Lets talk ad orientem

[Loud-living-dogma]

Oh goodie - - I think I found the extensive and scientific research referred to by OTJM.
Definitely, the research of one priest should give plenty of rationale to toss out a thousand years of ritual to pander to people in one particular time and society.

*“By actual count, 35.08 per cent of the congregation read the missal all during Mass, while another 22.08 per cent read some sort of prayer-book while following the priest’s reading of the Gospel. … The remaining persons simply stare off into space, although several men in the last pews sometimes read a copy of* Our Sunday Visitor *during Mass” (1951, pg. 138).*

This research was done by one person:

" Perhaps more can be said by taking a second look at a researcher who was in many Catholic parishes studying Mass attendance in the 1950s. Joseph H. Fichter, S.J., (granduncle to current CARA research associate [Fr. Stephen Fichter](http://cara.georgetown.edu/AboutCARA/fichter.html)) famously studied parish life by going door to door and taking censuses, making Mass attendance head counts, observing parish life, and documenting everything possible both qualitatively and quantitatively."

Sunday Morning: Deconstructing Catholic Mass attendance in the 1950s and now

Social science is not just about surveys, trend data, or focus groups. Some of my favorite types of research involve content and historical ...

nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com

 

[OraLabora]

Vernacular, no Latin? Never called for in the documents.

Actually it was called for.

1. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.
2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.
3. These norms being observed, it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same language.
4. Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above.

Sacrosanctum Concilium gave considerable authority to local conferences of bishops to decide how much of the vernacular was to be used. Given the changing realities, i.e. Latin no longer taught in schools, expansion into mission territories, etc., it ended up being wider than anticipated. But SC made allowances for that, and all the translations in licit use are approved by the Vatican. No law is being transgressed. As for Latin being preserved, it is. Maybe not at the parish level to the extent that you’d like, but it is in monasteries, in Rome, etc. And it is still the language of the Editio Typica of both the Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours, the source from which translations are made.

 

[OraLabora]

Removal of altar rails? never called for.
Four hymn sandwich, no chant? never called for.
Dropping devotions? Taking out statues? Wreckovations?
People standing around the altar? Hand holding at the Our Father?
Felt banners, glass chalices, ‘homemade bread’?

Yes but don’t conflate lack of discipline with the reforms. Even Abp. Bugnini mentions with considerable grief, excesses in experimentation and interpretation, in his book.

On sacred music:

1. In certain parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are peoples who have their own musical traditions, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. For this reason due importance is to be attached to their music, and a suitable place is to be given to it, not only in forming their attitude toward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius, as indicated in Art. 39 and 40.

One could argue that today, mission territories include Western civilization… but all quips aside, SC did open the possibility to other than chant. So you are quite wrong in your assessment. The quality of the music is another, but highly subjective, issue.

You say that ‘what worked in the past no longer did.’
I call you on that. Tell us exactly what ‘worked in the past’ but somehow no longer did once we hit approximately AD 1970, and reference the Vatican II documents that explain why and how.

Just find yourself a copy of Léon Levavasseur’s “Cérémoniaire Romain” (I have a 1935 copy) and read for yourself. As our abbot explained, the celebration of the Mass got lost in so much minutiae accumulated over the years, that the priest no longer prayed the Mass, but had to concentrate on getting every little detail right. It’s not for nothing that Levavasseur’s ceremonial had a whole, huge chapter on mistakes commonly made in the liturgy. And that’s just for the priests. The laity had become disconnected from all participation in the liturgy; the lay parts only said by acolytes.

Moreover Vatican II called for full, active participation of the faithful. Ya don’t suppose that this came about from the experience of bishops and their clergy in the field? You think perhaps everything was fine and rosy in the 50s? It wasn’t. The vast majority of bishops endorsed the changes of Vatican II. Like over 90%.

Did people in the field sometimes take things too far? Of course. Humans screw up. All. The. Time. The focus should be on more discipline, not undoing Vatican II or retrenching into the old Mass. Those of us attached to Vatican II’s changes, and to the New Mass celebrated reverently, have a right to it.

 

[CilladeRoma]

Very well said, my friend. Thank You.

 

[ProVobis]

Latin no longer taught in schools,

Veterum Sapientia had ordered that Latin be taught.

 

[ralfyman]

Someone mentioned in another thread that Church attendance has dropped to around 20 pct, the trend started during the early 1960s, and similar has been taking place for other Christian groups. In developing countries, it’s probably around 40 pct. Another point raised refers to those attending mega-Churches, where there are significant numbers shifting from group to group.

The implication is that problems were taking even before the OF was introduced, and that their causes go beyond that as they are affecting other Christian groups. That is, with increasing prosperity comes more secularism, and thus less or wavering religiosity coupled with significant changes in languages, etc.

 

[OraLabora]

Veterum Sapientia had ordered that Latin be taught.

Except that the Church has no authority over public education, where many Catholic children are obliged to attend school.

 

[ProVobis]

You’re right but you can’t blame Pope John for trying to preserve Latin in an Apostolic Constitution prior to convening the council.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

Is Veterum Sapienta still required to be observed? Say what you want about public schools, Latin is certainly not taught in all Catholic schools.

 

[ProVobis]

Is Veterum Sapienta still required to be observed?

It has the force of an Apostolic Constitution. Quo Primum and Missale Romanum were also Apostolic Constitutions.

Maybe because of this document, Pope Benedict…

Pope Benedict to open new Latin academy in the Vatican

Traditionalist Benedict keen to breathe new life into dead language and ensure translations keep up with digital age

www.theguardian.com

Pope Benedict launches Latin academy at Vatican

Pope Benedict launches a new Latin academy at the Vatican, saying priests had to have more than a "superficial" knowledge of the ancient language.

www.bbc.com

 

[OraLabora]

Is Veterum Sapienta still required to be observed? Say what you want about public schools, Latin is certainly not taught in all Catholic schools.

I went to Catholic elementary schools in the 1960s, in Québec. Certainly it wasn’t taught at that level. By the time I reached high school, we’d moved to Ontario and I was in a public high school. I entered the year after Latin had been removed as a mandatory course. But it was still available as an elective until the only qualified prof retired. Of course, as a red-blooded 14 y.o. boy, it was not even on my agenda then.

What Ecclesiastical Latin I do know, is self-taught from singing in a Gregorian schola, and from chanting the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin every day. I can read it fluently but my understanding takes more time.

 

[stpurl]

Your personal experience and a sociological survey done (exactly who were the surveyors, what was the number of the group surveyed, etc?) and the things you mention are simply your rather pointedly slanted and biased opinions of ‘what went on at Mass’ during at best the 1950s in your own church. If you graduated grade school in 1960 you are all of what, 71? 72?, and your own knowledge of what went on in the 1950s starts with you at age 4 or so to age 14, hardly a time frame in which you yourself were capable of noticing or registering with any kind of adult understanding (as opposed to my mother who was 21 in 1950, bore three children, whose own parents were in their 60s during the decade, having worked their way from upper lower class to lower middle class in those decades prior, so it’s not like we’re talking about "elitist’ people here.)

 

[AlbMagno]

But now we know that the Ninth Heaven isn’t a physical place in our Universe and that Christ won’t probably return from the geographical east. Is a change in theology enough to make the liturgy more flexible in that regard?

 

[stpurl]

Yes, I’m familiar with the name. The laity had NOT become disconnected, and the majority of the clergy/voters at Vatican II did not see any problem with the EF, did not have any problems with their flocks, etc.

What you have is a small group of people who wanted to see THEIR view on what THEY thought Mass should be about, who were reflecting the SECULAR POV prevalent in the 1940s-1960s. The so-called "minuatiae’ and the (you so heavily imply) ‘ritualistic’ behaviors are by no means either as esoteric as you claim, or as meaningless.

Might I recommend “Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age needs the Mass of the Ages” by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski?

 

[AlbMagno]

You have a nice skill to use rethoric to disguise your arguments.

Your opinion about bringing back the Ad Orientem form is as anecdotical, biased and unscientific as the ones of the people you try to refute. The same principles of “lack of evidence” you apply in your posts can also be used to you.

 

[stpurl]

I specifically said, "vernacular with no Latin’ (you even included it in the quote), which was the case in virtually all Masses between 1970 and 2007, a disregard of the documents from which you quote. The fact of the matter is, the people who compiled and voted on the documents never envisioned the Mass being said completely in the vernacular and the loss of the parts “proper to the people” to be said and/or chanted in Latin. . .but that de facto is what happened.

 

[stpurl]

Really?
So you are saying that the others didn’t ‘back it up’ but I didn’t either?

If you would care to list anything that I ‘claim’ that I didn’t say was my opinion or experience, and ask me for sources, I’d be happy to oblige.

And if, in fact, as often happens when discussions become ‘fast’ as one responds quickly, and indeed distinctions become blurry or unclear, and there are things I said which I cannot ‘cite’, I would also be happy to state that those are indeed, ‘opinion’. I do not wish in any way to be academically less than honest.

 

[OraLabora]

What you have is a small group of people

2147 bishops voted for Sacrosanctum Concilium; 4 voted against. What do you know that the bishops didn’t?

The resulting reforms were signed off… by a saint.

Sorry, but I’m not buying your conclusions.

I specifically said, "vernacular with no Latin’ (you even included it in the quote), which was the case in virtually all Masses between 1970 and 2007, a disregard of the documents from which you quote.

The documents did not say that Latin has to be used every time, in every place. It said “Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites”. It is. I’ve been to many OF Masses in Latin, or partly in Latin. In fact every time our schola sings at a parish Mass, the Propers and Ordinary are in Latin (and Greek). SC says that the conferences of bishops can decide how much vernacular to have. They have, and have gotten all the necessary approvals.

The practical reality is that at most parishes, everything gravitated to the vernacular. Few people seem interested in Latin. But there is no reason why Latin could not be used.

So I pose this question: what have you done to preserve Latin in the reformed liturgy? Have you formed a schola? Do you sing in one at the OF Mass? I joined a schola, of which I have been a member for 17 years and we sing exclusively for the OF in the small city where we’re based, at various parishes and the cathedral. Taught myself chant from scratch, with a bit of help from a benevolent monk. I learned to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day in Latin Gregorian chant, which helps me keep my voice and skills honed.

If people want Latin, then they should pony up and get involved. As I’ve said before, the Vatican does not have a fleet of C-130s filled with Gregorian chant paratroopers ready to drop into every parish next Sunday so you can hear chant. It starts at the ground level, with people like you and I.

 

[stpurl]

Thank you for your response. I think you misunderstood what I said though.
The reality is that things gravitated to the vernacular solely because of the majority of priests and bishops who either on their own or with the cooperation of the majority of the grand sweep of liturgists and directors and councils etc wanted it that way. It’s not that few people seem interested in Latin --it’s that for decades the worldview of those involved in Catholic Mass and liturgy in the US has been firmly convinced that ‘tradition’, ‘the past’, ‘Latin’, ‘the way things were’ etc were to be jettisoned for ‘the new springtime’, ‘new evangelization’, ‘new ways’, ‘openness’, ‘relevance;’, understanding, ‘making this simple and plain’, ‘more authentic’, ‘bringing things into the 20th/21st century’, etc. etc. Look, who were the ‘movers and shakers’ in 1970? Not people under 20. We were the ‘guinea pigs’. People in their 30s? Mostly too young or having kids, also guinea pigs. People in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, the respected elders. So people born in the 1920s, 1910s were pretty much the ‘ones in charge’. What about those people? They were born in or near the Great War. They were familiar with societal upheaval. Their earliest memories were of the writers and poets who suffered great pain and disillusion. They’d experienced the Depression in their teens or early youth, and then World War 2. Their great ‘hope’ if you will was the incredible prosperity of the 1950s and then the 'age of aquarius of the 1960s. Novelty was like a drug, and looking back to them meant looking back at PAIN. of course they wanted a ‘new springtime’. They had experienced what seemed like the flowering of Christianity where they were no longer ‘in the ghetto’ and could go out and be successful just like Protestants. Why not be more so? What was the ‘difference’. Live and let live. . .the future is going to be so wonderful. Throw off the ‘old stuff’ that hinders ‘fellowship’. Forget about old rituals that (let’s face it) didn’t ever seem to help back when we were ‘young and hungry and poor’, but look at all the social justice programs now! Let’s keep things new new new. . ."

 

[pnewton]

Then try this. The decline in Mass attendance started before 1969. In fact, it has been declining since the fifties, as far back as the record of such things were regularly kept. Also, this only applies to the United States, not every country, some of which have had worse declines, some have had a more thriving Church with positive growth.

Correlation does not equal causation, but I will say further, that based on data from before 1970, and from around the world, causation must be ruled out. The idea that changes to the Mass contributed to decline is simply not born out by the data.