Papal Latin Mass

[malphono]

The EF has its place in the modern Church, nobody is doubting that, and it is very old and goes back to very old sources, but it is the product of evolution, and one can certainly argue that the OF is the product of revolution.

That is an excellent way to put it. One of the best I’ve seen in this forum.

But it isn’t correct to say that the EF was celebrated for the past 2000 years,

True enough.

I suspect if we could transport ourselves back to Trent, those whose rites were supplanted by the Tridentine no doubt also thought the change was a revolution rather than evolution.

One must always keep in mind that the ancient and venerable non-Roman Western Rites that had withstood the test of time, i.e. had been in continuous use for at least 200 years, were not suppressed. The Rites that were suppressed were what I habitually call the “upstarts” which had sprung up here and there in years before Trent, and many had become tainted with incipient Protestantism. As such, they were in themselves part of the “revolution” whereas what has now become known as the Usus Antiquior (aka the EF aka TLM) was, in fact, even then the product of evolution (aka “organic development”).

 

[OraLabora]

That is an excellent way to put it. One of the best I’ve seen in this forum.

True enough.

One must always keep in mind that the ancient and venerable non-Roman Western Rites that had withstood the test of time, i.e. had been in continuous use for at least 200 years, were not suppressed. The Rites that were suppressed were what I habitually call the “upstarts” which had sprung up here and there in years before Trent, and many had become tainted with incipient Protestantism. As such, they were in themselves part of the “revolution” whereas what has now become known as the Usus Antiquior (aka the EF aka TLM) was, in fact, even then the product of evolution (aka “organic development”).

Thanks.

But I like to look at both sides of every story and so you’ll have to be patient as I play the other side now

Yes the Tridentine Mass is the product of evolution. But in evolution, sometimes things get added and added, and then the reasons they got added get lost in the mists of time. An example on the human is the appendix. It seems its only purpose is to create misery for some people. Nobody really knows what it does. Or another analogy, one lives for many years in a home and accumulates a lot of stuff that is either no longer useful or is of questionable utility.

My view of the Tridentine Mass is that perhaps the rubrics are over the top. I have an old (1935) sacramentary, and the method of censing the alter was described with great precision. There was a numbered diagram of the altar, with descriptive texts to say which pattern and number of swings to use at each part of the altar. I truly think it was over the top, and added a lot of unneeded stress on priests, and didn’t really add all that much reverence that wasn’t gained in the first place by simply censing the altar in a slow, regular pattern. Moreover the liturgical year was so filled with feasts and octaves that an “ordinary” feria was actually quite rare. For those who recite/chant the Divine Office like myself, those complications make it an extremely difficult task, and we lose the beauty of regularity, the regularity of quiet, ordinary days to mark time. Too many feasts, and each one loses its significance.

So sometimes a good housecleaning is in order, and sometimes there’s merit in simplicity, going back to our roots, such as adding readings from the OT or from the Gospel of St. Mark. So yes, sometimes a revolution can be good.

Unfortunately often when we clean house we realize we threw away or sold at a garage sale a cherished object, and that makes us sad. That is indeed the case with the 1970 Mass reforms. People went overboard, and there were no controls so basically we lost or nearly lost many beautiful traditions that should have been kept like Gregorian chant, high altars, and communion rails for dubious reforms like sticking the altar in the middle of the nave and arranging pews in a semi-circle around it, while sticking more pews in the former sanctuary (a local parish). We have, in fact, lost some of the sacred.

I don’t think a return to the EF across the board is what is necessary; it should of course survive, but I do think that now a counter-revolution of the OF is in order, where the Church puts her foot down and makes the OF what Sacrosanctum Concilium says it should be.

 

[Warrenton]

and sometimes there’s merit in simplicity, going back to our roots, such as adding readings from the OT or from the Gospel of St. Mark. So yes, sometimes a revolution can be good.

The novus ordo, as a mass, did not go back to anyone’s roots.

But what mass does the Pope say privately?

 

[malphono]

I like to look at both sides of every story and so you’ll have to be patient as I play the other side now

Understood. It’s not my intention to get into a long drawn-out discussion (or debate or argument) but if you don’t mind, I’ll offer a few comments.

My view of the Tridentine Mass is that perhaps the rubrics are over the top. … I truly think it was over the top, and added a lot of unneeded stress on priests, and didn’t really add all that much reverence that wasn’t gained in the first place by simply censing the altar in a slow, regular pattern.

The other side of that is perhaps the rubrics of the Novus Ordo are under the bottom. One need only look at the garden variety Novus Ordo Mass to see what can happen when rubrics are loose and there are ore “options” than rules. To borrow an analogy from Forrest Gump, it’s like a box a choklits: ya never know what yer gonna git. Some places it’s all quite “by the book” (as much as it can be by its very nature) and externally might even resemble the Usus Antiquior. In other places, though … well, you know what it can be like.

Moreover the liturgical year was so filled with feasts and octaves that an “ordinary” feria was actually quite rare. For those who recite/chant the Divine Office like myself, those complications make it an extremely difficult task, and we lose the beauty of regularity, the regularity of quiet, ordinary days to mark time. Too many feasts, and each one loses its significance.

So sometimes a good housecleaning is in order, and sometimes there’s merit in simplicity, going back to our roots, such as adding readings from the OT or from the Gospel of St. Mark. So yes, sometimes a revolution can be good.

And sometimes a revolution can be anything but. The years 1917 (Russia) and 1979 (Iran), for example come to mind. In any case, it seems to me that it wasn’t necessary to invent a new form of Mass for the purpose of modifying (or simplifying, or whatever) the calendar and/or the cycle of readings. To me, those are totally separate issues (and minor ones at that) which could easily have been dealt with in the context of the “old” form.

Unfortunately often when we clean house we realize we threw away or sold at a garage sale a cherished object, and that makes us sad. That is indeed the case with the 1970 Mass reforms. People went overboard, and there were no controls so basically we lost or nearly lost many beautiful traditions that should have been kept like Gregorian chant, high altars, and communion rails for dubious reforms like sticking the altar in the middle of the nave and arranging pews in a semi-circle around it, while sticking more pews in the former sanctuary (a local parish). We have, in fact, lost some of the sacred.

Yes, that is very true. But those things (including my bugbear versus populum) are not the essence of the Novus Ordo. They all began to be introduced with the “interim Missal of 1965” and got progressively and measurably worse with “son of interim Missal” in 1967 and again in the final Novus Ordo.

I don’t think a return to the EF across the board is what is necessary; it should of course survive, but I do think that now a counter-revolution of the OF is in order, where the Church puts her foot down and makes the OF what Sacrosanctum Concilium says it should be.

Without commenting on the texts themselves, (or the theology behind either the texts or the Novus Ordo itself), as I see it, for the Church to “put her foot down” would require the elimination of the “loosey-goosey” rubrics and “options” etc that are inherent to the Novus Ordo. Looking at Sacrosactum Concilium, that “counter revolution” would likely take things back to the “interim Missal of 1965” (not “son-of” of 1967).

 

[malphono]

The novus ordo, as a mass, did not go back to anyone’s roots.

Despite all the (now mostly debunked) arguments to the contrary, yes, that’s true.

But what mass does the Pope say privately?

I cannot speak from first-hand experience (I doubt many can), but hearsay has it that it’s the Usus Antiquior.

 

[OraLabora]

Despite all the (now mostly debunked) arguments to the contrary, yes, that’s true.

Not entirely so. For example the use of OT readings does help us appreciate our Jewish roots, and that is a return to the tradition of readings from the Prophets at the Mass of the Catechumens that had disappeared by c. 1000 AD.

And while I agree with you that the rubrics of the OF could use some tightening, in my experience with the OF it doesn’t matter. Even if the rubrics specify otherwise, some priests are quite happy to simply ignore them. For example one priest around here has the irritating habit of making the people participate with him in prayers that are supposed to be reserved to the priest, something the rubrics do clearly spell out.

But I’m not sure that if we still had the EF only, if the same thing wouldn’t have happened to the EF. We’re living in an era where individual preference and desires rule. Whether the Church could have kept a lid on abuse just by maintaining the Tridentine Mass is not something we’ll ever know. If the EF is mostly abuse-free at the moment certainly the fact that it is being upheld mainly by people fleeing the OF isn’t hurting. Although the Eastern Churches seem to be doing a good job of keeping their rites free of nonsense.

I don’t have a huge issue with the OF, just the way it is carried out in many places; on the flip side I have been to many abuse-free OFs, especially at the abbey I am affiliated with, at a local Cistercian abbey, in Italy, and in France, and in our local parish, there’s a very kindly elderly priest who does a very simple Mass but 100% faithful to the missal. The music still sucks but that’s another issue altogether and he’s not in charge of that!

 

[paul11b]

Then you would exclude His Holiness Benedict XVI, Blessed John Paul II, Paul VI, John XXIII, and a host of other Saintly people that promoted the movement away from the dead Church of the past.

While no person on this earth enjoys a traditional Latin Mass more than i do (I do NOT need a Missal for one, and never have), I would hate to see the Church ever go back to it as the standard. Most Catholics did not have a clue what was going on, they went through it as a rote exercise. I know, I converted into that Church as a 9 year old boy (I wasn’t baptized till I was 13).

I learned Latin, on my own, so I COULD understand the Mass. I could never figure out why the vast majority of BORN Catholics didn’t, they didn’t know the beauty and the Majesty of the Mass. (NOTE: I was the only member of my Seminary Class that actually understood every word of the Ordinary and The proper of the Mass, when I went to Sem.)

Sitting there reading a Missal is NOT participating in a mass. It is reading, and not really knowing what is going one.

The new translation of the English Mass replaces what was supposed to be a TEMPORARY English version (and a very bad version) of the Mass. The new translation, which was mandated by Blessed John Paul II, much more accurately translates the Latin into English, instead of some version of what somebody THOUGHT it should mean. I mean “Et cum spirito tuo” is NOT translated as “And also with you”. It means, literally, “And with your spirit”, and should always have been translated that way.

Give it a couple of more generations, and the Latin Mass will be gone, a part of history. Even the Pope will not know enough Latin to celebrate a Mass in that language, as it is not taught in the vast majority of Seminaries in the world.

In the meantime, those few that insist on it will continue, for as long as possible, to resist any modernization of the Church. What they do not realize is that it has already happened, and they are slowly being left behind.

I highly disagree with you. I am glad that the new translation is coming out and that it will be a better translation than it has been for the past 40 years but the TLM isn’t going anywhere. There is a huge movement to restore it and young people (like me) that never had it are just learning about it. The TLM is a religious experience for me and I pray that it always stays around, and I believe it will considering that the FSSP seminaries are so packed full that they have to turn people away. I mean people want to experience what THOUSANDS of saints experienced, and what Catholics for 1,500 years experienced. Just because the “modern” translation is new that DOES NOT make it better. The TLM is beautiful, reverent, and respectful, and while I don’t believe it’ll ever become the main form of Mass for the Church ever again I do believe that there will be more and more of them offered and that it is not going anywhere.

 

[domandcarols]

I compleatly agree. Modernists have no place in the church

Amen.

 

[Margie9]

I may be mistaken, and this is probably all hear say, but I thought he said the OF is Latin facing the alter.

It’s not hearsay, you are right. The Holy Father says daily mass in his small private chapel, OF, Latin, ad orientem. Assisting are usually the members of his small household staff, 3 or 4 CL ladies and Msgr. Ganswein.

 

[TexasJoe]

I was curious to find any sources that might validate or contradict that His Holiness celebrates his private Masses under the so-called Extraordinary Form (or Tridentine rite)as understood by the originating poster to this thread.

There was an article in Catholic World News dated July 16, 2007 citing unnamed “informed sources at the Vatican” as confirming that “the Holy Father regularly celebrates Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal.”

catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=52403

The article also goes on to state, “then-Cardinal Ratzinger also traveled to Wigratzbad, in Bavaria, to ordain priests for the Fraternity of St. Peter, a group devoted to the use of the traditional liturgy. He performed those ordinations, as well as Mass on Easter Sunday in 1990, using the 1962 Roman Missal.”

That subject was also taken up in a thread on this website (Catholic Answers Forum) of April 10, 2010 in which the truth of that assertion concerning the form of the Pope’s private Masses was not brought into question.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=450985

However, the UK Catholic Herald later featured an article dated July 19, 2010 with the headline: “So the Pope says the old Mass privately? Well, probably not.” It cited the Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Director of the Vatican Press Office, to the effect that, “claims that the Pope celebrates his private Mass using the Tridentine rite are incorrect." These remarks of denial were originally reported by Catholic News Service on July 17, 2010.

catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2010/07/19/so-the-pope-says-the-old-mass-privately-well-probably-not/

There is also this partial video in Italian of the Pope celebrating Mass in his private chapel which is clearly the Novus Ordo rite in Italian, although with the Pope facing “ad Deum” rather than toward the people and wearing the traditional vestments except for the maniple, although the cincture he wears does appear unusual. A female lector delivers the reading from a lectern in the sanctuary. I was unable to find any other video or narratives of Benedict XVI’s private Masses which are evidently attended only by his household and administrative staff, although several members of a lay religious society are also in attendance at the one recorded here.

the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2007/07/video-of-pope-benedicts-private-mass.html

One has to wonder why a denial that the Pope celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass in private was not issued until 2010, whereas the news reports of his celebrating the TLM in private had already surfaced three years earlier. The 2010 UK Catholic Herald article cites Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, as being the source of the original rumors. Why would the original Catholic World News article of 2007 have attributed such remarks to “informed sources in the Vatican” if they were in fact made by Bishop Fellay, who could hardly be described as an “informed source” about the Pope’s private liturgical practices, much less as being “in the Vatican.” I find it highly unlikely that Bishop Fellay would have made such comments without very reliable and verifiable information to substantiate those claims. It is indisputable that then-Cardinal Ratzinger did in fact perform the 1990 Tridentine rite ordinations at Wigratzbad and celebrated as well the Extraordinary Form Easter Mass in 1990. There were, of course, many eyewitnesses present.

These questions aside, it is perhaps worthwhile to examine the comments that then-Cardinal Ratzinger made in his memoirs of the years 1927 to 1977 concerning the “disintegration of the liturgy” in the post-Vatican II era as excerpted here:

beatificvision.blogspot.com/2007/02/ratzinger-on-disintegration-of-liturgy.html

I suppose that at a minimum we can say “his heart is in the right place,” even though what he may actually be able to achieve is quite circumscribed given the political environment prevailing within the Church hierarchy today, which some have even gone so far as to describe by the term “crisis.”

 

[TradionalWay]

I was curious to find any sources that might validate or contradict that His Holiness celebrates his private Masses under the so-called Extraordinary Form (or Tridentine rite)as understood by the originating poster to this thread.

There was an article in Catholic World News dated July 16, 2007 citing unnamed “informed sources at the Vatican” as confirming that “the Holy Father regularly celebrates Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal.”

catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=52403

The article also goes on to state, “then-Cardinal Ratzinger also traveled to Wigratzbad, in Bavaria, to ordain priests for the Fraternity of St. Peter, a group devoted to the use of the traditional liturgy. He performed those ordinations, as well as Mass on Easter Sunday in 1990, using the 1962 Roman Missal.”

That subject was also taken up in a thread on this website (Catholic Answers Forum) of April 10, 2010 in which the truth of that assertion concerning the form of the Pope’s private Masses was not brought into question.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=450985

However, the UK Catholic Herald later featured an article dated July 19, 2010 with the headline: “So the Pope says the old Mass privately? Well, probably not.” It cited the Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Director of the Vatican Press Office, to the effect that, “claims that the Pope celebrates his private Mass using the Tridentine rite are incorrect." These remarks of denial were originally reported by Catholic News Service on July 17, 2010.

catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2010/07/19/so-the-pope-says-the-old-mass-privately-well-probably-not/

There is also this partial video in Italian of the Pope celebrating Mass in his private chapel which is clearly the Novus Ordo rite in Italian, although with the Pope facing “ad Deum” rather than toward the people and wearing the traditional vestments except for the maniple, although the cincture he wears does appear unusual. A female lector delivers the reading from a lectern in the sanctuary. I was unable to find any other video or narratives of Benedict XVI’s private Masses which are evidently attended only by his household and administrative staff, although several members of a lay religious society are also in attendance at the one recorded here.

the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2007/07/video-of-pope-benedicts-private-mass.html

One has to wonder why a denial that the Pope celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass in private was not issued until 2010, whereas the news reports of his celebrating the TLM in private had already surfaced three years earlier. The 2010 UK Catholic Herald article cites Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, as being the source of the original rumors. Why would the original Catholic World News article of 2007 have attributed such remarks to “informed sources in the Vatican” if they were in fact made by Bishop Fellay, who could hardly be described as an “informed source” about the Pope’s private liturgical practices, much less as being “in the Vatican.” I find it highly unlikely that Bishop Fellay would have made such comments without very reliable and verifiable information to substantiate those claims. It is indisputable that then-Cardinal Ratzinger did in fact perform the 1990 Tridentine rite ordinations at Wigratzbad and celebrated as well the Extraordinary Form Easter Mass in 1990. There were, of course, many eyewitnesses present.

These questions aside, it is perhaps worthwhile to examine the comments that then-Cardinal Ratzinger made in his memoirs of the years 1927 to 1977 concerning the “disintegration of the liturgy” in the post-Vatican II era as excerpted here:

beatificvision.blogspot.com/2007/02/ratzinger-on-disintegration-of-liturgy.html

I suppose that at a minimum we can say “his heart is in the right place,” even though what he may actually be able to achieve is quite circumscribed given the political environment prevailing within the Church hierarchy today, which some have even gone so far as to describe by the term “crisis.”

Thank you! This is actually the first answer I got to my question.

Is it me, or does modernist catholics become more and more like protestants? Give them one answer then they question the next

 

[Thomas_Casey]

This thread is full of speculation over something that is the private concern of the Holy Father.

CLOSED