded of those very practical observations in my everyday life, observing how people behave.  They still hold good.  

This directness, this urge to communicate, can also be seen in the way the New Testament is written.  C.S. Lewis pointed out - and it's important to remember that his main profession was as Professor of English Literature at Oxford and, later, Cambridge - that if the gospels are fakes, it's puzzling how four different people in the first century A.D. somehow acquired the skills of modern novel-wrting that were only to emerge in others almost 2,000 years later.   What could be more simple and direct than the story of the Passion of Jesus?  It blends with stark realism, a complex, but precise reflection of the politics of the times in Judea; a savage story of hatred aimed at a person who was marked by his poverty, tenderness, compassion and rejection of power; horrific physical and spirtual suffering culminaring in one of the most painful and humiliating forms of execution ever devised by mankind -  but ultimately revealing a shattering spiritual strength, which, whether or not you are a believer, proved to be stronger than death. 

The age-old heresy of Gnosticism, or Manicheeism, keeps on raising its head in Christianity, century after century - the concept that secret knowledge of hidden mysteries is more important than living the gospel message of love.  This approach has its origins in pre-Christian practices such as the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece, with its ceremonies which were kept so sceret that no record of them remains.  I pointed this out 30 years ago in my book The Pope's Armada in which I exposed in some detail the gnostic practices of so-called 'new movements' in the Catholic Church.  I was amazed to discover quite recently that this very subject has become one of Pope Francis' main concerns, referred to in many of his documents and speeches (https://popesarmada25.blogspot.com/2021/03/catholic-gnosticism-according-to-pope.html).   Francis' warns that 'contemporary gnosticism' makes people feel that they are 'special', different - better than others.  I fear that this is an element of clinging to the Latin mass - in a language no else understands, performing rituals no one can see.  I think this sense of 'mystery' that people seem to find in the Latin mass is dangerous and can lead to completely missing the essence of what Christianity and the mass is about:  love and communication in its most direct and simple form.   The hatred and bitterness, even towards Pope Francis himself, that I find in the words of belligerent Latin-mass supporters - including bishops and Cardinals - certainly don't express that.

More than ever, the world, and not just Catholics, need the gospel's utterly simple, essential message of love which the vernacular mass, with all the practical difficuities it has had to surmount, is striving towards.  This was the decision of the Second Vatican Council in its attempt to return to the simplicity of the gospel, the renewal that Pope John XXIII envisaged.  Anything else is a detour to nowhere.  Everything must start and finish, with the simplicity of the gospel and Jesus.