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"No, the "advantage" to the Traditional Mass is that it is traditional -- its roots reach back to Apostolic times. It was not concocted out of whole cloth by a handful of "experts" in the 1960s."

No, actually it doesn't. The original languages of the Mass was Aramaiac, and then Greek. There is nothing whatsoever "traditional" about the Mass in Latin. It's just another language.

Sorry, but I prefer the Mass to be in the vernacular. It is very distracting to try to follow the English "notes" in the Missal as the mass is said in Latin.

For you purists, if a parish wants to have a "Latin mass" as ONE service along with the vernacular, then fine. But I won't attend the Latin one.

I think you're confusing "traditional" with "original."

Everybody knows that Latin wasn't the original language of the Mass. The Aramaic fell by the wayside quickly as Christianity spread, and Greek took over. But by 250 A.D. Latin was the Church's primary tongue.

So you've got basically 800 years of a Latin tradition, which is significant. It's not "just another language" - it has been the Church's language, and of course it was the universal language of scholars for a good 500 years, and the parent tongue of most of the languages in the West.

That is a substantial tradition.

Actually, there are 22 churches that make up the One Holy Catholic Church. Of these, 3 retain ancient Aramaic for the Consecration. All 3 are Eastern Catholic Churches. Latin is the most befitting language of the Roman Rite. (I am RC but celebrate my faith in the Maronite Catholic Church which retains Aramaic and Syriac as part of the liturgy.)

There was a time when virtually all educated Europeans from Iona to Prague and from Oslo to Palermo --- physicians, astronomers, philosophers, poets, historians, jurists, mathematicians, etc. --- could correspond or converse with one another in Latin. It was truly a continent-wide civilization.

For centuries, the Mass was at the center of that civilization. And as recently as my teenage years, you could go any of the six inhabited continents and find people of all races and languages and all levels of education participating intelligently and devoutly in this beautiful act of worship.

I, too, love the English mass, which can be celebrated with splendor and reverence. But the Latin Mass should be --- not obligatory --- but available to all. It is such a rich part of our partimony.

I predict that particularly young adult Catholics will love it. It's -- awesome.

Sorry, but I prefer the Mass to be in the vernacular.

You're falling into the trap that the change was merely about language. The TLM is much more than that. I have a missal from the 50's (my mom's). The celebration is much different - it's not just Latin vs English.

I hope for this to come about and believe our Pope will get his way. He was not happy about the TLM being tossed on to the garbage pile. This would do wonders to eliminate the serious splits and heal a lot of unneccessary pain. Would I attend? Perhaps. My parish remains quite true to the way the Mass is supposed to be, and I am quite happy with it. However, I went to a Mass in MI this weekend and the priest was quite.... free... with his following of what the Mass should be. It was a pity, actually, since he seemed to be a very good and popular priest, and almost a touch on the orthodox side, given the contents of his homily.

The US Bishops kicked out a tradition without needing to, and hurt many of the faithful. I long for the day when healing starts.