SSPX mass OK?

[Aramis]

If you go from diocese to diocese, parish to parish and even church to church and are not sure what you’re going get, then the norm is novelty. The standard, on the other hand, is probably only said in a few places in the world.

The prayers of modernists have been answered; a Mass you can mould to your tastes. Want formality? You can have it. Want hullaballo? It can be done.

**Because the Novus Ordo exists, attempts to add novelty to the TLM will look, rightly, meddlesome. **

**If you want to modify the E.F., then why not simply say the O.F.?

If you want a formal O.F. according to the rubrics of Paul VI, then why not just go for the E.F.?**
**
Therefore, the N.O. has probably saved the TLM.** I’ve read on here that clerics were getting creative with it before Vat. II e.g. adding in the vernacular.

Actually, for purposes of Canon Law and Theology, the norm is the defined “This is how it should be”… no matter what you encounter.

The Norm for the OF is not novelty. The typical practice might be, tho’ in over 20 different parishes in Alaska and 10 more outside, I’ve not seen much “innovation”… I’ve seen almost all the licit variants in the missal used. Licit variation isn’t “novelty” in and of itself. (The level of licit voluntary variation in the OF is a bit of a novelty for the western church.)

 

[ProVobis]

Therefore, the N.O. has probably saved the TLM.

I’ve read on here that clerics were getting creative with it before Vat. II e.g. adding in the vernacular.

More accurately the Novus Ordo, simply because it was called Novus Ordo, saved the 1962 Missal.

 

[ProVobis]

Anybody who knows two languages, even closely related ones, knows that this actually is not so.

Very true. But this extends to more than spoken languages. I found this out when I started to write computer code. Why so many languages there? Because a particular language is for a specific application. You want to write for a business, you use one language that has nuances that make it most efficient. You use another for scientific applications or super computer applications. You use still another for graphics and so on. Although it is possible to use one language, like java (or Modern English for that matter), to do all the above work, you find out quickly, it is not the most efficient way to do this and you end up having the slowest system in the world. Anyone ever experience long delays when going from one website to another, no matter how fast your computer? I rest my case.

Those who worship in Hebrew or Arabic or Sanskrit know the value of having a worship language that does only one thing. Catholics apparently do not.

 

[ProVobis]

Are all SSPX priests validly ordained?

The Vatican has admitted that they are indeed valid. I don’t know of any exceptions.

 

[giuseppeTO]

I too was around before the council and certainly a priest with a severe alcohol problem in 1960 is no different thant one in 2010. There is no predicting what he will do during Mass. Very simply, and I don’t think I am painting with a broad brush, I find that it is more the mindset that has developed around the OF over 40 years, and the mindset of the church before the modernizing reforms of the council.

In general, when one goes into a church where the OF is exclusively offered, whether the Mass itself is more reverend or the Mass is a hootenanny (drums, flutes, guitar, clapping, etc), the atmosphere in the church prior to Mass is one of a social gathering. In other words, people conversing in the pews, in the back of the church, and not always in subdued tones and whispers but in a normal voice. There are certainly churches where the rosary is recited before the Mass, but my experience is that this is the exception. It is not unusual to see people greet and shake hands even as they are returning from Communion. This is generally also the case immediately after Mass. That has been my experience in the past across many churches in different cities.

In churches which exclusively offer the EF, prior to Mass the church is generally silent and people are praying. Frequently, the rosary is recited. After Mass, ingeneral, more people remain in the pews for a longer time to make their thanksgiving after Mass and again, there is very little small talk while still in the church proper out of a IMHO a keener respect for those still at prayer.

Of course, there is always the exception on both sides, but in my experience from the pre-conciliar church, through many years in the modern church, and then again in churches offering the indult, in FSSP and SSPX churches, this is what I have found.

The interesting thing I found when attending the indult Mass in Baltimore, is that in the early Mass in the OF, people behaved as the do prior to and after Mass in most churches … that is “chatty”. In the same church, prior to the TLM, people acted as i have characterized those in the exclusive TLM parishes, quiet and prayerful.

So I agree with OTJM that it probably has less to do with how reverend the particular Mass itself is in either form, but rather the mindset of the faithful preparing for either form.

Again, “norm” goes back to mindset.

 

[Layman]

Actually, for purposes of Canon Law and Theology, the norm is the defined “This is how it should be”… no matter what you encounter.

The Norm for the OF is not novelty. The typical practice might be, tho’ in over 20 different parishes in Alaska and 10 more outside, I’ve not seen much “innovation”… I’ve seen almost all the licit variants in the missal used. Licit variation isn’t “novelty” in and of itself. (The level of licit voluntary variation in the OF is a bit of a novelty for the western church.)

I meant a secular, lower-case ‘norm’; what’s currently normal. Also lower-case ‘novelty’; that which is new.

e.g. An O.F. said ad-orientem with Latin and chant is not currently normal, whereas vernacular, versus-populum with EMHCs is.

I doubt there’s a market for the E.F. with O.F elements inserted. Thus I propose the advent of the O.F. has preserved the E.F.

 

[numealinesimpet]

Very true. But this extends to more than spoken languages. I found this out when I started to write computer code. Why so many languages there? Because a particular language is for a specific application. You want to write for a business, you use one language that has nuances that make it most efficient. You use another for scientific applications or super computer applications. You use still another for graphics and so on. Although it is possible to use one language, like java (or Modern English for that matter), to do all the above work, you find out quickly, it is not the most efficient way to do this and you end up having the slowest system in the world. Anyone ever experience long delays when going from one website to another, no matter how fast your computer? I rest my case.

Those who worship in Hebrew or Arabic or Sanskrit know the value of having a worship language that does only one thing. Catholics apparently do not.

Very interesting – and pertinent! I have a very strong feeling that ancient peoples, illiterate or with a writing system that still required considerable expertise (nobody at all apparently learned to read silently before the 4th century AD – S. Augustine, if I remember, comments in astonished admiration that Bishop Ambrose *could read without even moving his lips! * – thus all perforce had highly trained memories, and I have a very strong feeling that they made very light work of learning enough of a foreign language to get by, if they needed to. Remember the Israeli 500 word project? Jews arriving in the Homeland are given an intensive course in the 500 commonest Hebrew words, then let loose. They do fine! Because a few words are used a huge amount of the time. I don’t think there was any fuss at all about the vernacular (which mostly varied significantly from city to city). In Ireland, the educated could still speak fluently in not only Latin but Greek well into the Dark Ages – 6th - 7th centuries – long after Greek had been forgotten in Western Europe and Latin was hopelessly debased – but it never seems to have occurred to them to want to translate the Mass into Irish (which was a highly-developed literary language at that period, the second most widely-used literary language next to Latin in W. Europe).
Maybe now it is indeed time to expand into vernacular versions of the liturgy – though I’m still not convinced. But remember, Mgr Lefebvre said that he would prefer the Traditional Mass in the vernacular, to the new Order of Mass in Latin. I agree. The latter just gives you the worst of both worlds.
In my home we pray the Family Rosary in three languages: the language of The Church, the language of civilisation, and the (presumed) language of The Antichrist…

 

[ProVobis]

But remember, Mgr Lefebvre said that he would prefer the Traditional Mass in the vernacular, to the new Order of Mass in Latin.

I heard this but still don’t understand. The vernacular was partly, if not mostly, the reason for the New Order Mass. I don’t think anyone actually wanted a Latin OF. That said, most Catholics wouldn’t know the difference between the EF and a Latin OF.

 

[numealinesimpet]

I heard this but still don’t understand. The vernacular was partly, if not mostly, the reason for the New Order Mass. I don’t think anyone actually wanted a Latin OF. That said, most Catholics wouldn’t know the difference between the EF and a Latin OF.

In the earliest centuries, when the Church was spreading to other civilisations, no fuss at all was made over the language. The Liturgy was offered in the official language of the district – Syriac, Chaldean, Coptic, Ethiopic.

Do remember that, at the time of Christ, Hebrew itself was essentially a dead language. Only the priestly class still understood it. The Temple Rituals were as incomprehensible to the public as Latin is today. The Last Supper, far from being a cosy informal dinner, was a highly-structured service conducted in Hebrew – which the people did not understand except in translation.

In Western mainland Europe, Latin evolved so gradually into the ‘Romance languages’ that nobody actually noticed until it was too late. There was ‘the High Tongue’ and ‘the Vulgar Tongue’ (which varied infinitely from place to place).

From the Protestant Rebellion right up until the mid 19th century, it was actually forbidden to translate the Latin liturgy into a European vernacular. It was feared that the translators would take liberties with the process of translation to introduce subtly destructive ideas – as had happened many times before. And most certainly did happen when it came to it in 1969. Indeed, it went far beyond that.

To this very day, there are those who have not caught on that the text of the Novus Ordo is not simply a direct translation from the Latin of the TLM. That is the trouble,
As the Ottaviani Intervention (see links) points out, at no time did the general public ask for the liturgy to be simplified for their benefit. What they did ask for was more opportunities to learn and understand what the (existing) Liturgy means.

 

[ProVobis]

From the Protestant Rebellion right up until the mid 19th century, it was actually forbidden to translate the Latin liturgy into a European vernacular. It was feared that the translators would take liberties with the process of translation to introduce subtly destructive ideas – as had happened many times before. And most certainly did happen when it came to it in 1969. Indeed, it went far beyond that.

To this very day, there are those who have not caught on that the text of the Novus Ordo is not simply a direct translation from the Latin of the TLM. That is the trouble,

Thanks for the good and timely explanation. It makes sense.

As I’ve stated before, I have nothing against the vernacular. I’m all for that. We have to have a common language with which to communicate obviously. However unless we have a gold standard of sorts, a dead language behind the scenes, we will be vulnerable to heresies, mistranslations, misinterpretations, etc. which won’t be good for the Church. We can’t allow the dead language to be left to someone else until it disappears altogether. My idea is to have the Mass in both Latin and vernacular, a sort of translinear Mass. (Some radio evangelists are pretty good at this. Dr. Boyce and Dr. Sproul come to mind.) When we hear the same thing two different ways, we tend to remember it longer. But it’s just a thought. I doubt if people want an hour and a half Mass.

 

[numealinesimpet]

To this very day, there are those who have not caught on that the text of the Novus Ordo is not simply a direct translation from the Latin of the TLM. That is the trouble,
As the Ottaviani Intervention (fisheaters.com/ottavianiintervention.html) points out, at no time did the general public ask for the liturgy to be simplified for their benefit. What they did ask for was more opportunities to learn and understand what the (existing) Liturgy means.

The following books, I believe, provide the best and most well-documented account in the English language of the history of what we are discussing here.

support@angeluspress.org
Angelus Press, 2915 Forest Ave., Kansas City, MO 64109.
The Liturgical Revolution
— Three Volume Trilogy —
Michael Davies.

Cranmer’s Godly Order
Liturgical Revolution: Vol. I

Michael Davies shows that Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer understood that if you change the way people pray, then you will change what they believe. Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer (1549) began a process that changed the Catholic Church in England to the Anglican sect. Davies compares these changes to the modern liturgical “reforms”…]

Cranmer’s Godly Order is a classic…revised and expanded by Mr. Davies during his final years. Drawing upon the best of Catholic and Protestant scholarship and on primary sources, Davies traces the steps by which the ancient Catholic Mass became the Lord’s Supper in the Church of England. And these steps were changes - as Popes and Reformers alike were at pains to stress.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII and Edward VI and architect of the new liturgy, was a master of the theology of the Mass, and hated it. The parallels between the Anglican liturgy and the New Mass of the 1960s will be uncomfortably obvious!

Pope John’s Council
Liturgical Revolution: Vol. II

For those who have read it, it is already a classic. Few books can rival its clarity and objectivity.

An incredible pattern emerges: a pastoral Council hijacked by a clique of theological liberals [Davies is careful to point out that the tactics they employed were by no means unethical in themselves. Nor is it fair to assume they intended to harm the Church. In fact, it was the kind of thing that would happen in any large meeting of this kind. The difference is that this group knew exactly what they wanted, and they had a plan of action how to achieve it, which they carried out. Most of the other bishops arrived with very little preparation or preconceived ideas about the course of the Council …]who consign to the trash the documents of the Council Preparatory Committee (of which Archbishop Lefebvre was a member), shut off the microphones of those who attempt to defend the Faith (suffering this indignity was no less than the illustrious Cardinal Ottaviani), and co-opting the media so that their spin became “reality”?

Pope Paul’s New Mass
Liturgical Revolution: Vol. III

It is the unparalleled history of how the New Mass was devised, created, and implemented. Beyond this, a list of the manifold liturgical problems of the past generation is documented: from Mass facing the people and revolutionary legislation to Communion in the hand and the problem of the Offertory. For over thirty years this book has been considered the most thorough critique of the New Mass in the English language.

 

[Diak]

It seems the very clear clarification made by the Holy Father of March 10, 2009 needs to be restated:

The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on **doctrinal **reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. **In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church. **

1. There are DOCTRINAL, and not liturgical matters that have to be clarified. It is not simply a matter of New Mass/Old Mass.

1. “Do not legitamately exercise any ministry in the Church” should be clear to all faithful Catholics, especially when the Holy Father states this twice in the same paragraph and adds “In order to make this clear once again”.

 

[ProVobis]

It seems the very clear clarification made by the Holy Father of March 10, 2009 needs to be restated:

Yes, it is illicit. Most here seem to agree. It doesn’t mean people are going to stop going to a valid Mass. I don’t know why you think it needs to be restated.

 

[Onegin]

Yes, it is illicit. Most here seem to agree. It doesn’t mean people are going to stop going to a valid Mass. I don’t know why you think it needs to be restated.

It’s probably also safe to say that the vast majority of Catholics have probably been to at least one illicit diocesan Mass at some point.

As I’ve said in the past, if I had to pick (for spiritual edification) between a diocesan Mass that is illicit because the Priest ad-libs the Eucharistic Prayers or an SSPX Mass that is illicit because of Jurisdiction, the choice (for me) is clear.

But then again, I’d pick the later anyway for other reasons outside of licitness.

 

[pnewton]

As I’ve said in the past, if I had to pick (for spiritual edification) between a diocesan Mass that is illicit because the Priest ad-libs the Eucharistic Prayers or an SSPX Mass that is illicit because of Jurisdiction, the choice (for me) is clear.

I think that is not often the choice. The few illicit practices I have seen have never been significant. More importantly, I never knew beforehand they were going to be illicit.

 

[giuseppeTO]

It’s probably also safe to say that the vast majority of Catholics have probably been to at least one illicit diocesan Mass at some point.

As I’ve said in the past, if I had to pick (for spiritual edification) between a diocesan Mass that is illicit because the Priest ad-libs the Eucharistic Prayers or an SSPX Mass that is illicit because of Jurisdiction, the choice (for me) is clear.

But then again, I’d pick the later anyway for other reasons outside of licitness.

Just a small point of order, the mass you describe where the presider changes the form of the consecration to the extent that he does not confect the Blessed Sacrament, would be an invalid mass, not an illicit mass.

 

[Callixtus]

This is what Pope Benedict would tell you right now: the bottom line is no, you are still not at liberty to receive the sacraments from the SSPX. Their sacraments remain valid but illicit. Unless they are the only place you can receive the sacraments - i.e. the nearest Catholic church in your area is 500 miles away and you would otherwise go without the mass, confession, etc. - then you are not supposed to go.

Maybe - hopefully - there will be a change in this status soon, but the lifting of those excommunications does not currently affect the situation. Please do not listen to any wiggling on this from anybody on this point - especially partisans of the SSPX. I mean them no ill will, but what I have stated here is the current situation. *Roma locuta est *on this point. Until there is another decision/statement, it remains as such. Say a prayer that we will see reconciliation in our day, though.

Also, see catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=1868

 

[giuseppeTO]

This is what Pope Benedict would tell you right now: the bottom line is no, you are still not at liberty to receive the sacraments from the SSPX. Their sacraments remain valid but illicit. Unless they are the only place you can receive the sacraments - i.e. the nearest Catholic church in your area is 500 miles away and you would otherwise go without the mass, confession, etc. - then you are not supposed to go.

Maybe - hopefully - there will be a change in this status soon, but the lifting of those excommunications does not currently affect the situation. Please do not listen to any wiggling on this from anybody on this point - especially partisans of the SSPX. I mean them no ill will, but what I have stated here is the current situation. *Roma locuta est *on this point. Until there is another decision/statement, it remains as such. Say a prayer that we will see reconciliation in our day, though.

Also, see catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=1868

Callixtus,

Welcome aboard! What an honor to have the pope’s personal secretary on this board to help us know exactly what he would say if he had an account here. It is important to know what the Pope’s bottom line is and the 500 mile rule is also very helpful!

 

[Callixtus]

Callixtus,

Welcome aboard! What an honor to have the pope’s personal secretary on this board to help us know exactly what he would say if he had an account here. It is important to know what the Pope’s bottom line is and the 500 mile rule is also very helpful!

When you can’t counter a statement factually, make sarcastic, personal attacks.

 

[ProVobis]

More importantly, I never knew beforehand they were going to be illicit.

You have a point there. Technically, any priest in the state of any kind of mortal sin is illicitly saying a Mass. It is rarely if ever announced beforehand that it there is any type of illicit activity going on.