Transitioning to Tridentine Rite

[Deus_lo_vult]

No, that really isn’t fair. Its not at all.

I’ll ask it again, what issues would be corrected by changing from English to Latin.

And now I’ll push you… what power does Latin have that English does not?

-Tim-

Well, for one the use of Latin in Medieval Europe united all of Christendom in a way that we no longer have in the Catholic world since transitioning to the vernacular. When I traveled to say, France, where I lived briefly, I had to find the odd English speaking Mass or else I’d have been out of luck. Fortunately there was one, celebrated by an Irish priest no less (with a Filipino immigrant congregation, I believe it was called Sainte Josef), but it was located on the opposite side of Paris from my flat and getting there on time was quite a hassle. If the Mass was still in Latin it wouldn’t matter where in the world I traveled, I’d be just fine, whether I was in Japan or Spain.

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

And now I’ll push you… what power does Latin have that English does not?

-Tim-

1. It is a sacral language, associated with the single, exalted purpose of the worship of God. The use of Latin in this way should not surprise us for a sacral language is a feature of all the major world religions: classical Arabic in Islam, Sanskrit in Hinduism and, of course, Hebrew in Judaism - the language in which Our Lord would have prayed.
2. Latin helps us overcome limitations of time and place, and helps us participate in the universal reality of the Catholic Church, linking us with the generations who have worshiped before us.
3. The use of Latin in all countries and across the centuries is a powerful symbol of the Church’s unity.
4. The use of Latin enables also the use of the great liturgical music of the Church, particularly plainchant and polyphony. Vatican II said: “The treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care.” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 114)

latinliturgy.com/id2.htm

One would aslo think that these reasons are also why all of the important Church documents are in Latin. Is the Liturgy of less importance then them?

 

[Tridentinum]

Many liturgies and norms have been instituted virtually overnight by a stroke of the Holy Father’s pen. Summorum Pontificum itself is exactly one of those changes.

Summorum Pontificum finally allowed priests to celebrate the Latin Mass without the liberal Bishops immediately transfering them to Mars or putting them in retirement. It didn’t institute a new Mass or change the norms. It simply changed the rules regarding authority.

The Tridentine Mass itself was imposed on the whole Roman rite almost overnight. Pope St. Pius V signed the Papal bull Quo Primum on 14 July 1570 and it was done.

Yes, because it got to the point were there was just countless amounts of variations of rites in the Roman Rite. They were all very similar, just different in very small ways. He picked one version of them all and codified it. That’s not quite the same as synthetically creating an entire new Mass by a committee in less than several years.

The Liturgy of the Hours was totally revamped many times, including a major overhaul in 1910 by decree of Pope Pius X.

Traditionalists aren’t against ‘change’ all together, they freely admit that some change is necessary at times if it is necessary or the situation calls for it. What traditionalists are against, and every Catholic should be against, is change for the sake of change, which is the result of modernism. That is the change we experienced after Vatican II during the liturgical revolution.

This idea that development in the church was always slow and methodical, meditated upon for many decades and centuries, and guided by the Holy Spirit at the speed of continental drift simply isn’t correct. There have been many changes in the Church to many aspects of the way the Church functions and worships and studies God which were rapid, and even violent.

Most of the time, yes it was. Practices in the liturgy and the way they are celebrated is part of the extrinsic tradition of our Church. This tradition is sculptured over hundreds of years, with only some change throughout the history of the Church when the situation called for it. What happened during the liturgical revolution after Vatican II was a complete rejection of the Church’s extrinsic ecclesial tradition of hundreds of years in the name of ‘getting with the times’. An entire new Mass was created from a committee, that is absolutely unheard of in the history and tradition of the Church!

Traditionalists generally didn’t complain when restoration of the Ordinary Form was imposed upon the entire english speaking world at the stroke of midnight last advent, and they celebrated when the Tridentine Mass was restored with the stroke of a pen on July 7, 2007.

I don’t see what you are getting at. We simply want to worship how our ancestors worshipped, and believe what our ancestors believed. Traditionalists will look at the English changes in the Roman Missal as somewhat a step in the right direction, but they would like to see the whole new Mass dumped all together, and going back to the traditional Mass.

I don’t see many people complaining about the restoration of the permanent diaconate. It has been only 45 years since its restoration after ten centures of disuse and now there are close to 40,000 deacons in the Church. That’s a pretty rapid change. Nobody complains that the Church needs to slow down when they want their baby baptized or need a rosary blessed

That issue has not lead to a crisis of faith. Others that need to be addressed have.

 

[patrick457]

Well, for one the use of Latin in Medieval Europe united all of Christendom in a way that we no longer have in the Catholic world since transitioning to the vernacular. When I traveled to say, France, where I lived briefly, I had to find the odd English speaking Mass or else I’d have been out of luck. Fortunately there was one, celebrated by an Irish priest no less (with a Filipino immigrant congregation, I believe it was called Sainte Josef), but it was located on the opposite side of Paris from my flat and getting there on time was quite a hassle. If the Mass was still in Latin it wouldn’t matter where in the world I traveled, I’d be just fine, whether I was in Japan or Spain.

To some extent, this is true. Though the pronunciation of Latin did differ according to region (the Italian pronunciation that has become the standard for Ecclesiastical Latin since a century or so ago is but one of these), and the grammar, so that a Castilian speaker would use a Latin influenced by Castilian, a French speaker’s Latin would sound like French, and so on.

 

[Melchior_1]

I don’t think anyone could deny changes are made to the Liturgy; however, you have not shown where in the history of the Church there is been such a rapid reform and revamp of the entire Liturgy, like there was after VCII. Furthermore the stroke of the Papal pen on July 7th wasn’t to restore the 1962 Mass but rather to tell the faithful that it was never supposed to be done away with in the first place and that its practice then and now, was and is completely legitimate.

He did in the very post you quoted;
*
The Tridentine Mass itself was imposed on the whole Roman rite almost overnight. Pope St. Pius V signed the Papal bull Quo Primum on 14 July 1570 and it was done.

The Liturgy of the Hours was totally revamped many times, including a major overhaul in 1910 by decree of Pope Pius X.
*

Are two specific instances.

 

[patrick457]

Yes, because it got to the point were there was just countless amounts of variations of rites in the Roman Rite. They were all very similar, just different in very small ways. He picked one version of them all and codified it. That’s not quite the same as synthetically creating an entire new Mass by a committee in less than several years.

Yep, the differences between the various Uses of the Roman Rite were mainly the presence or absence (or the insertion or omission) of the occasional odd prayer here and there, different textual variants, different rubrics, and local feasts in the calendar.

An to be more accurate, what Pius V did was revise and standardize the Roman liturgy: both to restore it to the “original form and rite of the holy Fathers” (though it seems that due to the lack of adequate time and limited resources, they only half-succeeded in this aim), to ensure a greater standardization among all the Latin Church and the prevention of any heretical ideas that could creep in.

We decided to entrust this work to learned men of our selection. They very carefully collated all their work with the ancient codices in Our Vatican Library and with reliable, preserved or emended codices from elsewhere. Besides this, these men consulted the works of ancient and approved authors concerning the same sacred rites; and thus they have restored the Missal itself to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers. When this work has been gone over numerous times and further emended, after serious study and reflection, We commanded that the finished product be printed and published.

If I’m allowed to critique both forms (purely from a critical POV mind you), I’d say that the production of the 1570 Roman Missal suffered from little time and limited resources (kind of like what happened to the Clementine Vulgate), while that of the 1969 Missal - while having access to more sources than the “learned men” of 1570 - mainly suffers from lack of organicness and a penchant for the hypothetical.

 

[Cat]

I’m so glad that the Mass is in my own dear language! I like being able to understand what’s going on. I don’t like having to check out a translation on a sheet of paper–that detracts from my ability to concentrate on the Lord Jesus.

In this day and age, when rebellion abounds throughout the world, I don’t think that a “language” would stop someone from rebelling against the Church and introducing irregularities into the Mass form. We need to examine and deal with the reasons why there are abuses, and these are not because of the language, but because of the stubbornness, pride, and rebelliousness of the human heart. A foreign language would make it even easier for rebels to introduce an irregularity or variation, because so many of us wouldn’t recognize it.

Although the OP certainly has the right to attend which form of the Latin rite that is most edifying to them personally, I think the OP should take care and be diligant not to set themselves up as an authority over the bishops. The Church does not approve of any abuses, but the Church does clearly approve of the Ordinary Form of the Mass. Do any of us have the right to distrust this and sow seeds of distrust and conflict among other believers? How does this look to the non-Catholics, especially non-Catholic Christians?

Last Thursday, our priest’s homily was about unity in the Church. He stressed that unity is so important for us to be able to deal with and conquer evil in the world. (Our parish is hosting a Rally against the HHC policy next week, so that’s why he was talking about defeating evil in the world.)

Perhaps some Christians believe that the form must be uniform in order for there to be unity in the Church, but this isn’t true. There are so many other rites of Catholicism, but we are still one with these Catholics. And although there is separation between Catholics and Protestants and a vast difference between how they worship and how we worship, we still recognize them as Christians by virtue of baptism–there is a unity between all Christians, not because of something we humans do, but because of Jesus Christ baptizing us all into One Spirit.

I hope this post is helpful and encouraging to the OP and others.

 

[ProVobis]

What issues you have in mind and how would they dissapear if the Mass were changed from English to mostly Latin?

I guess it makes a difference to those whose philosophies include worshipping the Supreme Being in other than their own everyday words. He deserves better than normal conversation IMO. Give me anything but English for worship.

 

[choliks]

Well, for one the use of Latin in Medieval Europe united all of Christendom in a way that we no longer have in the Catholic world since transitioning to the vernacular. When I traveled to say, France, where I lived briefly, I had to find the odd English speaking Mass or else I’d have been out of luck. Fortunately there was one, celebrated by an Irish priest no less (with a Filipino immigrant congregation, I believe it was called Sainte Josef), but it was located on the opposite side of Paris from my flat and getting there on time was quite a hassle. If the Mass was still in Latin it wouldn’t matter where in the world I traveled, I’d be just fine, whether I was in Japan or Spain.

Actually this tells us something. You yourself said that you’d be out of luck if the only Mass around was said in French. The Mass was in English because it’s the only other language Filipinos can comprehend (sometimes imperfectly). They’d be out of luck too if the Mass was in a language they can’t understand.

So make the Mass Latin. Problem solved? Not quite. The problem is that the common Filipino faithful today doesn’t know Latin. A lot of them have difficulty in comprehending and speaking English, especially the poor who live in far flung rural areas that get limited education, what more with Latin. I have nothing against the EF or TLM (hoping to assist in one someday), but if the Mass was in Latin, these poor parishes won’t have the resources to teach. In a country that has over 100 dialects, it would be a logistical nightmare to teach the whole nation. Mind you, it won’t be a faithful translation since not all local words will have an equivalent in Latin.

I think it’s also worth noting that for three centuries, the lingua franca of the Philippines was Spanish. So learning Latin should be a cinch, right? Maybe. No. Today only a handful of the mestizo elite and a very small percentage of the population know the language. As I’ve said above, the common Filipino don’t know a thing about Spanish and Latin.

The de facto lingua franca and business language today in the Philippines is English.

Which led me to the conclusion that the Mass itself is the unifying factor. No matter where we are in the world, no matter which language the Mass is said, we know it’s a form of the Roman liturgy of the Latin Rite, and it’s Catholic.

 

[Splagchnizomai]

Give me anything but English for worship.

Blessed be God, for He is beyond Babel.

 

[ProVobis]

Blessed be God, for He is beyond Babel.

But why make Him do the work?

Benedictus Deus.

 

[ProVobis]

Which led me to the conclusion that the Mass itself is the unifying factor. No matter where we are in the world, no matter which language the Mass is said, we know it’s a form of the Roman liturgy of the Latin Rite, and it’s Catholic.

I wish I could agree with that but I once attended a Vietnamese wedding thinking it to be Catholic. It was most embarrassing to find out later it was Baptist and on top of it, the bridegroom presented this big tirade against Catholicism. I wish all Catholic services would have just a fair amount of Latin in them; then I wouldn’t worry about whether they were Catholic or not.

 

[ProVobis]

Blessed be God, for He is beyond Babel.

God may be but are we?

You didn’t say it but I think it’s rather arrogant to say that our national language is as good as or better than the language(s) of the cross.

 

[Splagchnizomai]

God may be but are we?

You didn’t say it but I think it’s rather arrogant to say that our national language is as good as or better than the language(s) of the cross.

Then we should have Mass in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

In Acts, the Apostles were thought to be drunk by speaking in tongues – that is, in the many languages of those gathered. Perhaps you think we are drunk for having Mass in the language of those gathered?

I don’t claim arrogance and I do not boast, except to say that I follow the Church. If she says that I may worship in any language, I will do so.

 

[ProVobis]

Then we should have Mass in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

Indeed. The Latin Mass has Latin, Greek, and Hebrew plus a line or two of Aramaic in one of the Passion readings.

If she says that I may worship in any language, I will do so.

One may chew gum in church, but if I feel it will divide us like Spanish vs English vs Polish does, I certainly will toss the gum.

 

[Melchior_1]

I wish I could agree with that but I once attended a Vietnamese wedding thinking it to be Catholic. It was most embarrassing to find out later it was Baptist and on top of it, the bridegroom presented this big tirade against Catholicism. I wish all Catholic services would have just a fair amount of Latin in them; then I wouldn’t worry about whether they were Catholic or not.

Except when other people start introducing Latin, which will make you think “this has gotta be good!” when it actually isn’t.

 

[ProVobis]

Except when other people start introducing Latin, which will make you think “this has gotta be good!” when it actually isn’t.

You’re right.

It’s actually better, that is, if one wants to use it to identify a Catholic Mass, although I hear some Anglicans from time to time will throw in some Latin as well.

 

[Sirach2]

While I had no further intention of responding to Floresco’s posts, I believe after prayer today that the Lord does not want me to leave the impression that I was posting nonauthoritive information. Therefore, for the sake of those who followed this thread and whom I may have misled by my silence after her taunting challenges, I need to make a final statement.

There is no higher office, other than the Pope himself, than the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of Sacraments. When the Prefect delivers a response in the name of the Church, it is authoritative and official. Please note the opening words in the referenced statement:

Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments responded on September 25, 2000, to a European cardinal’s question about the position of the priest during the liturgy of the Eucharist. Adoremus’ s translation of the original letter, written in Italian, appears below. Responses such as this are later published in Notitiae, the official publication of the Congregation of Divine Worship.

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
Prot. No 2036/00/L
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has been asked whether the expression in no. 299 of the Instituto Generalis Missalis Romani constitutes a norm according to which, during the Eucharistic liturgy, the position of the priest *versus absidem *[facing towards the apse] is to be excluded.
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, after mature reflection and in light of liturgical precedents, responds:

Every trick in the book has been devised to negate and undermine an official statement made by the Church. It is authoritative and was signed by the Prefect, then Card. Estevez. There was also an attempt to infer that the Notitiae is merely unofficial commentary … according to Wikipedia and Fr. Z, who are seemingly more of an authority than the CDWDS. Yet the red bolded part above states otherwise.
If the Cardinal did NOT intend to reference the Notitiae as part of his response, it would not have been included as basis for his decision and clearly referenced with page numbers in his statement.

These negative slurs on the Church serve only to rupture the unity that should co-exist among our members here and it creates doubts where only truth should serve our faithful. When documents of the highest authority are demeaned as though irrelevant, false, nonauthoritative, purely commentary, etc., it is a sorry day for Catholics.

 

[Marie5890]

I understand that there for many there is a preference for the EF over the OF. Understand that completely.

I do have a question.

Is there ever a thought or an attitude within the community of those who prefer the EF that some how the EF is more efficacious, more powerful, than the OF? That somehow the Lord is more pleased with the EF than the OF? That He accepts it as a more acceptable offering and sacrifice over the OF?

Do those attitudes exists in the EF communities?

I ask this sincerely, not to be provocative.

Thanks.

 

[archangel04]

Man this as gone off topic. But I still love to see some of the “secret haters” of the Latin mass. lol