WANTED: ONE PRIEST IN CENTRAL ALABAMA
It is a sad, though very real fact, that in the entire Archdiocese of Mobile, there is only one priest trained to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form. He is an aging priest, not in the best of health, and the Extraordinary Form Mass is offered by him once per month at one church, far removed from most of the Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese.
This is the tokenism of the past - a vestige of the whispered suppression of the Extraordinary Form in the years leading up to July 7, 2007, when our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI took action.
This melancholy situation, common particularly in the United States, is precisely why our Holy Father issued his Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, and exactly why Una Voce Central Alabama was formed.
Unlike the Diocese of Birmingham, where Bishop Baker, working with Una Voce Northern Alabama, has demonstrated leadership in encouraging priests to learn the Extraordinary Form, it is evident that leadership within the Archdiocese of Mobile must come from the ground up - from individual priests and the laity.
The time is now. Every priest now has the Indult, by the Grace of God through His Successor to the See of Peter. What each priest chooses to do, or not do, with this Holy Gift, is up to his own conscience.
In an effort to help fulfill the wishes of our Holy Father, Una Voce Central Alabama will pay the workshop expenses for any priest in the central or southeastern portion of the Archdiocese of Mobile who wishes to be trained in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. We will also contemplate paying same for any altar servers, including Deacons. Our only condition is that once trained, the priest and servers pledge to regularly celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Mass in Montgomery or the Montgomery area.
