Should Latin mass be brought back?

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It’s not a claim, it’s a fact. I’m shaking my head right now…

For years some on these forums claimed the OF was invalid. Absolutely absurd! CAF finally cracked down on that lie.

Then the “organic” comments began. Also absurd, but not outright offensive.

I suspect the OF Mass is far closer to the sacrificial liturgy of the early church than the EF Mass.
 
Duesenberg said:
I just wish the Church had not done such a poor job of implementing the OF Mass. A lot of problems could have been prevented had they done a better job of it.
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Consider the implementation of the New Mass. You say that “a lot of problems could have been prevented had they done a better job of [implementing it],” but you fail to consider the possibility that the New Mass was implemented exactly the way it was intended to be. There was (and is) a powerful element in the Church who wished to see tradition banished from Catholicism. They wanted every vestige of the old way to be eradicated from Catholic life so that the Church could blossom in the “New Pentecost” of the Council. Do you think that the liberal groups who won so many victories at the Council just disappeared after it was concluded? No. They worked tirelessly and relentlessly to ensure that the headway and momentum they gained during the Council would allow them to implement the New Mass in a way that would entirely erase the past. Enter Archbishop Bugnini’s Consilium .Given free reign by Pope Paul VI to create a new liturgy that incorporated the reforms mandated by the Council, these liturgical progressives went to work. What were the first things that needed to go in order to realize this agenda? First of all, the Old Mass itself had to go - the face of the Catholic Church to the world and the bulwark of traditional piety. But not only the Mass itself had to go, but also any thing that hinted at the Old Mass - at the way things used to be. So down come the high altars, in come the tables - out with the pews [EDIT: I meant kneelers, not pews] , in with the felt banners. Tabernacle in the center of the sanctuary? Not any more. That’s where the presider’s chair goes (Oh yes, we won’t call him a priest anymore - he is a presider now). These men used the Council to push their progressive agenda. They interpreted Sacrosanctum Concilium in the most liberal way possible. The end result? I’ll let one of the reformers speak for himself:

“To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity. The Roman rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed… [the former edifice]… appears to-day either as a ruin, or the partial substructure of a different building.”

–Fr. Joseph Gélineau S.J., a Council peritus and liberal apologist, “Demain la Liturgie” (1976 MD p.77-8)

In 2007 when Pope Benedict issued Summorum Pontificum, for the first time in nearly 50 years this progressive faction was blindsided. If the Old Mass returns - if there is a resurgence of the traditional piety that they so dread and so ardently tried to eradicate - then they have failed. And so anything and everything will be done and said to ensure that this never happens. But Our Lord is in charge and He will be victorious.
 
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Christ worshipped in Hebrew, a non-vernacular.

Latin was never really a vernacular. But there was Vulgar Latin, from which the modern Romance languages descend.
 
OraLabora said:
So the Latin has changed over time.
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Not really. If I take two years of Latin, I should be able to read Sir Isaac Newton (yes, the law of gravity) or the Latin Vulgate.

It would probably take at least three years to read Virgil or Cicero.

Long span of time there. Maybe a few words added to the Latin language over the last 100 years but generally the grammar is the same.
 
No offense, but have you ever considered the possibility that America is not the entirety of the world? If what you say is true, then I have no idea what your liturgists were/are doing, but your description sounds entirely unreal. I’m from central Europe. No high altars coming down – did they just remove the entire thing, floor to ceiling, where you are from? Tables? What tables? Where? You don’t have kneelers in your pews? What do people kneel on, then? And I’ve never seen a felt banner in a church – I had to google to see what that even was. Also, tabernacles in our churches stay where they’ve always been – embedded in the high altar, the only exception being, of course, cathedrals. The priest (who is indeed always called “priest”, unless we differentiate between a celebrant and a concelebrant) has a fixed seat usually somewhere in the front sanctuary.

Seriously, I’m flabbergasted by posts like yours. I’ve never been to a “clown mass”. I’ve been to plenty masses with, ahem, contemporary worship music, but even those have been mostly reverent. Such music is not really my thing, but it’s trivial to find a church where the Mass is accompanied by the organ played by at least a decent organist. The church of St. Michael (where the EF is celebrated every Sunday) in the city center even has a Gregorian schola, which I believe accompanies some of the Sunday masses. I’m always happy to see them during the Easter Vigil at the Jesuit church I go to.

And from my experience, it is quite similar in other cities and the neighboring countries – Poland, Austria etc. So I’m really sorry if you routinely encounter distasteful, irreverent approach to liturgy, I sympathise and I feel your pain, but that is simply not the norm for OF worldwide.
 
ProVobis said:
Not really. If I take two years of Latin, I should be able to read Sir Isaac Newton (yes, the law of gravity) or the Latin Vulgate.

It would probably take at least three years to read Virgil or Cicero.

Long span of time there. Maybe a few words added to the Latin language over the last 100 years but generally the grammar is the same.
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I should rather have said that the translation of the Bible has changed. There are quite a few differences, though if you can understand one, you can understand the other.
 
It isn’t a universal phenomenon, thank God, but “wreckovation” has afflicted many churches in America and Western Europe. And it is all a part of the effort to sever the post-Conciliar Church from what came before.
 
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As an example of “wreckovation”, have a look at the new altar in the Fatima Basilica. Beautiful, right? Pay close attention to the flowers planted in front of it, making it impossible to offer Mass ad orientem.

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R_H_Benson said:
Have a look at the new altar in the Fatima Basilica. Beautiful, right? Pay close attention to the flowers planted in front of it, making it impossible to offer Mass ad orientem.
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It is not necessary to offer the Mass ad orientem. The Church allows versus populum, and it is the prerogative of the celebrant to choose which way to celebrate the Mass within the limitations of the layout of the church and position of the altar.

Nor was ad orientem universal before the Council.
 
HOMILY OF CARDINAL WILLIAM JOSEPH LEVADA

As the new President of the “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, I want to seize on this phrase “the mystery of your communion with us.” The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter has a special charism to assist the Holy Father in preserving the unity of the Church for those attached to the traditional form of the Mass through the implementation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. The different rites of the Church in the East and West testify to the diversity of liturgical traditions that have grown up in and with the Church since apostolic times. Yet, as St. Paul insists, there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). This is why the Holy Father stressed the continuity that we can see between the extraordinary and ordinary forms of the Roman Rite. Whenever and wherever the Church celebrates the Eucharist, according to whatever rite or form of that rite, it is always the same “mystery of communion” that is being wonderfully manifest and accomplished. Liturgical diversity is not inconsistent with the unity of the Catholic faith. This has been clear through the centuries in the diversity of rites, East and West; and it is clear with special relevance to your priestly Fraternity in Summorum Pontificum. It is also this same principle that is operative in the new Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, establishing ordinariates for former Anglicans who desire full communion with the Catholic Church while at the same time preserving some of the richness of their liturgical and spiritual patrimony.
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R_H_Benson said:
As an example of “wreckovation”, have a look at the new altar in the Fatima Basilica. Beautiful, right? Pay close attention to the flowers planted in front of it, making it impossible to offer Mass ad orientem.
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Ummmm what about the high alter right behind him? Why wouldn’t he use that for Ad orientem?
 
Perhaps a helpful question is this:

What is the purpose of the Liturgy?

Another one is:

What is it’s role in the life of a Christian?
 
One answer as to the purpose of the liturgy would be the glory of God and the sanctification of the people. I suppose one thing to remember is that the Mass is otherworldly. Completely otherworldly. Thus, we should try to keep it that way and it should not be confused with other activities that we do in our ordinary life. Going to Mass should be special. Because it is special.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
Ummmm what about the high alter right behind him? Why wouldn’t he use that for Ad orientem?
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Indeed. Moreover, why should the presider not celebrate facing the people, if that’s what he desires? It is his prerogative to do so, and Pope Francis made it clear he has no intent to force ad orientem worship.
 
Just because one CAN do a thing, doesn’t necessarily mean they SHOULD do a thing.
 
Governor and I do not agree on everything, but I totally agree with saints, feast days, and stories about saints being a lot of fun for kids. Bible heroes are also fun, although perhaps that makes me sound like a Protestant.

I know as a kid of 5, 6, 7 and 8 I loved those stories. I had a book of Catholic children’s stories, many of them taken from the works of people like Belloc, and lots of other kid books about Jesus, Bible prophets and parables, and saints. Our church sold them off the book rack. I did enjoy other non-religious stories too so it wasn’t all Catholic stuff all the time, but I still 5 decades later remember those stories and picture books about Jonah and the whale, St. Francis of Assisi taming the wolf, the Good Samaritan, St. Simon Stock living in a hollow tree while knights stopped by for a blessing, St. Francis de Sales having a sword fight to defend the rosary, Our Lady of Guadelupe appearing on Juan Diego’s tilma, and lots of others. St. Nicholas day on Dec 6 was also fun for getting a little early present to take the strain off waiting for Christmas - I’d get some candy and a little dime store Santa pin or something in my shoe. At church in those days a lot of saints were painted on the walls and a kid could look at the pictures during Mass and then find out more about any interesting-looking saint.
 
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