Pope, in interview, laments 'rigidity' of youth who prefer Latin Mass [CWN]

[OraLabora]

You are to be commended for jumping through all those hoops . Most people don’t have the time, energy or youth to accomplish what you have.

Time yes, I’m retired. Energy… there are good days and bad days. Youth… that’s gone, I’m 58…

Will you agree with me that such difficulty regarding Chant at Mass is not what was envisioned by VC II, and that both St. JP II and B XVI wanted the EF to be more generally available than it is?

I find it hard to agree or disagree as I am not able to get inside the minds of those at the Council, nor St JP II and Benedict XVI and know what they were thinking. All I can do is my part in preserving this part of the Church’s patrimony, because it is something I believe is important. I don’t participate in the EF; there is no licit EF where I live and in any case all the chant books exist to bring Gregorian chant to the OF and I feel bringing chant to the OF is every bit as important as making the EF available, maybe more so as it is supposed to be the principle (ordinary) form of the Mass. Fortunately the Benedictine abbey with which I’m affiliated is nearby and they still use Gregorian chant daily for Mass (OF), Lauds and Vespers. They are an excellent resource and often the choirmaster gives workshops and chant improvement sessions to our schola.

I suspect some of the problems unforeseen by the authors of Sacrosanctum Concilium were the loss of regular worship, secularization of society, the ending of teaching Latin in school (it had ended where I am by the time I got to high school), loss of vocations and various other outside forces. Plus a desire to modernize. I don’t think it was any single person’s “fault”.

In our parish getting a full choir to sing anything is difficult and we only hear a full choir on special occasions like Easter or Christmas. The best we can do at Sunday Mass is a cantor who tries his or her best to lead the faithful in song. Unfortunately that’s not a good formula for Gregorian chant except for the simplest settings of the Ordinary. It’s a small town (pop. 12k) in a rural area, and in spite of their limited resources our local priest, a decent and holy man who divides himself between 4 parishes, does a very good job, as do the cantor, organist and others involved in the liturgy. It’s not all chant, all the time but one does get a sense of community and respect for the liturgy. So I can’t really complain. He is open to having our schola come by but a number of our members have transportation issues, most of them live an hour’s drive away.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

“Pride of place” does not mean in every parish, at every liturgy. Some small rural parishes simply do not have the resources to do justice to Gregorian chant. I know wherefrom I speak as I have been a chorister in a Gregorian schola for nearly 15 years. It takes some training to be able to execute well, and poorly executed chant is excruciating to hear. Training requires not only practice, but a keen interest in this particular form of sacred music.

But just because Ste-Rose-de-Backwater parish does not use chant, does not mean that chant does not have “pride of place” in Catholic liturgy, as any visit to one of the very many Benedictine abbeys that still use Gregorian chant would confirm.

That said there are many scholas like ours that make an effort to bring chant to OF parishes. In at least 4 cities of my province, and in Montreal, a fellow oblate and Gregorian scholar has just obtained permission to chant solemn Vespers in Gregorian chant, according to the new rite, at a parish in Montreal, on a regular (monthly for now) basis.

Between a quiet, spoken weekday Mass, a small parish Sunday Mass with more contemporary music, and a solemn Mass at a Benedictine abbey of the Solesmes congregation (using Gregorian chant in the Ordinary Form) there is a continuum of valid, licit and reverent Masses of progressive solemnity that is in accordance with the degree of solemnity and the abilities and resources of the parish or community.

In our own schola’s case, we bring chant to a different parish every month. We also sing solemn Vespers at the cathedral during Advent and Lent, and solemn Lauds on Holy Saturday. Parishioners see it as a “special occasion”. I would say that this is giving it “pride of place”, with many scholas in my province doing the same thing. We have also recruited new choristers in this manner, and thus ensure that it continues to have pride of place for generations to come.

Lastly, I would say, not singling out anyone in particular, that if folks want to hear more Gregorian chant, the way to do so is to get involved. That’s what I did. I found a schola,and joined it, not without considerable effort. In addition having to learn chant with no musical notions, rehearsals (1-3 times per month) plus our liturgies and concerts require that I drive 90 km (55 miles) each way, usually at night, and in winter. I do it out of love for the genre. If I, who had no musical notions prior to joining the schola could do it, so could anyone.

Get involved, and start or join a schola!

Zero chant in my whole diocese. There is however a banjo, folk music, Rock, and recently at a prominent parish awkward humming…

In many places pride of place means no place…

 

[KSU]

Of course there is also plainchant in the vernacular. In my archdiocese many priests chant various parts of the Mass in English. This is exceedingly common I find - not a rarity at all.

Old timers like me who were raised with the so-called Latin Mass (and I appreciate Pope Francis referring to it as such) followed the Mass via the English translation which was always provided alongside the Latin in the “Mass Book”, as we called it.

Question to anyone: I have wondered for 40 years why that beautiful, awe-inspiring, specially reserved for speaking to God, English translation was jettisoned by the ICEL. Why was it not just slightly modified as necessary and made the official vernacular of today’s OF?

Had that been done, there really would not have been a significant change to the vernacular, and this thread and hundreds like it would never have existed. Further, had the wishes of VC II regarding chant been implemented, the wide-spread discontent regarding the liturgy would have been substantially reduced.

Does anyone know the answer? Is it simply “from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”

 

[OraLabora]

Old timers like me who were raised with the so-called Latin Mass (and I appreciate Pope Francis referring to it as such)

That’s a term that causes me confusion because I never know what form of the Mass the person using the term is referring to. I’ve been to many Ordinary Form Masses in Latin

The most recent one was a private weekday Mass a couple of months ago. I was giving a ride to the city to a monk that is a very good friend of mine. Before the drive he suggested saying a private Mass with me in the abbot’s private chapel. He asked me which language and I immediately said “Latin”. It was a spoken Mass, in the Ordinary Form. I read the epistle and psalm in Latin and he proclaimed the Gospel in Latin and said the Mass entirely in Latin.

It was a very special experience that I will treasure for the rest of my days.

Our own abbey uses Latin for the Propers and Ordinary (plus Greek for the Kyrie and the Improperes on Good Friday), and French plainchant for the rest.

I do realize that I’m privileged to live so close to a Benedictine abbey. I give praise and thanks to God for my good fortune.

 

[JakeWI]

That’s a term that causes me confusion because I never know what form of the Mass the person using the term is referring to. I’ve been to many Ordinary Form Masses in Latin

The most recent one was a private weekday Mass a couple of months ago. I was giving a ride to the city to a monk that is a very good friend of mine. Before the drive he suggested saying a private Mass with me in the abbot’s private chapel. He asked me which language and I immediately said “Latin”. It was a spoken Mass, in the Ordinary Form. I read the epistle and psalm in Latin and he proclaimed the Gospel in Latin and said the Mass entirely in Latin.

It was a very special experience that I will treasure for the rest of my days.

Our own abbey uses Latin for the Propers and Ordinary (plus Greek for the Kyrie and the Improperes on Good Friday), and French plainchant for the rest.

I do realize that I’m privileged to live so close to a Benedictine abbey. I give praise and thanks to God for my good fortune.

There is a combination within that, even. I was just at a Mass on Saturday night where it was ad orientum, the ordinary was in Latin, but the Mass was in English and the hymns were of the David Haas/Dan Schutte variety, though played beautifully on the organ. It was a conglomeration of things but all together produced something that I thoroughly enjoyed and hope to be able to experience again. I truly loved seeing the consecration with the Priest at the high altar. However, every other part of the Mass… the Priest was facing us. A great combination of things, without anything being pigeonholed into the other.

 

[Thomas_White]

Question to anyone: I have wondered for 40 years why that beautiful, awe-inspiring, specially reserved for speaking to God, English translation was jettisoned by the ICEL. Why was it not just slightly modified as necessary and made the official vernacular of today’s OF?

This was largely the result of what is known as ‘The Liturgical Movement’.

 

[pnewton]

Time yes, I’m retired. Energy… there are good days and bad days. Youth… that’s gone, I’m 58…

No worries on the energy. There is no jumping and no hoop to take the position of pretty much all the clergy.

 

[patricius79]

Why would it be ‘rigidity’ to prefer one form of Mass over another? People have many individual preferences.

I agree. Living in a rural area, I’ve only been to a EF Mass once, or maybe twice. It was beautiful. I think that both forms are obviously valid. What matters to me is that a spirit of reverence, tradition, sacredness, gratitude, pervade the liturgy. I think we can all grow in that way. I don’t think it’s right to be calling young people “rigid” just because they like the EF. Maybe we simply aren’t always praying the OF well, and so they continue in their desire to be reverent, and their search for spiritual beauty.

 

[Thomas_White]

There are those of us, such as myself, who were raised in the pre-Vatican II Church and attended Catholic schools where daily attendance at a Tridentine Mass was mandatory. We had Missals with the English translation on an opposite page. I was also an altar boy and was required to first learn by rote memory all of the the Latin responses (which only the altar boys recited). During high school and later in college I studied Latin.

Though the saying of the Latin Mass is limited in the Archdiocese where I reside, it remains my favored Mass. If this preference is considered “rigid”, then so be it. However, I do not believe I could possibly be persuaded that there is a thing awry with this preference.

 

[Oneofthewomen]

There are those of us, such as myself, who were raised in the pre-Vatican II Church and attended Catholic schools where daily attendance at a Tridentine Mass was mandatory. We had Missals with the English translation on an opposite page. I was also an altar boy and was required to first learn by rote memory all of the the Latin responses (which only the altar boys recited). During high school and later in college I studied Latin.

Though the saying of the Latin Mass is limited in the Archdiocese where I reside, it remains my favored Mass. If this preference is considered “rigid”, then so be it. However, I do not believe I could possibly be persuaded that there is a thing awry with this preference.

I don’t believe that the Pope is referring to people such as yourself as “rigid”.

My take was that his comments were more directed to young people, the Post VII crowd, who has absolutely no recollection of the old ways. I am 46, the Missal of Paul VI (the Ordinary Form) is 47 this Advent. Most of the people who attend the EF (Sundays @ 11:15am in a pretty central location) are for the most part under 40. They are “rigid” (at least in my experience). Many of them look upon the OF with contempt, if not outright disdain.

There is a subset, at least in my diocese, and I imagine many others, that looks to the past that they have no real understanding of, through rose-colored glasses, thinking it better. These are the people I believe the Holy Father is referring to. the ones who want the Chruch to be a museum and not a living entity that must adapt not Doctrinally or Dogmatically, but in its pastoral approach.

 

[Havard]

I don’t believe that the Pope is referring to people such as yourself as “rigid”.

My take was that his comments were more directed to young people, the Post VII crowd, who has absolutely no recollection of the old ways. I am 46, the Missal of Paul VI (the Ordinary Form) is 47 this Advent. Most of the people who attend the EF (Sundays @ 11:15am in a pretty central location) are for the most part under 40. They are “rigid” (at least in my experience). Many of them look upon the OF with contempt, if not outright disdain.

There is a subset, at least in my diocese, and I imagine many others, that looks to the past that they have no real understanding of, through rose-colored glasses, thinking it better. These are the people I believe the Holy Father is referring to. the ones who want the Chruch to be a museum and not a living entity that must adapt not Doctrinally or Dogmatically, but in its pastoral approach.

I’m a 40-ish OF attendee, but I know many of the younger EF crowd, through various Steubenville, Ave Maria, etc. connections. I won’t speak for them, but I’m positive they would object to several points in this characterization of their views!

 

[Oneofthewomen]

I’m a 40-ish OF attendee, but I know many of the younger EF crowd, through various Steubenville, Ave Maria, etc. connections. I won’t speak for them, but I’m positive they would object to several points in this characterization of their views!

They can reject it all they want. I am speaking out of my experience, in my diocese.
If this type of situation is there, I am sure it is elsewhere, otherwise, the Holy Father would not be talking about it, now would he?

 

[Havard]

They can reject it all they want. I am speaking out of my experience, in my diocese.
If this type of situation is there, I am sure it is elsewhere, otherwise, the Holy Father would not be talking about it, now would he?

What I’m saying is that there is a difference between your, or anyone’s, perception of what they think as a “group”, and what they actually think, as individual people.

It’s incredibly important (I would use the word, humane) not reduce people to labels based upon our own filtered versions of their articulations.

 

[Oneofthewomen]

What I’m saying is that there is a difference between your, or anyone’s, perception of what they think as a “group”, and what they actually think, as individual people.

It’s incredibly important (I would use the word, humane) not reduce people to labels based upon our own filtered versions of their articulations.

I am confused.
Isn’t that what this whole thread has been about?

People are complaining about the Pope calling people ‘rigid’. Whether individually or in groups, it must be happening enough to be on his radar or he would not have brought it up.

If we cannot talk about how other groups/factions are “perceived” by others, we will never get past our prejudices and to a point where we can actually work together.

 

[KSU]

They can reject it all they want. I am speaking out of my experience, in my diocese.
If this type of situation is there, I am sure it is elsewhere, otherwise, the Holy Father would not be talking about it, now would he?

He actually is not talking about it now, is he? Whatever “it” is, to begin with.

You have assumed you know what he actually had in mind by “rigidity” in something he said once during the period from 1999 to 2013, when he served as archbishop of Buenos Aires.

 

[Havard]

I am confused.
Isn’t that what this whole thread has been about?

People are complaining about the Pope calling people ‘rigid’. Whether individually or in groups, it must be happening enough to be on his radar or he would not have brought it up.

If we cannot talk about how other groups/factions are “perceived” by others, we will never get past our prejudices and to a point where we can actually work together.

I think it’s entirely fair to talk about how we perceive particular statements. John says X. Jane says Y. Etc.

But speaking definitively about people’s unspoken motivations, especially when lumping them together in groups, or as blocs, when they themselves have not articulated said views as a bloc (nor even come out as some official bloc) is reductionism. We ought not be reductionist about human persons, especially when our true narratives both inform and reveal who we are.

 

[JimG]

I’m just guessing here, but there was a period following the Council when not only the liturgy but also catechesis suffered at the hands of some who took it upon themselves to discern the “spirit of Vatican II.” I think that some young people who came of age during that period may feel that they were in some ways denied their inheritance. I have on occasion heard some young person remark with astonishment about some doctrine they had just discovered—something that formerly would have been covered in elementary school.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

They can reject it all they want. I am speaking out of my experience, in my diocese.
If this type of situation is there, I am sure it is elsewhere, otherwise, the Holy Father would not be talking about it, now would he?

The problem would be with anybody taking simply his or her experience and perceptions, which are not necessarily correct, of a certain group and saying that they were, oh let’s say, ‘stuck up’ because they liked something, and applying those ‘perceptions’ to any person who liked that thing. “Those people were stuck up about liking X. Therefore all people who like X are stuck up.”

Sort of like saying that because you went to an opera in your nearby big city, and you overheard a bunch of people talking in what seemed to you to be a superior, condescending, elitist way, that all people who liked opera were superior, condescending and elitist, because “that the way these opera people are. I know, I 'heard them.”

 

[CuriousMike]

Not really sure how to react to some of the recent comments. As a young-adult, I do attend the EF from time-to-time, as stated in this thread and elsewhere.
Do I prefer the EF or OF? Neither, assuming both forms are conducted in the manner stipulated by the Church, and not riddled with abuse.

My preferences boil down more to music and the homilies, which in the grand scheme are not the focus of the Mass.

I don’t know that there is anything wrong with having a “preference” in the Mass, provided you don’t deny or downplay the validity of other forms.
What I’m seeing though are types that are looking down on the EF and those attending as inferior or even old-fashioned. Does this not put the hand on the other foot in this discussion?

This EF v OF discussion ignores that within the Catholic Church, there are other forms of the Liturgy in existence, such as the Melkite Catholic services.

 

[Cle_GDP_10]

A must read, especially in light of Pope Francis’ comments.

google.com/amp/s/liturgyguy.com/2016/05/14/a-young-priest-sets-the-record-straight-for-the-catholic-left/amp/