Posted on 04/20/2005 7:03:41 AM PDT by NYer
The move by the Vatican toward permitting wider use of the Latin Mass can be seen as a reflection of views long held by officials like Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, widely thought to be the Pope's closest official adviser. As such, they also may be viewed as a reflection of the pontiff's own thinking and an indication of his serious questions about abuses with the new or Novus Ordo Mass in the wake of Vatican II.
Earlier this month the Vatican allowed the first celebration of the Latin or "Tridentine Rite" Mass at St. Peter's in twenty years and is widely expected to issue a document (with an "indult") before Christmas permitting priests around the world to celebrate the old rite without the express permission of bishops. In that rite, which dates back to the Council of Trent in 1570, the priest says high Mass facing east with his back to the congregation, intoning the Latin liturgy. Up to now, such Masses have been few and far between, with many bishops frowning upon or outright quashing them.
The Vatican still views the new Mass as possessing significant advantages but has been concerned by the way many priests have taken liberties with it -- in many instances stripping the liturgy of its mystery. Cardinal Ratzinger, who meets privately with the Pope for several hours each Friday, has long expressed discontent with the way Masses are now handled. In a book called The Ratzinger Report, the Cardinal -- prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- said that he "shudders at the lackluster face of the post-conciliar liturgy as it has become, or one is simply bored with its hankering after banality and its lackluster artistic standards." He lamented that "many treasures that were intact have been squandered away."
"The liturgy is not a show, a spectacle, requiring brilliant producers and talented actors," he said in interviews with Italian journalist Vittorio Messori. "The life of the liturgy does not consist in 'pleasant' surprises and attractive 'ideas' but in solemn repetitions."
As for the need for active participation on the part of those in the pews, Ratzinger has remarked that "the concept is no doubt correct. But the way it has been applied following the Council has exhibited a fatal narrowing of perspective. The impression arose that there was only 'active participation' when there was discernible external activity -- speaking, singing, preaching, reading, shaking hands. It was forgotten that the Council also included silence under actuosa participatio, for silence facilitates a really deep, personal participation, allowing us to listen inwardly to the Lord's word."
While the new Mass allows for more contact between priest and congregants, and presents the liturgy in native language (the removal of which would be opposed by many Catholics), the rite has been abused by clerics who have relaxed reverence toward the Eucharist, introduced clanging music, stripped altars of their statues, and relocated or even removed the tabernacle. Those who sought to attend the Latin Rite, noted Ratzinger, have been treated as "lepers."
"The most important thing today is that we should regain respect for the liturgy and for the fact that it is not to be manipulated," he wrote in a second book, God and the World, adding that "unauthorized fabrication" should "vanish." He said that priests should perform their ministries as a service to the mystery of the liturgy "and not want to invent and manufacture something better, like experts who are almighty in and of themselves."
While on at least one occasion Cardinal Ratzinger has virtually expressed his wish the the liturgy had never been so radically changed, he cites advantages to the Novus Ordo. When Messori asked him if Masses should be said in Latin again, the prefect replied, "That is no longer going to be possible as a general practice, and perhaps it is not desirable as such. At least it is clear, I would say, that the Liturgy of the Word should be in people's mother tongue. But otherwise I would be in favor of a new openness toward the use of Latin." That openness will now be expressed in the expected indult, which may in its turn reverse the Church's course and bring elements of the older rite back into the liturgy.
VERY promising.
Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his first Mass this morning, and delivered the homily, both in Latin.
Excellent article! Thanks for posting.
I was a little disappointed when I heard Ratzinger was the choice--was hoping for Arinze or another 3rd worlder. But the more I learn about this man, the more I like him.
I would be pleased with bringing back just the Kyrie, Gloria, Agnus Dei out of the vernacular for a while.
Before I can go to a full blown Latin Holy Mass, I need to learn some Latin!
Let us pray that this is true!!!!
Yeah, but what a great way to learn! I had some in high school, but I need to brush up.
Just having a parallel Latin/vernacular missalette would pump Catholic's SAT Verbal scores by 50 points.
Ach!
Should be: Catholics'
good point
Oh this is wonderful! I love the Latin Masses.
Yipee!! I would give up being a EOM for a Traditional Mass.
I say RIGHT ON. My four years of Latin classes in high school in the 70's will finally come in handy.
PATER noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
Do you know if this expectation is based on anything solid?
Benedicamos Domino!
--The life of the liturgy does not consist in 'pleasant' surprises and attractive 'ideas' but in solemn repetitions."--
/rant on
One of the things that was amazing in its power was the litany of the saints, sung in Latin, both during the funeral mass, and before the conclave. Repetitious, but oh so powerful.
Liturgy isn't about amusing us. It's about how we connect to God, and how God wants us to connect with him.
Oh the power when it is done right. Reverent. Awe-inspiring. Connecting us to that which is larger than we are.
There are places for devotional folk music. There are places where pop inspired songs about God are great. But in our liturgies, where we come to worship, we need to think about what is reverent.
/rant off
This Protestant agrees with you 100%.
Good rant. I particularly wanted to repeat this. :)
This statement is two years old.
Knitting, you are so right. The Liturgy is not a case of "showtimes", 9-10-11 & 12:15 on Sunday & 5 pm on Saturday!
Knitting, you are so right. The Liturgy is not a case of "showtimes", 9-10-11 & 12:15 on Sunday & 5 pm on Saturday!
*sorwy* I burped! 'cuse me.............
It was a big sign to move on from my former parish when my then 10 year old started calling mass the "Fr. G. show".
From the book "God and the World" (by then-Cardinal Ratzinger with Peter Seewald, as interviewer):
"For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church's whole past. How can one trust her present if things are that way?" (p.416)
Oremus--and hard.
A Tridentine Rite may be back on the table.
They don't need the help of the SSPX to do this. He has the FSSP, the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, and other smaller traditional communities at his disposal. He has a good relationship with all of them already. I say do it!
Well put. If one wants devotional folk music, go on a retreat. But Mass should be exactly what you describe.
Latin Mass is awe inspiring indeed. Time to buckle down and actually learn it.
It's not a kind image. :chortle:
Well said!
"You know, a time will come when a man will no longer be able to say, 'I speak Latin and am a Christian' and go his way in peace. There will come frontiers, frontiers of all kinds -- between men -- and there will be no end to them. [John Osborne, Luther, 2:4, spoken by Tommaso Cardinal Cajetan to Martin Luther] Such was Cardinal Cajetan's prophetic statement to Martin Luther predicting the end of European Christendom after the dawning of the Era of Protestantism.
What is even more prophetic are the words of Dom Prosper Gueranger, founder of the Benedictine Congregation of France and first abbot of Solesmes after the French revolution, who wrote in 1840 his Liturgical Institutions in order to restore among the clergy the knowledge and the love for the Roman Liturgy. In his work the anti-liturgical heresy he wrote the following concerning the Latin language and the liturgy and the enemies of the Church:
"Hatred for the Latin language is inborn in the hearts of all the enemies of Rome. They recognize it as the bond among Catholics throughout the universe, as the arsenal of orthodoxy against all the subtleties of the sectarian spirit. . . . The spirit of rebellion which drives them to confide the universal prayer to the idiom of each people, of each province, of each century, has for the rest produced its fruits, and the reformed themselves constantly perceive that the Catholic people, in spite of their Latin prayers, relish better and accomplish with more zeal the duties of the cult than most do the Protestant people. At every hour of the day, divine worship takes place in Catholic churches. The faithful Catholic, who assists, leaves his mother tongue at the door. Apart form the sermons, he hears nothing but mysterious words which, even so, are not heard in the most solemn moment of the Canon of the Mass. Nevertheless, this mystery charms him in such a way that he is not jealous of the lot of the Protestant, even though the ear of the latter doesn't hear a single sound without perceiving its meaning .… . . . We must admit it is a master blow of Protestantism to have declared war on the sacred language. If it should ever succeed in ever destroying it, it would be well on the way to victory. Exposed to profane gaze, like a virgin who has been violated, from that moment on the Liturgy has lost much of its sacred character, and very soon people find that it is not worthwhile putting aside one's work or pleasure in order to go and listen to what is being said in the way one speaks on the marketplace. . . ."
"For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church's whole past. How can one trust her present if things are that way?"
-Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, p.416, "God and the World" (with Peter Seewald, as interviewer)
Pray for a Tridentine Rite.
That openness will now be expressed in the expected indult, which may in its turn reverse the Church's course and bring elements of the older rite back into the liturgy.
This is exactly what I have been talking about.
It would be probably termed a Tridentine "Use," like the Anglican Use, not an outright rite.
R.'s understanding of the Liturgy issues is profound, and his understanding of the MUSIC issues in Liturgy is absolutely astounding.
Likely at least in part due to his brother's occupation as the DomKappellMeister at the Cathedral of Koln...
Decent choir there, by the way...
I'll give it one month and Pope Benedict will be in talks, he making the first move too, with the SSPX et al. over this very issue.
In elevators, perhaps.
I pray for a Tridentine Rite. My parish is so incredibly modern and liberal I don't even go there anymore. Terrible, isn't it?
I can't wait to join the Panzer Brigade!
Your quotation is interesting, as it is EXACTLY what the Council recommended in its Doc on Lit.
Gehr 'steh?
Those who want, and can support, a Tridentine Rite parish should certainly have one.
Good quote from Gueranger...
"Theophane" was the name of my organ teacher.
Sr. M. Theophane (Hytrek), OSF
May she rest in peace.
If it takes two months or more, pray that we'll both be patient...there will be resumed communications, that's for sure.
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