CHICAGO, Illinois (LifeSiteNews) – Community members in Chicago, including one Protestant minister, shared their support for the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest amid the crackdown on the group by Cardinal Blase Cupich.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, on August 1, Cdl. Cupich removed faculties for ICKSP priests in Chicago for reportedly refusing to sign a document that would violate their charism for offering the sacraments in the traditional Roman rite.
In response to the shutdown, local members of Woodlawn on the South Side of Chicago have shared their support for ICKSP in an article in the Hyde Park Herald.
“[Cdl. Cupich] is basically withholding that key, as well as changing the fundamentals of the form of worship as it has existed at the Shrine for years,” First Presbyterian Church Pastor David Black told the Herald, whose church sits next to the Shrine of Christ the King. “And he is doing this without soliciting any direct input from the people of the congregation.”
Black, and some members of his congregation, showed support to the ICKSP by joining a procession on July 31, the last Sunday the ICKSP was allowed to offer the TLM.
Black said he noticed that the congregation at the ICKSP parish was very diverse, suggesting the parish was a source of unity for local Catholics of all backgrounds.
“Every time that I’ve been with their congregation, I’ve just been amazed by, first of all, how much it’s growing, and how vital it is and just how multicultural it is,” Black told the Herald. “It’s just young families from all over the place – Latino, Black, white, many ethnicities, lots of immigrant families, lots of young kids.”
Another local resident, Heather Malpass, also expressed gratitude toward the ICKSP parish, thanking in particular Canon Matthew Talarico, the provincial superior of the Institute and Shrine’s rector, for his “community driven” approach and for his spiritual support to her and her now-deceased mother.
“Everyone in our neighborhood is really confused,” Malpass told the Herald, who lived across the street from the church with her mother until her death in April 2018.
“[Canon Talarico] was always running across the street, making sure she was okay. And this was all just being who he is,” Malpass said. “He also baptized her when she was in a coma at the University of Chicago, before she passed.”
Malpass explained to the Herald that the Institute’s “contribution to the community is much more powerful (than the form of the Mass they offer),” adding, “we really can’t imagine our neighborhood without them.”
The crackdown on the Traditional Latin Mass by Cdl. Cupich, a member of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, comes while liturgical abuses flourish in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Recent liturgical abuses of note include a homosexual couple giving a homily at a Father’s Day Mass, parishioners dancing on the altar at the end of a Pentecost Mass to “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang, and a pastor at that same parish giving a blessing using a guitar.