Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 06/27/2007 8:38:15 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Pope Benedict XVI has signed a document that would allow more churches to adopt the old Latin Mass that largely faded from use during the 1960s, when the groundbreaking Second Vatican Council opened the door to worship in the local vernacular, Vatican officials say.
The revival of what is known as the Tridentine Mass has long been promoted by Roman Catholic traditionalists, who say it is more moving, contemplative and historically authentic than the modern Mass.
[...]
In the Tridentine Mass, the priest faces away from the congregation and prays, sometimes in a whisper, in Latin, a language unfamiliar to most of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics. The Vatican II reformers intended the modern Mass to be more accessible by allowing the priest to face the congregation and to involve the worshipers in prayer and song, mostly in their native language but including some passages in Latin.
[...]
The document being discussed, church officials say, would allow priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass without asking for permission from their bishops.
Under the current rules, priests must get permission. And while many bishops have granted it, some have not, frustrating priests who wish to make the Tridentine Mass more widely available.
Catholic experts agree that the debate is not merely about ritual, but about the legacy of the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.
Some Catholic traditionalists regard the introduction of the modern liturgy as the start of what they see as the church’s slide since Vatican II and hope that the Tridentine Mass will rejuvenate the faith. Church liberals fear that if the pope undermines the modern Mass, it may lead to the reversal of other Vatican II reforms, like more open relationships with other faiths.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Check out Fr. Z’s comments on those two paragraphs.
I hope I'm not complacent, but other than supporting BXVI with all my heart and praying for a long life for him, there isn't a whole lot I can do about goings-on in another diocese or even another parish! I suppose I could write a polite letter to the archbishop if I see flagrant abuse, but other than trying to be a good example and praising orthodoxy when I find it, what else can I do?
Tridentine Ping!
What comments? Where? :)
(Sorry for my ignorance . . .)
The Maronite, Chaldean and Syro-Malankara Catholic Churches retain Aramaic (the language of Jesus Christ) for the Consecration. Now that is truly awesome! I am a RC practicing my faith in a Maronite Catholic Church. To hear the words of Institution chanted each week in Aramaic, is like being at the Last Supper.
I googled around and found that, "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, said: 'The use of the Latin language is to be preserved.' The Council merely gave permission for the limited introduction of the vernacular (or local language) into certain parts of the Mass when celebrated in public."
So the restrictions on the Tridentine mass seem to have come from individual bishops. Apparently the pope is giving priests permission to celebrate the Tridentine mass, regardless of the wishes of their bishops.
There is no problem with the Mass said in Latin. It was agreed at VCII, that a Mass in the vernacular, would encourage greater participation by the faithful. It helps to understand the prayers you pray.
That’s 5:30 pm every Sunday at Stella Maris Catholic Church on Sullivan’s Island, SC, by the way.
Speaking of Sullivan’s Island, Happy Carolina Day! (251st anniversary of the defeat of the British invaders by a small patriot force in 1776)
His history is off, but I share his sentiments. The Roman Latin Liturgy can be traced back to the early 3rd Century. Those who dumped it so arbitrarily after Vatican II seem to have been moved by the same anti-Roman sentiments and Protestant theology that moved Archbishop Cranmer. Unfortunately those who wrote our English translation lacked his literary genius.
This is great news. The real question, however, is whether American seminaries will follow through. It would also be nice to see more diocese require Catholic schoolchildren learn basic Latin.
“My sainted Mother, a convert to Catholicism, said that if you had to provide entertainment like guitars to get people to go to mass their going there for the wrong reasons.”
Kudos to your Sainted Mother. I agree with that 100%.
Is it always a Missa Cantata? Fifty years ago, we almost always had a Low Mass. The Epistle and Gospel were always in English. One of my favorite priests always joked that he hated to have to say “High Mass” (really a Missa Cantata when there is but one priest) because his teacher in the Seminary made him promise never to sing in public.
PLEASE don't tell me some jackass is using them at MASS!
There's a time and place for everything. So says Ecclesiastes. The time and place for these songs is the campground, not the Mass.
I get where you're coming from to an extent... I think.
There has probably been as much change in Aramaic over the past 2000 years as there has been in English over the same time span (English didn't exist then and is drastically different now than it was at its inception.)
More to the point, however, at the Last Supper Jesus (et al.) would have spoken a language that they all understood.
I completely understand the romanticized connection to the past, though. I happent to like Gregorian chants for the same reason.
Yup. Been there. It was at a "family mass." It was veeeeeery painful.
My summer camp was like 60% Catholic (most of the campers for some reason come up to NC from Louisiana), and although I wasn't Catholic when I went there, my daughter was the last year she went!
But when the Catholic kids went on the camp bus to Mass in the nearest town, they DIDN'T sing "Yuk Yuk Yuk" . . . my daughter tells me it was a really beautiful church, with a very reverent priest who celebrated ad orientem. The campers wore their "whites" and were occasionally mistaken for orphans!!
From the fury of the Liturgists, O Lord, preserve us.
Phrases like "family mass", "children's mass", "teen mass" or "contemporary mass" are, in my limited experience, code words for something dreadful.
Even as a kid, I thought the "family mass" was dippy.
Yes, I think you're right. If the Bishops have any loopholes with which to deny a priest saying the Latin Mass, they will use it.
On the other hand, how soon before we start reading about abuses in the Latin Masses?
The whole thing is a big mess. Is the Motu Propio even the solution to the mess?
Isn't it more that we have a whole mentality existing in the Church today which obscures real Catholic doctrine, practices, behaviours by the use of all the novelties that have become institutionalized?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.