My critique on Traditiones Custodes

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Anicette said:
I understand that mooving to an area to have an access to mass that suits us may be be very tempting.

I am not sure however how this option is safe. Bishops have the power to cancelled the TLM, diocesan or from a community if they want. As in Chicago, Corpus Christi…

I guess it depends to what degree we can moove again or are ready to take a risk.

FSSP has a vertical culture and is very discreet from the outside. Not sure that it is the values Pope Francis would want to promote.
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Yes, I know, one might no sooner than move someplace, and then the TLM would disappear. However, since the FSSP exists by some sort of pontifical right (or whatever the word would be), one has to assume there would be at least some stability.

Francis’s approach to the FSSP is kind of puzzling. No pope is bound by any constitutions of any order, he can suppress whatever he wants to suppress at will. One would think, if he wants to being the TLM to a close — a “unitary celebration” — that he would tell the FSSP “either adopt the 1969 Missal, in Latin if you must, with ad orientem and all of those things you like if you must, or your fraternity will be shut down”, that he would give them some sort of “sundown date”, let’s say the First Sunday of Advent 2024, and that would be the end of the TLM.

But if he wants to keep the FSSP intact, “as it is”, again, that suits me fine.
 
In the diocese of Dijon, France the FSSP was expelled because they refused to concelebrate with others priests of the diocese.

If a Pope banned all the celebrations in 1962 missal, he knows that the institutes will not accepted it because the TLM is their reason of existance. It would create another schism.
 
Exactly, which is why the goal of TC is to continue what St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, which is to allow the EF for those who grew up with it (following what the latter said in one letter). It’s not meant to disallow the EF completely.
 
There is nothing puzzling about the approach, as it’s what the two previous Popes wanted, and the main reason why the EF was allowed.
 
That’s the reason why the FSSP was granted an exemption, as the 1962 Missal is part of its constitution.

The problem is that others don’t have such a constitution.
 
ralfyman said:
There is nothing puzzling about the approach, as it’s what the two previous Popes wanted, and the main reason why the EF was allowed.
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The FSSP was founded, when you get right down to it, to provide a way for SSPX adherents (both priests and laity) to function within the Church, without the taint of having illicit bishops and a situation that was at the time thought to be schismatic.

Again, if that’s how the Church wishes to handle the phenomenon of many faithful Catholics wanting to adhere to the EF, that’s fine with me, and, I assume, with many others. Bishops can either allow the FSSP in their dioceses, or not. Making the FSSP into a personal ordinariate (similar to the ex-Anglican Chair of St Peter ordinariate, the St Jean Vianney prelature in Brazil, or Opus Dei) is always an option.

And, no, adherence to the FSSP doesn’t require the faithful all to become fluent in Latin, nor to adopt the most recent catechism and Bible translations as opposed to the Baltimore Catechism and the Douay-Rheims Bible et al. The FSSP constitutions are silent on these matters. On a personal note, we supplement the Baltimore Catechism with relevant topics from the CCC (capital punishment, emphasis on the dignity of the human person, and so on), and we use the RSV, in our homeschool religion class. The Douay, while pleasing to those who prefer Shakesperean-style English and/or have some background with the elegant KJV (as I do), can be off-putting to readers more comfortable with contemporary styles.
 
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TC follows what the two previous Popes intended plus Vatican II, so it makes sense.

As for not having to be fluent in Latin, that makes zero sense because the Church wants people to understand what they hear at Mass, and even read in the Bible or in the Catechism.

Given that and the point that the TC only refers to the Mass, one can only hope that the Church will be logical enough to do the same for the Catechism and the Bible, especially given the facts that the first refers to a world with changes that people in the past would now know nothing about, and accurate and effective Bible translation involves more than just using types of English or any other vernacular language but recent manuscript discoveries, etc.
 
ralfyman said:
TC follows what the two previous Popes intended plus Vatican II, so it makes sense.

As for not having to be fluent in Latin, that makes zero sense because the Church wants people to understand what they hear at Mass, and even read in the Bible or in the Catechism.
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The Church has no requirement that the faithful who assist at the EF have any particular understanding of Latin. Neither TC nor the constitutions of the FSSP impose this requirement. Indeed, being very generous and saying that those outside the Latium region of Italy would not have understood the Latin in the Mass from AD 965 to AD 1965 (when the first transitional Missal was promulgated), would suggest that for a thousand years — half of the existence of the Church! — the faithful of the largest rite in the Church were left deprived of something that was vital to their spiritual welfare. I have to think that it was a far longer period than that, I just use AD 965 to arrive at the thousand-year figure. That’s a long time for the Holy Ghost to neglect the faithful.

Besides, the canon of the Mass was recited in a very low voice, such that one would have to be sitting on the first few pews to hear anything at all, regardless of the language used. I am assuming that this, too, was the Church depriving the faithful of something they supposedly need to hear and understand.

Was the Church in the wrong for a thousand years or more?
 
That’s because such a requirement does not have to be said: you don’t attend a Mass in Thai if you don’t know Thai. You do so only because you have no choice.

Similarly, you don’t read the Catechism in Thai if you don’t know Thai. You don’t read the Bible in Thai if you don’t know Thai.

What about the last point? During the same thousand years missionaries were translating the Mass in the vernacular for purposes of evangelization. Why didn’t they do that for those who are part of the Church? My guess is that the faithful didn’t ask for it. Meanwhile, more of them were reading translations of the Bible, which the Church allowed, even as it did not encourage most to study the Bible or to even promote scholarship of such until the nineteenth century.

It was only during WW2 that after requests from American Catholics a translation of the EF was made, and broadcast on the radio.

According to Pope Benedict XVI, greater scholarship led to discoveries of ancient liturgies and communal practices of the early Church. That plus recent scholarship of Scriptures and calls for more exposure to it led to the OF.

Finally, accompanying the OF were bewildering changes in the modern world that the Church had to address, which is why we had Vatican II.
 
ralfyman said:
It was only during WW2 that after requests from American Catholics a translation of the EF was made, and broadcast on the radio.
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I don’t doubt what you say, but could you provide a source so I could learn more about this? I’d never heard this before.

This would only be my guess this time, but if there was a request by American Catholics for the vernacular, it was very likely fueled by the prevailing Protestant culture and mentality. Emphasis upon Scripture and the vernacular was part and parcel of Protestantism from its very beginning. And there was always this subtle pressure from the Protestant majority, “be like us”.
 
I’ll let you know when I find it. I was not able to save the document, and the only things I remember was that it was broadcast on the radio sometime in 1943 during one event (probably Pentecost). Also, it did not involving “Protestant culture and mentality” but wanting to know more about the contents of the Mass and the inability to understand Latin.

Emphasis on Scripture and the vernacular has not only been part of Protestantism from its beginning but of the Catholic Church itself, including not only selecting what books to make up the Bible but even basing teachings from it, plus using languages like Aramaic and Greek, not to mention the point that Latin itself was used because more did not speak Greek, etc.

Lastly,

 
Francisco_Fernando said:
I feel that other religions don’t have liturgical disputes.
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There have been various disputes within Orthodoxy and Anglicanism. The Orthodox have their Old Calendarists, and there is a not-negligible group within Anglicanism (not to be conflated with the Anglican Communion) that adheres to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The latter is a rough corollary, mutatis mutandis, to the TLM-adherent movement within the Catholic Church.

I have visited a 1928 BCP Anglican parish several times and it is very similar to what the TLM would be, if it were in the vernacular. There is a fairly lengthy admonition before communion as to how the recipients should judge themselves, and it is very inspiring. Too bad we don’t have something like that.
 
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“Bibleism” as I call it, does not have doctrinal splits so much as they simply form yet another damnomination, according to the desires of the pastor and flock.

As to divisions in general, read Paul’s letters! Division began from day one! It is a constant struggle and demonstrates both 1) our fallen nature and 2) our free will.
 
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It’s like the old joke about the two priests, the two rabbis, and the two Baptist preachers marooned on a desert island.

The two priests get together and start a Catholic church.

The two rabbis get together and start a synagogue.

The two Baptist ministers start… the First Baptist Church… and the Second Baptist Church.
 
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