Cardinal Arinze 'lays it down' on the subject of the Latin mass

  • Thread starter Thread starter CatholicOf94
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
MarkThompson said:
Sure, but the only people who say the Latin Mass these days are highly traditional priests who are likely to be pretty much fanatical about the rubrics.
Click to expand...
All priests are supposed to be ‘fanatical’ about the rubics. The history books are full of examples from martyrs fanatical about the Mass and our faith. How many people would die for the Church today? Priests take an oath of obedience which should carry through to rubics.

Yes the EF can be abused, but the OF is much more prone to it as the past forty years have proven.

In many OF parishes the liturgical theme is novelty, creativity, basically entertainment. The flaw in this approach is the short attention span most people have today. If you are trying to entertain you have to be constantly finding something new. You also depend on the personality of the presider being charismatic enough to pull it off. This is why it is common for Protestants to switch their allegiance from one place to another.
 
Ockham said:
All priests are supposed to be ‘fanatical’ about the rubics. The history books are full of examples from martyrs fanatical about the Mass and our faith. How many people would die for the Church today? Priests take an oath of obedience which should carry through to rubics.

Yes the EF can be abused, but the OF is much more prone to it as the past forty years have proven.

In many OF parishes the liturgical theme is novelty, creativity, basically entertainment. The flaw in this approach is the short attention span most people have today. If you are trying to entertain you have to be constantly finding something new. You also depend on the personality of the presider being charismatic enough to pull it off. This is why it is common for Protestants to switch their allegiance from one place to another.
Click to expand...
Amen 👍

Sure, when the Mass of Paul VI was promulgated, it was not done so with any expressed intent that the Mass should be more like entertainment than worship. Nonetheless, the chance was there to do precisely that with it, in large part because of the loosening of rubrics and standards.

Yes, priests are free to be as reverential and traditional as they want, but they are not bound to. Yes, priests should be as fanatical about such things as they always were, but now they are not *required *to. As you’ve noted, the past 40 years have given us plenty of fruits by which that tree can and must be judged 😦
 
Lycorth said:
Sure, when the Mass of Paul VI was promulgated, it was not done so with any expressed intent that the Mass should be more like entertainment than worship. Nonetheless, the chance was there to do precisely that with it, in large part because of the loosening of rubrics and standards.
Click to expand...
From what I remember, the promulgation of the new Mass was not to spite anybody but to stem the chaotic state of the liturgy (and other things like birth control) following Vatican II. I don’t remember reverence as being an issue back then. There had been many and nonuniform changes done to the liturgy, well over 20 canons said, and finally, after the bishops rejected any attempts by the Pope to impose a new Mass, Pope Paul finally put his foot down. He allowed four canons and only those four, and put out a strong request that everyone use the new missal. In my opinion, it needed to be done. Things went too far at that time to go back to the state prior to Vatican 2. The rest is history.
 
Ockham said:
All priests are supposed to be ‘fanatical’ about the rubics.
Click to expand...
No, not really, not any more so than all priests are supposed to be “fanatical” about serving the poor, about evangelizing to the unchurched, about working for social justice, and on and on. If one priest spends all day in his office and the sacristy meticulously planning every detail of the liturgy, then says a glorious EF Mass and writes an academic article about it, while another priest spends all day preaching the Gospel in the slums and leading prayers in front of an abortion clinic, leaves the planning of the liturgy to others, then shows up and says a so-so Mass before heading out to visit with migrant workers – which is the “better” priest?

There’s room in my Church for both, that’s for sure.
 
MarkThompson said:
No, not really, not any more so than all priests are supposed to be “fanatical” about serving the poor, about evangelizing to the unchurched, about working for social justice, and on and on. If one priest spends all day in his office and the sacristy meticulously planning every detail of the liturgy, then says a glorious EF Mass and writes an academic article about it, while another priest spends all day preaching the Gospel in the slums and leading prayers in front of an abortion clinic, leaves the planning of the liturgy to others, then shows up and says a so-so Mass before heading out to visit with migrant workers – which is the “better” priest?

There’s room in my Church for both, that’s for sure.
Click to expand...
Mark with all charity, your argument is not an apple to apple argument. Most Diocesan Priests are busy running and supporting a parish or two or three. The vast Majority of social causes and work with the poor is taken on by the various Religious Orders. And the point that priests should be “fanatical” about the Mass is justified.
Your arguments lend themselves to a comparison of a good and a great and leave no room for choice. It is a nice debating trick but a slight of hand for furthering discussion on this point. Sort of like the question: " do you still beat your wife?"
 
dmorgan said:
Mark with all charity, your argument is not an apple to apple argument. Most Diocesan Priests are busy running and supporting a parish or two or three. The vast Majority of social causes and work with the poor is taken on by the various Religious Orders. And the point that priests should be “fanatical” about the Mass is justified.
Your arguments lend themselves to a comparison of a good and a great and leave no room for choice. It is a nice debating trick but a slight of hand for furthering discussion on this point. Sort of like the question: " do you still beat your wife?"
Click to expand...
My point is, not all priests are called to be “fanatical about the rubrics” – i.e., to treat the minutest niceties of the liturgy as of gravest importance. The average Catholic only really sees his priest at Mass, so we tend to think, “Mass is their job.” Wrong – it’s part of their job, and an hour spent doing God’s work for the Mass is an hour not spent doing God’s work elsewhere.

That’s not to say that there aren’t priests who both say poor Masses and do a poor job of other things. In fact, statistics show that fully half of all priests are below average! :eek: But I stand by my original point that the “look” of TLMs nowadays is more than a bit skewed by selection bias.
 
Yes the EF can be abused, but the OF is much more prone to it as the past forty years have proven.
Click to expand...
When one spends 9-24 months learning to say the EF vs another spending 1-3 weeks learning to say the English OF, who’s more likely to pay stricter heed to the rubrics and language?
 
MarkThompson said:
My point is, not all priests are called to be “fanatical about the rubrics” – i.e., to treat the minutest niceties of the liturgy as of gravest importance. The average Catholic only really sees his priest at Mass, so we tend to think, “Mass is their job.” Wrong – it’s part of their job, and an hour spent doing God’s work for the Mass is an hour not spent doing God’s work elsewhere.

That’s not to say that there aren’t priests who both say poor Masses and do a poor job of other things. In fact, statistics show that fully half of all priests are below average! :eek: But I stand by my original point that the “look” of TLMs nowadays is more than a bit skewed by selection bias.
Click to expand...
Half of priests are below the median. If it’s a perfectly normalized bell curve, then you’re also correct. However, the true average is likely to be different from the median, resulting in more than half of priests being either above or below average.
 
MarkThompson said:
My point is, not all priests are called to be “fanatical about the rubrics” – i.e., to treat the minutest niceties of the liturgy as of gravest importance. The average Catholic only really sees his priest at Mass, so we tend to think, “Mass is their job.” Wrong – it’s part of their job, and an hour spent doing God’s work for the Mass is an hour not spent doing God’s work elsewhere.
Click to expand...
I could make a few remarks about the dearth of rubrics (forget “fanaticism”) in the OF, but I’d be wasting my time and will not go there.

As for the rest, sorry, mate, but the Mass is his “job” (if one insists on using that term). Let’s face it: the other things can be done by just about anyone. It is the unique privilege and duty of a priest to offer Holy Mass. Nothing trumps that.
 
MarkThompson said:
No, not really, not any more so than all priests are supposed to be “fanatical” about serving the poor, about evangelizing to the unchurched, about working for social justice, and on and on. If one priest spends all day in his office and the sacristy meticulously planning every detail of the liturgy, then says a glorious EF Mass and writes an academic article about it, while another priest spends all day preaching the Gospel in the slums and leading prayers in front of an abortion clinic, leaves the planning of the liturgy to others, then shows up and says a so-so Mass before heading out to visit with migrant workers – which is the “better” priest?

There’s room in my Church for both, that’s for sure.
Click to expand...
I guess it all depends on what you feel the prImary purpose of the Priest is. If his primary function is that of a social worker then yes, ignore the liturgy as did the Jesuits involved in the Liberation Theology movement. They truly felt that they were doing Christs work in the way it should be done and that included truncating the liturgy and changing the entire theology of the Church to suit their new purpose. And they are just one example of many. On the other hand if the primary purpose is to offer the Eternal Sacrifice to the Father, then I think it is imperative that the Sacrifice be done correctly and without errors in as dignified and respectful manner as possible.

It all depends on which function is the more important of the two.
 
What if all priests stayed to the “say the black do the red” practice? Call it fanatical, obedient, or just proper, we’d all be a lot better off. The faithful have a right to a properly offered Mass and that’s what the good Cardinal is getting at.
 
MarkThompson said:
No, not really, not any more so than all priests are supposed to be “fanatical” about serving the poor, about evangelizing to the unchurched, about working for social justice, and on and on. If one priest spends all day in his office and the sacristy meticulously planning every detail of the liturgy, then says a glorious EF Mass and writes an academic article about it, while another priest spends all day preaching the Gospel in the slums and leading prayers in front of an abortion clinic, leaves the planning of the liturgy to others, then shows up and says a so-so Mass before heading out to visit with migrant workers – which is the “better” priest?

There’s room in my Church for both, that’s for sure.
Click to expand...
Good grief. Ok, Mark, the second priest is the ‘better’. Happy? Your counter arguments to anything I post seem to frequently appeal to the extreme. What’s next, a Nazi reference?
 
Ockham said:
Good grief. Ok, Mark, the second priest is the ‘better’. Happy? Your counter arguments to anything I post seem to frequently appeal to the extreme. What’s next, a Nazi reference?
Click to expand...
Is that so obvious? A guy like Joseph Ratzinger was an academic’s academic, and, even setting aside his papacy, the Church is much better off for having had him in the priesthood. There’s nothing particularly extreme about my example, which is why you can answer in the way you did while other commenters brushed off my second priest as a glorified social worker.

Priests, like anyone else, are interested in different things. Some are interested in history, chant, and liturgical fine points. These are more likely to be saying the TLM today. If everyong were saying the TLM today, much like how everyone was saying the TLM in 1950, you’d have TLMs being said by plenty of priests with no great interest in history, chant, or liturgical fine points. So it can be misleading to think, as people sometimes seem to, that saying the TLM leads to fanatically following rubrics, when in fact saying the TLM and fanatically following rubrics probably both stem more or less from an earlier cause.
 
If all priest said the black and did the red we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion. Wouldn’t that be nice? Given the past forty years any priest interested in practicing proper rubics is a blessing and should be supported.
 
MarkThompson said:
No, not really, not any more so than all priests are supposed to be “fanatical” about serving the poor, about evangelizing to the unchurched, about working for social justice, and on and on. If one priest spends all day in his office and the sacristy meticulously planning every detail of the liturgy, then says a glorious EF Mass and writes an academic article about it, while another priest spends all day preaching the Gospel in the slums and leading prayers in front of an abortion clinic, leaves the planning of the liturgy to others, then shows up and says a so-so Mass before heading out to visit with migrant workers – which is the “better” priest?

There’s room in my Church for both, that’s for sure.
Click to expand...
The better priest concentrates on the liturgy.

That’s like asking which corporate CEO is better: the one who spends all his time making the company more charitable or the one who spends his time running the company. The former, for all his good intentions, will still be fired, because you can’t afford the charity if the business is running itself in to the ground.
 
We have enough social workers in society compared to the number of priests who administer the old sacraments well.
 
I do wish Cardinal Arinze was younger! He would make a great next Pope in thirty years or so 😃 (We could use Pope Benedict for a lot longer!!!)

Agreed with everybody who says that priest need to just follow the rubrics. That’s their life’s work, just do it right for God’s sake!! A four year old could follow the rubrics better than many of our priests do! :nope:
 
MarkThompson said:
Not unsurprisingly, I’ve never heard anyone report that God told them whether the priest was skipping or fudging the prayers said in a low voice.
Click to expand...
Wouldn’t surprise me if an occasional padre skipped a few prayers from time to time.
I am sure that many of us have seen the Gloria or Credo skipped even nowadays.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top