Latin Mass vs New Mass

[Scotty_PGH]

Podo2005:

Why doesn’t anyone look on the tridentine mass anymore? Because It isn’t the norm anymore, Pope Paul VI obviously saw that the liturgy had to be changed and it was changed. Why can’t you accept that? The tridentine mass is forbidden to practice unless granted an indult. Have you ever thought that God wanted the new mass? What is wrong with using the 2nd eucharistic prayer? What is wrong with calling the mass a celebration when technically it is. Aren’t you rejoicing that Jesus died to save us on calvary?

Pope Benedict prefers the latin mass but hasn’t done anything to bring it back! My parish isn’t allowed to say it and thank God they aren’t! And why is having positive readings bad eh? Besides if you know that God is great, why would you want to turn away from him and go to hell?

I don’t understand many tradionalists but will continue to pray for them…

Podo
(Note this is my opinion so don’t ATTACK me because people have been to known to do that on this site…)

This is one of the most uninformed posts I’ve seen on this site.

 

[pnewton]

johnnyjoe:

I once had a Fraternity of St. Peter priest say to my daughter, "Why would you want to go to McDonald’s when you could have a fine french meal?

That was his way of contrasting the Novus Ordo and the LTM.

What a sad analogy. The atmosphere may be different but the “meal” is the same, unless one thinks the TLM has a “better” Jesus.

 

[Wolseley]

johnnyjoe:

I note with interest that RC Traditional has not returned to this thread…

I once had a Fraternity of St. Peter priest say to my daughter, "Why would you want to go to McDonald’s when you could have a fine french meal?

That was his way of contrasting the Novus Ordo and the LTM.

Now this priest had really two extra crosses to carry…he was young and he was french, so we pray for his deeper conversion and the virtue of humility, but he was our introduction to the traditionalist mindset.

I have not heard those same words from the priest that replaced him, but the attitude is often part and parcel of the Traditionalist gestault, I am afraid.

There’s an awful lot of that “Traditionalist gestault” going around out there—and it appears to be growing:

uvcolumbus.org/tlmgrowth.htm

My wife and I recently abandoned our own deanery, and are driving 60 miles one-way every Sunday to attend an indult Tridentine Mass.

Our decision has nothing to do with the concept of “which Mass is better”.

It is simply that we can no longer stomach the constant, never-ending, horrible abuses that are carried on in the Novus Ordo Masses we have attended for the last eight years.

If the Novus Ordo were done reverently and properly, we wouldn’t have a problem at all with it…but the Masses around here are just simply awful—they resemble a cross between a post-football game wrap-up and a circus sideshow. There is no reverence, the noise is incredible (between the parishioners jabbering like a tribe of monkeys and the rock bands up front practicing hot licks before Mass, you literally cannot hear yourself think, let alone try to pray), and the emphasis is all on us, us, us, us, us…Christ is shunted off to one side in a tiny tabernacle in a dark corner, until it’s time to bring Him “onstage” between commercial breaks.

We discussed it, and we discovered that neither one of us were being spiritually fed, and we were appalled at what our son was being exposed to and passed off as the Catholic Faith.

So, we abandoned the new rite, and returned to the old.

And I suspect that if you were to ask any of the Catholics packing Tridentine Masses anywhere in the country, they would give you a similar answer----they don’t hate the Novus Ordo; it is simply that the Novus Ordo invites abuse, and that invitiation is all too often followed up on.

 

[Dr.Bombay]

Isn’t it time for the traditionalists to have their own Rite, if you will, within the Church? There seems to be a constant tension, as evidenced on this board, between traditionalists and other Catholics. Separate bishops, seminaries, and even property (with no “table” mucking up the sanctuary) would seem to be the easiest road to peace. Just think, no more sniping at one Mass or the other. You do your thing, I’ll do mine and we’ll see each other in heaven.

As a first step in the reconcilliation process, I propose attempting “Gather Us In” in Gregorian Chant.

Who’s with me???

 

[peregrinator_it]

Wolseley:

And I suspect that if you were to ask any of the Catholics packing Tridentine Masses anywhere in the country, they would give you a similar answer----they don’t hate the Novus Ordo; it is simply that the Novus Ordo invites abuse, and that invitiation is all too often followed up on.

I have to disagree with the perspective you express above. I don’t
see anything in the rubrics of the Pauline Mass that invites abuse. I think what invites abuse is the ignorance of the Catholic laity.

The Catholics I know who are willing to cooperate with abuses are the ones who simply don’t have a clue what they believe* or who have suffered a reverse catechesis at the hands of diocesan schools. The Cardinal Mahoney-s of the world should be made to answer for catechesis in their diocese, before they are made to answer for the liturgical abuse.

I wish that those who are sick of the abuses in the normative Mass would combat them (which would simultaneously help to catechise those around them) rather than abandon their parishes for the TLM.

*{And I mean really don’t have a clue; there seems to be no foundation for their faith. I seriously think that some Catholics I’ve met would swallow a story about sacred monkeys in the Vatican, like the character in Brideshead Revisited.}

 

[mosher]

bear06:

I’m a little confused here on a few things. First, Podo’s statement that the Tridentine is not the normative mass of the Church is accurate. It doesn’t really matter how many people attend. This doesn’t make it the normative mass of the Church.

Secondly, I don’t remember Podo saying that because it is not the normative mass that it was wrong. He simply showed that people focus more on the normative than the Tridentine.

Thirdly, while we have always had plural rites, did we have multiple normative liturgies in these rites?

If I gave the impression that I was arguing against the issue of what was normative or not I did not intend that. However, I was attempting to illustrate in a small way that the attendance of persons at the Tridentine Liturgy was not a small “sub-cult” but is a rather large and growing and youthining group. As far as the plurality of Liturgical Rites was concerned the normative Rite for the Latin Church was the Tridentine Liturgy because that is what was adopted by the Diocesean Clergy from the Benedictines. However, there was no concept of supression of the other rites (Dominican, Carthusian, Franciscan, Carmelite, Mozarabic, Milasian (sp? on all) and a few other obscure ones like the Premonstration Rite and others. These were all normative for their perspective regions or Orders and there was no plurality internally to the rite itself. To this day these rites exist but in short suply and minus the Premonstration Rite. Paul VI knew that he could not forbid the celebration of these rites because Pius V garunteed their existance so he asked each group to voluntarily abandon them so that the Novus Ordo could grow and flourish. All accepted except the Carthusians who refused to accept the Novus Ordo and to this day do not celebrate anything other than their rite of mass. My argument here has always been that there is no need to have a rite that is in monopoly but that the tradition of the Latin Church has been one of plurality of rites and the same should follow with the Novus Ordo and the Tridentine Liturgy existing side by side without conflict.

bear06:

What exactly is silly about this? Do you not think God wanted the Mass intended by Vatican II? I can agree with you if you’re talking about the local abusive mass but I’d say I disagree with you if you are talking about an EWTN or Fr. Fessio style Mass.

What I think is funny is any argument that asserts that God things this or God thinks that. Apart from the closed revelation given it is silly to posit an argument that implies that we know what God thinks. It has no place in a rational argument about liturgical form unless we are discussion essential form i.e. the essence of the sacrament itself because such was given to us by Christ so we know what God thinks about that portion.

 

[mosher]

Dr. Bombay:

Isn’t it time for the traditionalists to have their own Rite, if you will, within the Church? There seems to be a constant tension, as evidenced on this board, between traditionalists and other Catholics. Separate bishops, seminaries, and even property (with no “table” mucking up the sanctuary) would seem to be the easiest road to peace. Just think, no more sniping at one Mass or the other. You do your thing, I’ll do mine and we’ll see each other in heaven.

As a first step in the reconcilliation process, I propose attempting “Gather Us In” in Gregorian Chant.

Who’s with me???

I think that you may be confusing Rite with de juri Church. There really is already a seperate Rite but to go so far as to creat a seperate Church would not be an acceptable solution because it would be to seperate the Latin Church based on liturgical Rites which as never been the custom of the Church. Plus that, it would bring about a whole different tension of “the kicked us out of the Latin Church by one side or the other” Liturgical plurality seems to me the only real solution which is the one given by John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei.

 

[pnewton]

Dr. Bombay:

As a first step in the reconcilliation process, I propose attempting “Gather Us In” in Gregorian Chant.

Who’s with me???

This point I have to applaud for creative thinking.

 

[Scotty_PGH]

Dr. Bombay:

As a first step in the reconcilliation process, I propose attempting “Gather Us In” in Gregorian Chant.

Who’s with me???

Hahaha this made me:

 

[Wolseley]

peregrinator_it:

I have to disagree with the perspective you express above. I don’t
see anything in the rubrics of the Pauline Mass that invites abuse.

Don’t misunderstand me. The Novus Ordo Mass, in and of itself, does not invite abuse; but compared to the rather rigid practice of the TLM, the N.O. is much more fluid. Again, this has less to do with rubrics as it does with the mindset of the celebrant.

I think what invites abuse is the ignorance of the Catholic laity.

Possibly, although I would be more inclined to say the chief cause is clerical abuse of the liturgy.

The Cardinal Mahoney-s of the world should be made to answer for catechesis in their diocese, before they are made to answer for the liturgical abuse.

I wish that those who are sick of the abuses in the normative Mass would combat them (which would simultaneously help to catechise those around them) rather than abandon their parishes for the TLM.

The problem is, you can write letters, expose abuses, and point out dissident clergy until the cows come home, and unless you have bishops who are willing to correct their priests, you’re not going to get far. In many cases, the bishops either are just as dissident as the priests (a la Cardinal Mahony), or else they’re liberal enough that they see orthodox Catholics who protest the abuses as irritating nuisances who are best dealt with by being ignored.

The only other recourse is to write to the Vatican, and even then, the Holy See is very reluctant to interefere in the internal affairs of any specific diocese.

 

[Scotty_PGH]

In all seriousness, it has unfortunately come to this. Pope Benedict himself recognizes it

…the New Mass has become a source of liturgical anarchy, dividing Catholics into opposing party positions and creating a situation in which the Church is lacerating herself.

I went to my local NO parish for Mass yesterday morning (wife works some evenings, so I couldn’t make the TLM at my parish last night). There were about 25 people there max. I was literally the youngest person there by far. Everyone there was over 60. I couldn’t help but think: this is the Mass as they want it. They are the ones that allowed their altar rails to be ripped out, their high altars to be discarded, their statues to be thrown in the trash. What happens in ten years when these people are all dead?

Check out this link:
diopitt.org/archives/allegheny_county.htm

This is a list of parishes in my county (Pittsburgh PA area). There are pictures here in many cases of what a church looked like in the 30s-50s, and what it looks like now. I get physically ill when I look at this. What were these people thinking???

I get genuinely sad when I contemplate what it must have been like 30-40 years ago when these revolutionary changes took place. I thank God that I was not involved. I believe Pope Benedict was correct when he said about the current crisis in the Church,

I am convinced that the ecclesiastical crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in a great part upon the collapse of the liturgy

How will the Church rebound? She obviously knows she must reach out to young people, to bring them back into the fold as vibrant, motivated participants. We see this new focus on youth, and it is good. But must not the paradigm also be addressed? Clearly this new Church, kumbayah, rock bands on the altar, non-habited professor nun homilists, one “eucharistic minister” for every 12 parishioners paradigm is a failure. Why not turn back to the ancient practice of the Church; to the traditions and teachings that had people packed into Sunday Mass? People need to know about sin and its consequences. The Mass is that sacrifice which takes away our sins.

Whatever the answer is, something needs to happen quick. All the old revolutionaries are on their last legs.

 

[severinus]

peregrinator_it:

I have to disagree with the perspective you express above. I don’t
see anything in the rubrics of the Pauline Mass that invites abuse. I think what invites abuse is the ignorance of the Catholic laity.

The Catholics I know who are willing to cooperate with abuses are the ones who simply don’t have a clue what they believe* or who have suffered a reverse catechesis at the hands of diocesan schools. The Cardinal Mahoney-s of the world should be made to answer for catechesis in their diocese, before they are made to answer for the liturgical abuse.

I wish that those who are sick of the abuses in the normative Mass would combat them (which would simultaneously help to catechise those around them) rather than abandon their parishes for the TLM.

*{And I mean really don’t have a clue; there seems to be no foundation for their faith. I seriously think that some Catholics I’ve met would swallow a story about sacred monkeys in the Vatican, like the character in Brideshead Revisited.}

Yes, there are a lot of Catholics who have been poorly catechized, and there are some bishops who bear responsibility for it.

There are also many people who have educated themselves about the liturgy. As you can see from posts in these forums, these people are often ignored, told that they do not know what they are talking about, or informed about 'the spirit of Vatican II."

I approached a priest at a Catholic college about abuses I had seen during regular Sunday Masses on campus (wicker baskets, no kneeling, up to six EMHCs for about one hundred twenty communicants, ommissions in and changes of liturgical texts, illicit bread); he told me that “allowances are made” for “special” Masses, and that he was “sure” that everything was in accord with liturgical documents.

I asked if perhaps we could get together and look at the documents sometime. He then launched into a speech about the “spirit” of the documents, and told me to read up on Church history. That was that.

My letters to the priest’s provincial and to the local bishop were never answered.

My experience is probably similar to that of others who have found indult Masses to attend. Those attending any Mass should be able to do so without having doubts about whether the liturgy is valid and licit. Some have decided that the TLM is their best guarantee of that.

Those fighting abuses in the normative liturgy run into parish ‘liturgical experts’ steeped in a do-it-yourself attitude, who view the Mass as something to put their own personal stamp on, and as something to make ‘relevant’ to particular groups, as if hearing the Gospel, professing the Faith, and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ according to the Church’s guidelines were not relevant enough for anybody. What some of these specialists are ‘expert’ at is interpreting Church guidelines in ways never envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.

I do not reject the Novus Ordo; my parish is fortunate to have a priest who adheres to the Church’s guidelines. It is sad that one has to depend upon sheer luck in some dioceses to have a liturgy that meets those guidelines. So I can understand the frustration of those who decide that their place is in the TLM…

 

[bear06]

Yes, I agree there are abuses. However, I think there has always been abuses. Just look at Mediator Dei which addressed the abuses of the time. Yes the abuses seem more obnoxious but then so do the times we live in.

The idea that one Mass protects from abuses more than another is very silly in my mind. It all has to do with the leadership and it always had throughout time. Our Church has always had rebellion - remember the Reformation? Thousand of priests and laity left the Faith. Anyone have stats on that one? Those who rebelled didn’t just jump back into the Church after the Council of Trent.

Thankfully our Church, as she is doing now whether you see it or not, is slowly bringing those who have gone wayward back into the fold. I can tell that things are GREATLY improving in our diocese and the priests that I thought would leave before they’d show one act of obedience to our new bishop are seeming to jump in line. Are things perfect? No. I’m pretty sure they never will be as long as we have free will.

Ah, well! Continuing to hope!

 

[mosher]

bear06:

Yes, I agree there are abuses. However, I think there has always been abuses. Just look at Mediator Dei which addressed the abuses of the time. Yes the abuses seem more obnoxious but then so do the times we live in.

The idea that one Mass protects from abuses more than another is very silly in my mind. It all has to do with the leadership and it always had throughout time. Our Church has always had rebellion - remember the Reformation? Thousand of priests and laity left the Faith. Anyone have stats on that one? Those who rebelled didn’t just jump back into the Church after the Council of Trent.

Thankfully our Church, as she is doing now whether you see it or not, is slowly bringing those who have gone wayward back into the fold. I can tell that things are GREATLY improving in our diocese and the priests that I thought would leave before they’d show one act of obedience to our new bishop are seeming to jump in line. Are things perfect? No. I’m pretty sure they never will be as long as we have free will.

Ah, well! Continuing to hope!

You are absolutly correct. However, back then the abuses were using the vernacular and not wearing a beretta. Now the abuses are much more devistating to liturgical integrity. You are correct that all liturgical forms are abused but the level of the abuse that is being done to the Novus Ordo is on a level rarely seen in the history of the Church. The reason for this if unknown to me.

 

[bear06]

However, back then the abuses were using the vernacular and not wearing a beretta.

I think is not entirely accurate. If you read “Mediator Dei” for example, you can see we’re talking about more than a beretta and if you look at the Reformation, you will see the same.

I will agree that there are some gross abuses that correlate much with the gross times in which we live.

 

[mosher]

bear06:

I think is not entirely accurate. If you read “Mediator Dei” for example, you can see we’re talking about more than a beretta and if you look at the Reformation, you will see the same.

I will agree that there are some gross abuses that correlate much with the gross times in which we live.

I am well aware of the concerns of Puis XII and even though I spoke in hyperbole it is not far off. While there were abuses they were not as grave. In the period of the Reformation formal schism was in place and they were not celebrating the mass anyway so that is apples and oranges. Here, today, we may have a material schism but it is far from formal.

 

[bear06]

Yes, we’ve got material schism running rampant. We also don’t have a bunch of people running around saying that we formally break with the Church. Most of them are running around doing it quite underhandedly on both sides of the spectrum. If you ask me, the schismatics of the day have learned a lot from the likes of Luther and Calvin. They don’t want to break with the Church and hope everybody followes. They want to take it over and make it the way they want. They’re not simply happy to say we’re taking our toys to another sandbox. They want our sandbox.

By the way, there were quite of people still hanging on until the Council of Trent was over (who were probably in material schism) to see if it went there way. When it didn’t, they left.

 

[Dr.Bombay]

mosher:

I think that you may be confusing Rite with de juri Church. There really is already a seperate Rite but to go so far as to creat a seperate Church would not be an acceptable solution because it would be to seperate the Latin Church based on liturgical Rites which as never been the custom of the Church. Plus that, it would bring about a whole different tension of “the kicked us out of the Latin Church by one side or the other” Liturgical plurality seems to me the only real solution which is the one given by John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei.

Oh. Well, I’ve never allowed facts to get in the way of my half-baked schemes before, and I can’t start now.

Liturgical plurality is all well and good, but traditionalists are all too often made to feel like interlopers, attending Mass and then scattering like cockroaches afterwards lest they catch sight of an altar girl or mini-skirt clad EMHC at the Paul VI Mass which usually follows close on the heels of the TLM.

Our good bishop has just donated an old church to our Latin Mass Community. Much prep work is needed, including re-installing the old High Altar which was ripped out and carted off to God knows where in a fit of wreckovation, no doubt sometime in the 70’s. Once it’s done, it will be our church and we won’t be “just borrowing” somebody else’s altar. I’m excited as anything and I just know this is going to be a beautiful church and a thriving parish.

So, maybe a separate “Rite” isn’t feasible or advisable, but perhaps “separate but equal” parishes within each diocese is the answer. I’ll bet a lot of dioceses have old churches that have only one or two Masses a week and could be put to good use daily by a Latin Mass Community. It probably wouldn’t work in every diocese, but those that have long-established TLM communities would welcome the challenge and rise to the occasion of fully supporting a parish.

 

[mosher]

Dr. Bombay:

Oh. Well, I’ve never allowed facts to get in the way of my half-baked schemes before, and I can’t start now.

Liturgical plurality is all well and good, but traditionalists are all too often made to feel like interlopers, attending Mass and then scattering like cockroaches afterwards lest they catch sight of an altar girl or mini-skirt clad EMHC at the Paul VI Mass which usually follows close on the heels of the TLM.

Our good bishop has just donated an old church to our Latin Mass Community. Much prep work is needed, including re-installing the old High Altar which was ripped out and carted off to God knows where in a fit of wreckovation, no doubt sometime in the 70’s. Once it’s done, it will be our church and we won’t be “just borrowing” somebody else’s altar. I’m excited as anything and I just know this is going to be a beautiful church and a thriving parish.

So, maybe a separate “Rite” isn’t feasible or advisable, but perhaps “separate but equal” parishes within each diocese is the answer. I’ll bet a lot of dioceses have old churches that have only one or two Masses a week and could be put to good use daily by a Latin Mass Community. It probably wouldn’t work in every diocese, but those that have long-established TLM communities would welcome the challenge and rise to the occasion of fully supporting a parish.

I only thought that it was the Irish that didn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.

In anycase since you guys are in the process of renovating a new church you may want to contact the Society of St. John Cantious to see if they have in their store house of goodies anything that you guys can use. They store a lot of good traditional art from Monstrances to Stained Glass Windows for this very reson. They are housed at St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago and their website is:

www.cantius.org

 

[Kielbasi]

The idea that one Mass protects from abuses more than another is very silly in my mind.

Its not so silly at all, for a few very logical reasons.

In the mainstream mass, there are a huge number of options, different penitential rites, different EP’s, different languages.

Makes it harder for folks to detect whether something is an “abuse” or just a legitimate selection of for example, Option C-3 (a).

So abuses are much less likely to be detected (or corrected).