Requiem for a WarriorVery Reverend Tullio Andreatta, RIP
A priest for 70 years and less than a dozen priests attend his funeral!
Bishop nowhere in sight.
Hat Tip to PreVat2 who provided the opening of this post
Many of you know that I spent 14 years living in San Diego. In 1997, having entered the Church from Anglicanism, and being immediately appalled at the Novus Ordo (New Mass), a priest (a close friend from my Marine Corps days) locked me on to the Traditional Latin Mass held every Sunday at Holy Cross Cemetery Mausoleum Chapel. When I witnessed my first High Mass there, my heart never went back to the New Mass….and never will.
God bless this great warrior of God and champion of Tradition, Monsignor Andreatta.
Following Pope John Paul II's 1984 authorization allowing the public celebration of the Tridentine Latin Mass, Monsignor Andreatta was the first priest in North America to obtain permission from a diocesan bishop to do so. Following his appointment as chaplain, beginning on February 24, 1985, the Tridentine Latin Mass was offered by Monsignor Andreatta at St. Vincent de Paul Church in central San Diego. Due to the objections of several of the clergy (Only in a post-Vatican II world could such a thing happen!!) the Tridentine Latin Mass was soon moved to Holy Cross Cemetery Mausoleum Chapel where it was offered every Sunday and Holyday without exception by Monsignor Andreatta until his retirement in 1991.
It was Monsignor Andreatta's hope and prayer that a parish church be provided where his beloved Mass could be offered and the other sacraments provided. Thanks be to God, he lived to see the day when, on October 7, 2008, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, a personal parish was erected in San Diego for the Traditional Latin Mass at St. Anne Catholic Church.
Monsignor Andreatta will be laid to rest on Saturday, December 12, 2009, following a Solemn Requiem High Mass which will be offered at The Immaculata (pictured below) where Monsignor Andreatta celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his priesthood. Burial will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery.
I had the honor of attending Msgr. Andreatta's Solemn Requiem Mass Saturday morning. It started shortly after 10 and probably lasted close to two hrs. Fr. Gismondi, FSSP, the pastor of St. Anne’s, San Diego’s only full-time, all-the-time, traditional parish, was the celebrant; Fr. Federico Masutti, FSSP, the associate at St. Anne’s, served as deacon; and Fr. Burt Boudoin, Associate at St. Mary’s in Escondido and local chaplain to the Knights of Columbus, was the sub-deacon. The good monsignor wanted no viewing and the casket was a humble wooden box.What was shocking was there were only 6 to 8 priests in choir (I didn’t get a good count)!! Whiskey tango foxtrot! The man was 95 years old and a priest since 1938 (a year before Hitler invaded Poland)! First and foremost, where was the bishop? Fr. Andreatta had been assigned to the diocese for half a century (hell, he had already been a priest for a 25 years when Bishop Brom was ordained!), but his boss couldn’t find time to attend funeral of one of his own priests?
You can’t tell me the other priests in the San Diego diocese did not know about this funeral. He was the longest serving priest in the diocese. Surely they all knew of him by reputation, if not personally. At last report, there are 233 active priests in that diocese and less than 10 (discounting the three at the altar) could make it?
I thought there was a brotherhood among priests, akin, if you will, to the Marine Corps. Where was the loyalty, the esprit de corps, the simple respect, of those other priests? None of them could break away from their busy schedules to come and pay their respects!!!! I know they weren't all sitting in confessionals in their churches hearing Saturday confessions.
Or was it because they were afraid to come out in the rain? Yes, it was pouring at times. Take your pick here: was heaven shedding tears over the loss of a good priest here on earth or was the Prince of the World doing his diabolic best to discourage people from coming out? It seems the latter may have worked on the people most expected to be in attendance.
As an aside, as I was walking into church, I ran into a young, probably 20-something, young man wearing a suit and carrying his missal. He had neither umbrella nor raincoat and he was drenched. Can you imagine how cold and uncomfortable it must have been to sit through a two-hour Mass in soaking wet clothes? God bless his Christian heart. At least one person in that lukewarm diocese understood the corporal work of mercy to Bury the Dead.
(For the record, there were about 200 or more lay people in attendance plus an outstanding Gregorian choir.)
I cannot believe the other priests did not know about the time and place of the funeral Mass (in probably the biggest church in the diocese). Was the poor old man disliked that much?
Please, Lord, tell me that hatred for the traditional Mass does not run so deep in San Diego that 200+ priests withheld honoring a brother priest because they could not bring themselves to attend a Mass in the Extraordinary Form.
Our Lady of Akita pray for us.
posted by Former Altar Boy at
7:06 PM
11 Comments:
That's horrible! In my diocese, priests go to the funerals of other priests!
I'll pray for him.
Altar Boy, I think the article explains the lack of priests from the diocese quite well. Lets do the math:
Solemn Requiem Mass
+
"objections of several of the clergy" to the Tridentine Mass that probably still includes a large number of priests still in the diocese
=
6 to 8 priests in choir
As for the Bishop, they usually attend unless there is a good reason, like being in Rome, ill etc. Not trying to excuse, just offer possible explaination that there just might be a good reason he wasn't there. Then again there might not. But willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until I have further info.
Finally you said "I thought there was a brotherhood among priests". theoretically, yes. & depending on the Bishop, type of priests etc, it does occur. But based on personal observation (& some priest friends) it all depends on how well you fit into the culture of the diocese. ie: orthodox in a liberal diocese = being marginalized.
PS If the rain was tears from Heaven they were probably tears of joy as this priest was welcomed home with a "Well done good & faitful servant!"
While only vaguely a propos to this post, I know you guys take reasonable swipes at the "active participation" crowd. So enjoy this post by Jennifer F.
Here's the stinger, which is right at the end: "Because the only thing that will ever be required of me to fully participate is simply a love of God."
Yes, disgraceful!
Back in the day, when a priest of the diocese died it was considered de rigueur for all priests to attend his funeral. Mass was a Solemn High Mass, sung by the scores of priests present. There was no need for a separate choir. Whether it was “In Paradisum”, “Requiem aeternum...” or “Dies Irae”, they all knew the words and the melodies.
It was an honor and a duty to participate, as all recognized that a confrere had gone home and that everyone else would follow at some time. No eulogies - just prayerful remembrance and commendation of his soul to God’s love and mercy.
O tempora. O mores…
Wow. Just wow.
Going to a brother priest's funeral is just something I thought priests did. Regardless of if they liked the guy or not.
And no Bishop? So sad.
I will pray for Fr. Andreatta.
ATI,
Yep... that's the fatal flaw of the "active participation' crowd. They thinks that their (the laity) 'participation' is not only a requirement for the liturgy to be valid, but the emphasis should also be on themselves, not God.
To paraphrase Pope John Paul II - "silent prayer [to God] is active participation".
Perhaps a bit OT, but considering the comment about the 2-hour Masses... At a local Catholic church, the young people were asked to make posters explaining why they were Catholic. A number mentioned that they liked (paraphrase) "The Mass is only an hour long, not like Protestant services that can go for 2 hours or longer." Q1-- how do they know? Someone must be selling it to them. And Q2, perhaps even more important, why are we selling the shortness of the Mass to our young people as a virtue?
BTW, this is at a moderately-traditional church in the fairly conservative Arlington diocese.
I for one never got word that such a priest's funeral was upcoming. It is within an hour and a half drive from the Inland Empire, Orange County, or downtown Los Angeles to San Diego. It seems strange that no word was passed around, even in the Latin Mass communities.
Now that this story stirs thoughts about "brotherhood", it becomes a question of the lack of brotherhood among the Latin Mass communities of the southern California region. Why?
Looking at the bishops in the region, would it be their fostering of a disunity that works against the union of the believers through the Holy Eucharist? I continually focus on the fact that Jesus tells us and which is recorded in a substantial passage of Scripture that not only does man live by "bread" but by "every word that proceeds from the mouth of God": So and thus, without satisfactory preaching and teaching, the unity created by the Eucharist is flimsy in such cases. I wonder if even the failure of the priests and bishops to provide honest and substantial teaching and preaching robs the faithful of that unity which is initiated by the Holy Eucharist?
Would this mockery by silence and distortion of the Word perhaps contribute to the disrespect and lack of respect by some clergy and laity?
For he testifieth: Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech. (Heb 7:17)
May Father Andreatta R.I.P., and may he intercede at the Throne on High for us who live in this vale of tears.
SEVENTY YEARS A PRIEST??? Wow. The late, great Msgr. Donoghue in my diocese, who died this year, was only a priest for 55 years. (Well, not ONLY...you know what I mean.) 70 years in the priesthood is staggering. Shame on all those who, without a good excuse, couldn't be bothered to attend his funeral.
No doubt that the good Monsignor had a better reception at Our Father's House.
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