Ethnic Masses?

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Greetings Church

Our Diocese is having a synod to address some issues that we are facing. We have had parish meetings, getting the parishioners feelings on different things.

The topic of various ethnic or non-english Masses has been brought up all over the Diocese.
The majority, as I have been told, feel Spanish, Portuguese, etc., Masses divide the Parish.
I won’t go into details but will just ask you, how you feel about this?
 
Why not just use Latin? It is the language of the (western) Church.

James
 
well… I guess if your parish is 85% hispanic then you probably should drop the english mass in favor of unity ?
 
Hi Church

Hi James,

James, you are off topic and not addressing my question.

(Sheesh, why does this always happen?)
 
In the US at least, Ethnic masses are nothing new. In most cities in the East and Midwest, and in San Francisco for that matter, the parishes before WWII were ethnic in nature. Ye sthey all had the Tridentine mass, but the sermons were in Polish, Spanish, French, Italian and German to serve the various communities, the parihes that had English sermons were considerd Irish parishes.(On occasion there was a parish that served Catholics of English descent as well). The reason why parishes in older cities were often only a few blocks apart is because of the fact they were built to serve these ethnic communities.
 
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robertaf:
Hi Church

Hi James,

James, you are off topic and not addressing my question.

(Sheesh, why does this always happen?)
Click to expand...
Just because you (obviously) don’t like the answer it doesn’t mean that I did not address the question. Your question concerned the divisiveness of non-english Masses. I pointed out that the language of the Mass would not be a divisive issue if the official language of the Church were used.

If you don’t like my solution that is fine. But it is pretty obvious that I am NOT off topic.

God bless,
James
 
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robertaf:
Greetings Church

Our Diocese is having a synod to address some issues that we are facing. We have had parish meetings, getting the parishioners feelings on different things.

The topic of various ethnic or non-english Masses has been brought up all over the Diocese.
The majority, as I have been told, feel Spanish, Portuguese, etc., Masses divide the Parish.
I won’t go into details but will just ask you, how you feel about this?
Click to expand...
I find this divisive.

In my parish, we have Mass in Italian, English, Spanish, Kreyol and Tagalog. What I have found that it divides the parish into “communities” that never, ever mix. For example, on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the “Spanish community” had a big beautiful procession and a special Mass. No one who wasn’t Hispanic or a spanish-speaker knew anything about it. I would have loved to attend. I only found out about it because they came up behind us as we were trying to leave the parking lot from the Mass we had just attended.

Ditto the parish bulletin. It is printed in 5 languages. The waste of paper and cost aside, no one knows what everyone else is doing.

Sadly, there is no interaction between “communities”. When we had a big going away party for the last pastor, the Italian community sat on the left side of the room and the Hatian community sat on the other side of the room. (He hadn’t made any appreciable impact on the Spanish or Philipinos.)
 
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condan:
I find this divisive.

In my parish, we have Mass in Italian, English, Spanish, Kreyol and Tagalog.
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Wow. Mind if I ask where this is?

James
 
In my diocese we have English, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Fillipino, Mayan and Tonkan and African American
 
We moved to Cleveland when we got married in 1969 because my husband was still in school, poor, no car, walked to the closest Catholic Church, because we were taught you had to stay in your parish boundaries, well it wasn’t English or Latin, took a couple of weeks before we figured out it was Hungarian, we tried in turn Italian, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Polish, Ukranian, Ruthenian, Croatian, Korean and Spanish (Mexican) and Spanish (Puerto Rican) parishes within more or less walking or rapid transit distance. Finally found an old Irish parish where English was the primary language, and found out that in every neighborhood you have to look for the generic language parish. I have felt since then that this is the biggest reason to bring back Latin. Found out you couldn’t get your kid baptized or even register in a parish or attend the parish school if you were the wrong ethnic group. I am sure that has changed over the years and many of those old ethnic parishes are closed and the buildings served to pentecostal or evangelical congregations of varying ethnicity, or to historically African American denominations. When I went to work in the main Cleveland Post Office, where I was definitely part of a racial minority I learned a valuable lesson about exactly what are the qualifications for being a majority (or not). I learned a similar lesson when we moved to a part of Texas where many parishes graciously provide an English Mass for resident gringoes or winter visitors. This yours, mine, ours and theirs Catholicism does not sound much like the Acts of the Apostles, I think we need to do some more reading and praying about unity.
 
In Orlando, I know of the following; English, Polish, Korean, Vietnamese, Creyol (sp?), and Ukrainian. Strange thing is I can’t find a Latin Mass outside the SSPX chapel in Sanford.
 
Also doing a search, I found an Orlando Mass where “The words of the Eucharist are chanted in Syriac Aramaic.”

Talk about out of the ordinary…

Source: saintjudechurch.org/
 
Eddie that is not so strange. Most NOM are in the Vernacular - that means the language spoken - very few people speak Latin. However it is permissible to have an NOM Latin Mass. It has always seemed strange to me, however, that we do have all these diversity Masses in our country in other languages. I bet if I went to any of those countries, I’d be hard pressed to find one in English.

The SSPX Masses are not the NOM but are Tridentine Mass in Latin. In some Dioceses (probably not yours) there are Indult Ttridentine Masses too but the Bishop must give his permission for them to be celebrated.

Of course if they were all still in Latin, there would be no problem of which language to use for which race, etc.
 
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robertaf:
Greetings Church

Our Diocese is having a synod to address some issues that we are facing. We have had parish meetings, getting the parishioners feelings on different things.

The topic of various ethnic or non-english Masses has been brought up all over the Diocese.
The majority, as I have been told, feel Spanish, Portuguese, etc., Masses divide the Parish.
I won’t go into details but will just ask you, how you feel about this?
Click to expand...
LATIN!!! This should have stayed this way and the church should teach everyon Latin if they do not know it, here is why…
I am currently reading “The Aquinas Catechism”. St. Thomas Aquinas states in it that the Church is of course, “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic” He spoke about the one language of the Church and how we are one and speak the same language (which was Latin of course)…Same language=UNITY… I don’t have the exact quote, but here is the deal…all priest are supposed to have a VERY strong Theology background…in order to do this, they are all sooner or later going to go into some pretty serious study of St. Thomas Aquinas. How can they totally miss this? Well perhaps they didn’t, but modernism and all that has run rampant in the Church . Now we have all this DIVISION. That would be amazing if we all spoke Latin, I would love to talk about my faith with other Catholics who just may be Spanish or French…but we can’t because the things that hold us together are falling away, in the name of "fairness, and “diversity”…Think about this really hard, it all makes too much sense. It is annoying when I walk into a church here in California and see someone Hispanic who I could learn a lot from or just talk, but I can’t, and instead two people of the same faith ignore each other like two people passing each other up walking down the street, it is cold and sad.
 
In our church we have Spanish, English, and Vietnamese Masses. I see such beauty when we all go to adoration and pray in silence to Jesus who listens to each language. When you think of it, it must sound like a choir to hear all those prayers in so many languages. My mother and her family were Croatian and I loved to hear them speak. I never learned the language and I really regret it. My father was French and I do not know how to speak that either. I do not fault anyone who wishes to keep their native tongue. It would be wonderful if everyone learned English also but think about this, Most of you went looking for an English parish. WHY? Because we are most comfortable in our own language and culture, and so are they. I have found that when MY parish has any events, its the english speaking who stay away…so who is doing the dividing? I feel each culture has many beautiful religious traditions and it would be wonderful if we all participated. The division comes when we refuse to learn more about others and be the first to cross the line.
 
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EddieArent:
Also doing a search, I found an Orlando Mass where “The words of the Eucharist are chanted in Syriac Aramaic.”

Talk about out of the ordinary…
Click to expand...
Eddie,

There is nothing strange about this. St. Jude’s in Orlando is a parish of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon, one of the two Maronite Catholic Eparchies (equivalent of dioceses in the Latin Church) in the US. The Maronites are only 1 of the Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris which are represented in the US, Canada, and/or Mexico (16 of the 22 Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris have a presence in North America).

Many years,

Neil
 
In Houston there is a parish that uses Spanish and English in the same mass. English mass, homily and music in English but all prayers and responses are half English and half Spanish. The Spanish mass which I was at has Spanish music and homily. The pastor said he started to do this in an attempt to bring the parish together as one. He said he thought it was working.
 
Among the religious communities in Belgium they use Latin as a common tongue for all Masses and Liturgy of the Hours.

yes, in the old days there were various ethnic parishes; each with its own language (as one poster mentioned, the Mass was in Latin, but the sermon and hymns were in the language of the people).

Its tough when there are SEVERAL different language in the SAME parish; not enough to form a seperate parish. Maybe Latin is the answer.
 
Where I grew up in Western New York, we had 2 Parishes that did Masses in Polish and one that did Masses in Italian.

My Parish was Irish, so we had Mass in English.

My best friend’s parents were from Poland, and He had a cousin who was an Oblate, and could speak Polish. When His Grandma died we went to the funeral Mass at St. Stan’s, and His cousin said the Mass in Polish. Every elderly Polish lady there looked like they would have happily traded palces with His Grandma in the coffin if they could have had a grandson who was a priest and could do a Polish Mass.
 
Hi Neil,
As you stated, there’s nothing strange about it, but the rite seems rare here at least. Since as you stated, it’s just one of the two Maronite Catholic Eparchies in America. I’ve just now heard about Maronites and I thank you for telling me more about them. Generally speaking, do you know how many people worldwide follow this rite of the Church?

With God,
Eddie
 
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