Wider Use of Latin Mass Likely, Vatican Officials Say

New York Times ^ | June 28, 2007 | LAURIE GOODSTEIN and IAN FISHER

[Law is not justice but process]

Actually, it is always a low mass. The readings are in Latin, though.

I am 40 and remember the “hippie mass” of the 70’s. It was awful. I remember when “Faith of our Fathers” was banned in the 80s. Now “Faith” is back in the lineup and I can escape the Hippie priests at the Tridentine mass. I never really knew what I was missing until some of the older traditions returned. I had even left the church for a while in grad school because the liberal mass was so awful that I got nothing out of it. It turns out I am a very conservative Catholic and never knew it.

[Cicero]

The document has not yet been released, and this is the New York Times reporting, so we still need to wait and see.

The operative sentence appears to be: “ The document being discussed, church officials say, would allow priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass without asking for permission from their bishops.”

At first, this had me worried a bit, because it seems to make an end run around the authority of the bishops. The bishops may be infested with whackoes, but the Church still needs bishops. But I don’t think it really undermines their authority. It simply recognizes that the old Latin Mass, which goes back for centuries in time, is not some sort of outlaw liturgy. It has never been condemned by anyone, merely set aside by a bunch of fashionable lemmings.

So, why should it be necessary for a priest to get permission to celebrate it?

This won’t solve the problem if a great shortage of priests interested in celebrating the Tridentine Mass, or congregants who have grown up never having heard it in their lives, but at least it takes a weapon away from dissident and obstructionist bishops.

All this presumes that the key sentence is accurate, of course.

[Cicero]

I’m with you! It’s not a proper song for the liturgy of the Mass, but it would be great around the campfire!

Jesus said John the Baptist was great
The greatest man who ever lived
And if old John was with us today
He’d tell us something like this …

If you’re on the wrong road, go the other way!
If you have two coats, give one away!
When Jesus comes, prepare the way!
and don’t forget your bugs.

He ate bugs for lunch! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
He ate bugs for lunch! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
He ate bugs for lunch! Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
John the Baptist ate bugs for lunch!

[BlackElk]

Actually, there are Aramaic Masses in at least one entire Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps NYer or Sandyeggo will provide further details to you.

[rbosque]

Well I remember the Mass when I was a kid. I do remember the archdiocese quickly changing the format and many folks were upset, some even went to the Orthodox Church. Its just that I was under the impression that the Tridentine format wasn't necessarily abolished altogether but was performed with permission from the local Bishop.

[Salvation]

You are always welcome. Open arms await you as will as a class for returning Catholics in some parishes.

We do a series entitled, “Catholics Can Come Home Again”.

[ELS]

Fr. Zuhlzdorf has a blog called What Does the Prayer Really Say? NYT on MP

[nickcarraway]

The next town from me has an Assyrian Chaldean catholic Church that has Mass in Aramaic. They’re always full.

[nickcarraway]

No, Vatican II did not even call for the new Mass. Read it. It did allow for the possibility of some parts of the Mass being in thye vernacular. If you read Vatican II on the Mass, and look at the new Mass, the new Mass is against what Vatican II documents said.

[BlackElk]

TAN Books and Publishers in Rockford, Illinois, publishes quite traditional missals and will gladly sell them to anyone interested.

[BlackElk]

One step at a time. First free the Tridentine Mass. Then let the faithful attend it. Then, over decades, watch them vote with their feet for the Tridentine Mass. Eventually, Novus Ordo may well become a somewhat available historical curiosity. In any event, the process begins with the new Motu Proprio.

[nickcarraway]

What diocese are you in? That's great that other priests are willing to be trained, and aren't afraid of the bishop. In our diocese, the priests are afraid of the bishop to learn the new Mass. One pastor (who is a member of an order) asked the bishop for permission to learn the traditional Mass, and was denied it by the bishop. Most priests think that being associated with the traditional Mass will make them radioactive.

[DesScorp]

Good, I’m all for the return of tradition. Maybe if the Church brings Latin back, it’ll spark a Latin revival across other areas, and that would do our culture a world of good. I’m not even Catholic and I can admire the beauty and majesty of the Latin Mass.

[GCC Catholic]

Missals are also available from Baronius Press: http://baroniuspress.com/

[AU72]

The beginning of the end to my Catholicism came when the yearly retreat at my High School went in 1 year from gregorian chants to guitar playing folk music.

I could have gone to any number of 'coffee houses' to get that.

[AnAmericanMother]

I was at a dog show and went to a parish I didn't know.

Turned out to be a LifeTeen Mass . . . the horror! the horror!

Thought I was at a Baptist revival.

[maryz]

Thanks!

[Aquinasfan]

On the other hand, how soon before we start reading about abuses in the Latin Masses?

Ha! I was thinking the same thing. I'd rather not think about it.

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?

Yes, but every battle counts. The abuses accreted incrementally, so we can push them back incrementally.

[NYer]

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

Actually ... not quite. There has been some change to the form spoken by Jesus, His Blessed mother, and the Apostles but for the most part, Aramaic is a dead language. Nothing new has been added to it over the centuries.

To cite an example, the Lebanese language is also dead. It is still spoken in Lebanon even though the country has adopted Arabic as its official language. Like any dead language, it is often difficult to 'name' a contemporary device (ex: computer) so they resort to using other words that, when combined together, convey a description of it. Sometimes, they simply borrow the word from a living language, like English or French.

[franky1]

My cousin and his wife passed on a few months apart last year and they both had Latin Requiem Masses with Gregorian Chants. It was amazing that the choir was all in their late teens to early twenties.

The priest was about my age, 75 and he wore the original vestments for that Mass.

The greatest thing was that he had 8 altar boys, ages 4 to 17 and all wearing their black and white cassocks. While the priest was offering Mass the 17 year old assisted him.

The 17 year old also directed the other altar boys using just head nods and finger pointing.

To see 4, 5 and 6 and 7 year olds on the top step of the altar while the priest said the Mass made me cry. It just seemed these guys were sitting around our Lord in Heaven.

The Church is in good hands.