This is in from CFSfaT. This concerns how Angelus Press (operated by the SSPX – which at the least in very questional unity with Rome) is reprinting older liturgical books.
My emphases and comments:
More From Angelus Press
I thought this was interesting. In response to his appeal for donations so that they could reprint certain books which had sold out due to the advent of Summorum pontificum, Fr. Novak of the SSPX sent out a ‘thank you’ email via Angelus Press. Part of it:
I want to give you three numbers. The first is zero. This is the number of 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missals we currently have in stock. The second number is 700. This is the number of our daily hand-missals sold last Friday to a church in the Chicago Archdiocese celebrating the Mass of the Extraordinary Form (a.k.a., the Latin Mass of 1962). The third number is 105,650. [ka-ching] This is the number of dollars contributed in September by our apostolate partners allowing Angelus Press to amp up its revised production schedule for the rest of 2007.
On behalf of Angelus Press and the Society of St. Pius X for which it publishes, I thank you for putting your money where your prayers are in response to our Emergency Reprint appeal. If I throw out the highest and lowest contributions, the average donation came to $382.52. [Pretty impressive.]
Ambrosius had the right question – I still can’t figure why they needed these donations when they were selling books like crazy, but apparently, many other people didn’t have this concern and donated abundantly.
Yes, that is a good question. Why do they need donations if they sell so many books?
Printing books is pretty expensive. I suspect the sales of the books hardly covers the expense of printing and distributing.
Market forces will help these things iron out.
Despite the questionable unity of Angelus Press, I am pleased that books are being made available.
This whole thing reminds me of a rather unpleasant exchange with a prelate of a large city in the USA many years ago when I still worked for the first president of Ecclesia Dei. This bishop claimed that that nobody in the diocese was interested in the older Mass. I produced from our correspondence copies of petitions sent to him with hundreds of signatures. He said that he never saw them. I showed him a copy of a letter he sent back to the person who had sent him a petition. He said that the separated chapel in his city was of no consequence. I showed him copies of the "parish bulletins" we had received… with the weekly amounts of contributions tallied for him with a bottom line. [The bottom line was pretty impressive.] His response? He got angry. With us. He said that we didn’t know what was going on in his local church. That was true. We didn’t in fact know what was going on.
I know now, however, that "market forces" drive many different facets of people’s choices. People with vote with their cars and their feet and they will take the weekly contributions with them.
I think we who are not in questionable unity should do something to provide resources for the older Mass.
With all the other liturgical books the liturgy offices of bishops’ conferences pushes out, could they print also Missals for the older Mass?
Would it be better to leave this in the hands of private companies and simply support those who are going to be reprinting them, even if they are maybe not in clear unity?
Market forces will work this out too. People want the books. Money is to be made and demand satisfied. The cause is good. The opportunity is there.
Those who produce good books will do a great service and, I hope, everyone will profit.
