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TradCatKnight: My Return to the Traditional Latin Mass Autobiography of a Traditional Catholic Bishop

Wednesday, January 18, 2017 18:22

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My Return To The TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS Autobiography of a Traditional Catholic Bishop

My Return To The TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS Autobiography of a Traditional Catholic Bishop

By Bishop Salvador L. Lazo

http://tradcatknight.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-return-to-traditional-latin-mass.html

I. CHILDHOOD

HE Archdiocese of Tuguegarao is my home diocese. As a diocese it was carved from the Diocese of Nueva Segovia in 1910 and elevated into an Archdiocese in September 1974. The suffragan dioceses are:

1. Diocese of Ilagan

2. Diocese of Bayombong

3. Prelature of Batanes-Babuyanes

In 1998 their populations were:

1. Cagayan - 995,572

2. Isabela - 1,189,739

3. Batanes-Babuyanes - 23,998

4. Nueva Vizcaya - 446,084

UGUEGARAO is the capital town of Cagayan province. Cagayan Valley is irrigated by the Rio Grande also called Cagayan River, the longest River in the archipelago.The South-Eastern part of Cagayan is known as the Itawis District. The district is divided into three parts by the Rio Chico, a tributary of Rio Grande. On the banks of the Chico River are situated the towns of Tuao, Rizal, Piat, and Sto. Nino or Faire where I saw the first light of day on May 1, 1917. Seven children came to bless the union of my parents. I was the third child. My parents – Fortunato and Emiliana Lazo – were financially poor but rich in their love for God and for their fellowmen. My father studied law and served as Justice of the Peace of our little town. Every night my father led the family in reciting the holy rosary and accompanied his family to Sunday Mass. My mother on the other hand, enticed the pagan Igorots and Kalingas of the Cordillera Mountains to barter their forest products like rattan and forest root crops. In exchange, my mother give them laundry soap, matches, small knives, and second-hand clothes. She regularly laundered the dirty linens of the parish Church. In summer she invited the Kalingas and Igorots to come to our house so that she could teach them the Catechism. My mother passed away while giving birth to her seventh child in 1926. Aunt Lorenza, her sister, took care of us in our growing years. The family roots can be traced to the small town of San Vicente, Ilocos Sur, located along the coast of the China Sea of the Cordilleras. They moved to Cagayan due to political disturbances caused by the Philippine Revolution at the end of the 19^thcentury and the beginning of the 20^th century (1898-1909).

N 1934, the bishop of the Diocese of Tuguegarao was the Most Rev. Constance Jurgens, CICM, DD, Dutchman, known for his holiness of life, his apostolic zeal and Christlike charity to the poor. Having finished my elementary grades in Sto. Nino Central School in 1933, my father brought me to Tuguegarao to study at the Cagayan High School because, in those days, Sto. Nino did not have a high school, much less a Catholic secondary institution.

Bishop Lazo at the Eternal City with Fr. Morgan and Mr. Jerusalem, his secretary in July 1996.

II. VOCATION

N ARRANGEMENT was made for me to stay in the dormitory of the boys living under the care of the bishop; Fr. Oscar Deltor CICM was the prefect of discipline. At the end of the school year Bishop Jurgens told me that he was going to send me to Christ the King Mission Seminary in New Manila, Quezon City. That was in 1935. When I graduated from the classical secondary in Christ the King Mission Seminary, I went on to college. At the end of the academic year in March 1940, the Very Rev. Herman Konding, SVD, Rector, informed me about the death of my father. I went home but he was already buried when I reached Sto. Nino.

N 1942 World War II broke out. Being a Dutchman, Bishop Jurgens was rounded up with all the foreigners who were enemies of Japan. Japanese Armed Forces sent them to the Concentration Camp in Los Banos, Laguna. American Missionaries in Christ the King Mission Seminary joined their fellowmen Americans either in the University of Sto. Tomas Concentration Camp in Manila or in Los Banos. Christ the King Mission Seminary was built along E. Rodriguez Avenue, a road through one of the suburbs of Manila. The predictions, then, were that a division of the American Liberation Forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur was going to enter Manila along E. Rodriguez Avenue. Considering the imminent danger of a bloody encounter between Japanese Armed forces defending Manila and the invading American army, the novices were evacuated and sent to the Immaculate Conception Theology Seminary in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. Rev. Father Ignatz Hetteger, SVD, was the novice master but a young priest, Rev. Father Alois Lehberger, SVD, was going to lead the trip which was made hazardous by the Kempetai of the Japanese Armed Forces.

Bishop Lazo at the Ordinations on June 27, 1996 at Ecône.

URING the war, Cagayan was one of those territories occupied by the Japanese Armed Forces. The Japanese soldiers frequently raided the towns and barrios. Because of the unpredictable raids, life was miserable and unstable. Food like rice and domestic animals and vegetables were looted. They raped women and killed the men-folk suspected of being guerrillas. One of the victims was my brother, Manuel, who was a seminarian at the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Vigan.

N ONE of the raids the soldiers caught Manuel. They then towed him with some innocent people to Faire, Dungao Ferry twelve kilometers away. At the ferry, they burned houses and while one of big houses was on fire, the cruel Japanese shot Manuel to death. When their victim was dying, his torturers threw him into one of the burning houses. After the burning was over, those barbarians collected his ashes and hurled them into the flowing waters of the Rio Grande.

N VIGAN Theology Seminary – the novices of the Divine Word Missionaries made their Perpetual Vows before Rev. Father Herman Konding, SVD, the Rector. Although I was accepted in the balloting for the Perpetual Vows, I decided not to make them. My membership of the Society of the Divine Word Missionaries (Societas Verbo Divini) had ended. This was in March I945.

At St. Nicolas du Chardonnet, Paris on July 14, 1996

III. ORDINATION

HE decision to leave the Society of the Divine Word necessitated that I see Bishop Jurgens, of Tuguegarao, Cagayan. I applied for the Diocese of Tuguegarao and the bishop accepted me. My next move was to make arrangements with the Father Rector of the Immaculate Conception Theology Seminary of Vigan, Ilocos Sur, so that I could continue my theological studies. My remaining theological studies lasted for two years. I finished my studies in March 1947. When Very Rev. Father Rector Herman Konding, SVD, announced the graduating class, I was included in the following list of graduates.

1. Rev. Jose Ferrer 2. Rev. Jose Aspiras 3. Rev. Jose Mabutas 4. Rev. Moises Miguel 5. Rev. Jose Pacis 6. Rev. Mariano Saraos	Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia
7. Rev. Juan Ballesteros 8. Rev. German Paculan	Diocese of Laoag
9. Rev. Salvador Lazo 10. Rev. Pio Morales 11. Rev. Florentino Samus	Diocese of Tuguegarao

HE ORDAINING prelate was the Most Rev. Mariano Madriaga, DD., archbishop of Lingayen, Dagupan. The ordination ceremony took place in St. Paul’s Cathedral of Vigan, Ilocos Sur on March 22, 1947. When I was ordained, there were no member of my family present. My only living sister, Teresa, could not attend it due to communication problem. Cagayan was so destroyed and was not yet rehabilitated. The following day the newly ordained priests said their Tridentine Latin Mass either in St. Paul’s Cathedral or in the Seminary chapel. Our relatives, benefactors and friends filled the big St. Paul’s Cathedral both at the ordination and for the Mass of thanksgiving said by the newly ordained priests.

His Excellency is seen here saying the True Mass at Our Lady of Victories Church in Quezon City.

N THE week following our ordination, we went to our home dioceses for the CANTA MISA which were Masses of thanksgiving offered to Godfor the gift of our priesthood, and to thank relatives, benefactors, and friends for helping us in our studies. In the sermons the celebrants usually thanked their families, relatives, benefactors, and friends for the help they had contributed so that they could reach the altar of God. When they addressed the congregation, they usually asked for their continued support for the success of their ministry, for their perseverance to the end of their lives so that they would never betray their greatest friend and benefactor, Jesus Christ.

IV. FIRST YEARS OF PRIESTHOOD

FTER the CANTA MISA, the new priests were given a few weeks of vacation so that they could visit their relatives, benefactors, and friends. In my case, I had to go back to Bishop Jurgens to present myself in order to start my pastoral ministry. Bishop Jurgens gave me my first assignment. He sent me to be the assistant of Msgr. Felix Domingo, the Vicar General, parish priest of St. Peter’s Cathedral. In my visit, I saw that Bishop Jurgens, my benefactor, was sick and his tuberculosis was worsening. He came out of the Concentration Camp of the Japanese Armed Forces alive but a very sick man. On May 13, 1950, he went home to God. Priest and faithful were saddened at his death, as he was a holy man who showed apostolic zeal. He was loved by all his flock especially the poor. My second parish was San Jose, Baggao, Cagayan. San Jose and the surrounding barrios were densely populated. So I thought of founding a secondary high school. The institution was San Jose Academy.

N MAY 1950, Bishop Alejandro Olalia, then the co-adjutor, took over the government of Tuguegarao Diocese. As soon as Bishop Olalia was installed, one of the first moves was the transfer of the minor seminarians from Vigan minor seminary to Tuguegarao, the seat of the Diocese. The minor seminary was called after the old Colegio de San Jacinto de Tuguegarao – San Jacinto Minor Seminary which was run by the Dominican Fathers. Dominicans closed the old Colegio de San Jacinto de Tuguegarao for financial reasons. When the minor seminarians arrived from Vigan, there was no building ready and so they were temporarily housed at the bishop’s residence. The faculty for the first operation were:

Rector: Rev. Fr. Telesforo Cordova
Prefect of Discipline: Rev. Fr. Salvador Lazo
Dean of Studies: Rev. Fr. Salvador Lazo
Procurator: Rev. Fr. Juan Quinto
Music Instructor: Rev. Fr. Jose Ingaran
English/Public Speaking Instructor: Rev. Fr. Domingo Mallo

V. RECTOR OF SEMINARY

T THE end of the commencement exercises in 1951, a revamp was announced. Bishop Olalia finally made his decision on who were to take care of the administration. In June 1951, the assignments for coming school year were published. Father Cordova became the parish priest of a big parish in the diocese. Also the other priests in the faculty were given different parishes. As the academic year in 1951 began, I was designated as the Rector of the San Jacinto Minor Seminary. I objected to it but the appointing authority would have none of it.

N 1954, in his fourth year as the Prelate of the Diocese of Tuguegarao, Bishop Olalia was promoted to the See of the Archdiocese of Lipa. As a result, a new bishop came to the Diocese as administrator. This was Bishop Juan C. Sison of Nueva Segovia. As administrator of Tuguegarao Diocese, he did not make major changes. He confirmed me in my new responsibility as Rector of the San Jacinto Minor Seminary, when I presented to him my resignation. He said: “Stay there until I get someone to take over your office”.

ARLY in 1957, a new Bishop was preconized. The new bishop-elect was a parish priest of Piat, Cagayan, whose Patron Saint is St. Dominic de Guzman. Piat though is more known as the sanctuary of Our Lady of Visitation. The bishop-elect was the Most Rev. Teodulfo S. Domingo.

OLLOWING the installation ceremonies, I went to him to tender my resignation as Rector of the San Jacinto Minor Seminary. He did not accept it. Instead he confirmed it. There was no alternative, so I tried to be resigned to my responsibility. I faced the problems best as I could. In every diocese there has to be a seminary, and the seminary needs priests to run it. Therefore, I reflected on the policies and the regulations to direct the institution.

N 1962, Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council. Bishop Domingo, my bishop went to Rome as a delegate. On coming home for the first time from Vatican II Council, we expected some bulletins, newsletters, or flyers to update us on what was happening in the Council. But there was none. I wondered why information on the Council were not disseminated. At least nothing reached the Diocese of Tuguegarao. In 1965, the Second Vatican Council came to an end. The delegates came home and there was nothing for the clergy and people in Tuguegarao Diocese in the way of information.

VI. PARISH PRIEST

N 1967, Rev. Fr. Miguel Purugganan finished his studies in the Gregorian University in Rome. Bishop Domingo removed me from the office of Rector. Upon his arrival Fr. Purugganan took over the responsibility of the San Jacinto Minor Seminary. Bishop Domingo assigned me as Parish Priest of Lal-lo Cagayan. In 1967 the Lal-lo High School was crowded with students. This made me conceive the idea of a secondary school. After studying the project, I decided to submit my application to the Department of Education for the Lyceum of Lal-lo. The Department of education approved my application. In 1968-69, Lyceum of Lal-lo started to operate.

N 1969, the Novus Ordo Missae came to the Diocese of Tuguegarao for implementation. We were told to change the Tridentine Latin Mass of St. Pius V. We wanted to know why and there was no explanation given. Since we wanted to show our customary obedience to our ecclesiastical superiors the order was implemented. ROMA LOCUTA, CAUSA FINITA. We little thought that our submissiveness was taken advantage of. The Latin Mass instituted by Jesus Christ was altered to a concoction of Msgr. Annibale Bugnini, a Freemason. The innovators gave us a counterfeit of the Latin Mass which is the Bugnini Mass. The manoeuvres of the Masonic manipulators made us feel bitter the moment the deception was unmasked. The reformers gave us poison instead of nourishing spiritual food.

VII. BISHOP

N 1969, during my second year as parish priest of Lal-lo, I was preconized Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Tuguegarao. Bishop Domingo was not in the Diocese then. He was in the United States visiting his brother but was present for the Episcopal ordination which was presided over by the Nuncio, the Most Rev. Carmine Rocco, DD. After my consecration, I continued saying the Novus Ordo Missae. My brother Jose, then a missionary priest of the Society of the Divine Word, (SVD) attended my Episcopal consecration on February 3, I970. But on April 25, he went home to God. As a newly consecrated bishop I attended his burial mass in Christ the King Mission Church – he was buried in the cemetery of the Society in New Manila…..Read more »

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