What's the story?
.
Sorry, I had to leave yesterday.
Anyway, I had asked him what happened to change the longstanding tradition of having seminarians recite the Oath every year, who made the change, and why was it successful, since this had long been a question I'd had, and no one I'd found could give an answer.
So he replied with this nice, personal testimony, which he told me he had not written in any of his books. I was riveted!
When he had been in his penultimate year (I'd like to say "Junior" but not sure if he used that term), the senior class ahead of him was scheduled to take the Oath (in Latin) on a specific day, some number of weeks prior to ordinations. In the past, any seminarian who failed to show up for this event was then later denied ordination, since it was a requirement by seminary policy that all candidates must take the Oath prior to ordination. As I recall, this is how it started back in the days of Pius X, either in 1910 with
Sacrorum Antistitum or 1914 with
Pascendi domenici gregis. But when Fr. Trinchard was about to enter the graduating class next year, the then-current graduating class had some radical seminarians in it. He explained that one or more of them had likely made some kind of plan with one of the administrators, such that they had been assured ordination even if they would be absent for the Oath. So when the day arrived, it was observed by the other students that there had been some seminarians missing, and those attending had all been certain that the consequence would be that the missing would be prevented from becoming ordained, as the rules state and the longstanding tradition held.
HOWEVER, when the day for ordination finally arrived, the seminarians who had been absent for the group recitation of
Sacrorum Antistitum showed up anyway, and then to the bewilderment of the rest, were ordained as if nothing had been amiss.
Fr. told me that no announcement was made, and no official policy change was disseminated, but rather the next year, when it was his own class' turn to take the Oath, even more of the seminarians failed to show up on the appointed day, and again, they were later all ordained. In subsequent years, the oath taking day was simply forgotten and as he recalled, no one was upset about it, as there were so many other changes going on anyway, it was just a small piece of the whole scene.
Topic: Sacrorum Antistitum (Oath Against Modernism) (Read 1883 times)