Tridentine Mass had many abuses also

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If the Latin Mass would have been normative still, progressive liturgists would still have played with it and we would have had Latin Clown Masses and other abuses. Of course everything was not so rosy in the fifties and before. It was common that some people prayed the rosary during Mass or did spiritual reading. If everything had been fine then we wouldn’t have had such a large group of priests publicly dissent and demand even more changes after the council Of course many of the changes that came about in the new rite were not based on any actual liturgical documents or writings of Vatican II but were ideas that spread everywhere. There were no directions to rip out communion rails or kneelers or for the whole liturgy to be in the vernacular (quite the opposite actually). The Mass as seen on EWTN does not require any special indult and is more in line with what the Council fathers intended.

The parish that I attend has the Latin Mass indult, a mixed Latin/English Mass and what is now called the Novus Ordo (not an official name for it). The new Mass has retained its beauty because these priest are reverent and do not play fast and loose with liturgical rules. The greatest problem we have in the Mass not is not the format of it but dissent and experimentation.
 
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Marie:
It could be Bobby Jim is staying on topic. The topic is…The TLM has many abuses too. He asked a question quite charitably and on topic so I think he expects a civil answer.
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Yes, thank you… I was not meaning to imply that anything I have observed was an “abuse”. As someone who has only a couple of experiences with the Tridentine Rite, I was just curious to find out what was normative.
 
"To worship at the Tridentine Mass is to worship in the same rite as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Bernadette, St. Thérèse and a countless number of other holy men and women…"Actually, the Mass that St. Francis of Assisi attended (he wasn’t a priest) would have been diferent from the on of the 16the cent. St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena were Dominicans. They had their own rite until the 1960’s.

Please provide us with some examples of abuses of the Tridentine Rite.
 
Mangled liturgy did not start with Vatican II. I was born into the Church long before Vatican II. I had the good fortune for the first several years of my life to attend the Eucharist in a parish where the old liturgy was performed with great care. Our school and the Nun’s who taught us were first rate. But, abuses were there in the fringes every now and then. As I grew up and married and moved I soon discovered that this was exceptional indeed. Many larger parishes were going down the trail of liturgical destruction. Daily Mass was usually a requiem “black Mass” and there was no choir, only an organist, who played the same music over and over with no care to the choice or liturgy proper to it’s selection. Scrambled Latin became the norm. The celebrants read everything to themselves, at high speed warp.

The laity, were scattered through the church reciting their Rosaries or napping, or knitting or day dreaming.Ushers at Mass…Oh they listened to see when a bell sounded to return from the smoke breaks and chat session they were involved in. That was NOT participation by any means. It was not uncommon, because of the fast from midnight before Holy Communion, that no one received Communion at the Solemn High Mass on Sunday. They obeyed in their fashion. They did not fast so they did not receive. They also did not understand The Eucharist obviously. A fast was too much to ask to their mind I guess, in order to receive the greatest gift of the church. Christ.

I mention these facts, not to mock the past nor the beauty of the Tridentine Mass. I mention them to point out that while a beautiful and reverent liturgy is a help to prayer, the Eucharist is not primarily an aesthetic experience but an act of faith. Shabbiness is not exclusive to the New Order of the Mass. It was alive and well long before Vatican II. Human ignorance, neglect, and folly throughout history have obscured the beauty of the liturgy. Catholics, priests and laity alike, need to make a serious effort to understand the purposes of the reforms promulgated by Vatican II, but already begun with the reform of the Breviary, of liturgical music, and frequent communion by St. Pius X and Pius XII’s recentering of the liturgical year in the Easter Vigil. Both conservatives and liberals in the Church are often poorly acquainted with the purpose of the Council and the profoundly orthodox faith which inspired its renewal of the liturgy.
 
Aw, shucks, I abused the Latin Mass, too.

I was an altar server before my time, that is, before I really could pronounce all the words. I said something, but I wasn’t saying things correctly.

The pastor made me recite, and gave me a humiliating lesson.

We were taught the responses by reading the Latin, not by studying a phonetic chart. I think that’s where I got lost, in an early forgetting of the pronunciation.

I think another contributing factor even when I learned it, was the speed. The priests were always ‘clipping’ us, by starting their next sentence before we finished ours.

Some of the altar servers got creative with the hand bells. Instead of a firm jingle, they’d wag the bells slowly which notoriously distracted from the liturgical action.

We loved the wooden clappers, by the way. Those substituted for the bells after Holy Thursday, until the Mass of the Resurrection. Those weren’t quiet, to begin with. But, we really hammered away every chance we had, at least I did.

I don’t think I suffered from genetic misbehavior. I think I really had ADD and so I was making up my own script as I went along.

It didn’t help that there was rampant misbehavior with all those boys. What was worse when they were intentionally misbehaving, but trying to cover it up at the same time. It was so funny and hard to keep from laughing.

I was so afraid of the old pastor to begin with. Riding to the cemetery for funeral services was a riot. He used to ask us to look out for traffic coming, any time he went into an intersection. I had that twilight zone experience, what am I doing in this car with that man?

Those were also the days of the really tall candles that had to be lit before Mass. That was a scary experience, just for the vertigo of looking up so high. You could also antogonize the nuns by feigning difficulty to light the candles. The average problem was the occasional flaming wax dripping on the expensive altar linens. The thing is, they never told us about all that when they trained us. And, there was absolutely no training related to fire control, if things had gotten out of hand.
 
Crumpy said:
Aw, shucks, I abused the Latin Mass, too.

I was an altar server before my time, that is, before I really could pronounce all the words. I said something, but I wasn’t saying things correctly.

The pastor made me recite, and gave me a humiliating lesson.

We were taught the responses by reading the Latin, not by studying a phonetic chart. I think that’s where I got lost, in an early forgetting of the pronunciation.

I think another contributing factor even when I learned it, was the speed. The priests were always ‘clipping’ us, by starting their next sentence before we finished ours.

Some of the altar servers got creative with the hand bells. Instead of a firm jingle, they’d wag the bells slowly which notoriously distracted from the liturgical action.

We loved the wooden clappers, by the way. Those substituted for the bells after Holy Thursday, until the Mass of the Resurrection. Those weren’t quiet, to begin with. But, we really hammered away every chance we had, at least I did.

I don’t think I suffered from genetic misbehavior. I think I really had ADD and so I was making up my own script as I went along.

It didn’t help that there was rampant misbehavior with all those boys. What was worse when they were intentionally misbehaving, but trying to cover it up at the same time. It was so funny and hard to keep from laughing.

I was so afraid of the old pastor to begin with. Riding to the cemetery for funeral services was a riot. He used to ask us to look out for traffic coming, any time he went into an intersection. I had that twilight zone experience, what am I doing in this car with that man?

Those were also the days of the really tall candles that had to be lit before Mass. That was a scary experience, just for the vertigo of looking up so high. You could also antogonize the nuns by feigning difficulty to light the candles. The average problem was the occasional flaming wax dripping on the expensive altar linens. The thing is, they never told us about all that when they trained us. And, there was absolutely no training related to fire control, if things had gotten out of hand.
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Obviously written by someone who had been there and done that. I like the part about antagonizing the nuns. Altar boys were center screen …I can’t remember any altar boys from back then who were not members of our Catholic school Sister watched us like a hawk on Sunday and we would hear about it Monday morning.

There was an art about lighting those candles for Solemn High Mass. Yes there was. Me, I liked the bells. To this day in my NO cathedral, I would love to ring those bells at the the consecration. 👍
 
spetreopn said:
I would hazard the guess, along with the information provided by Deacon Ed, that there are many liturgical abuses in the Tridentine liturgy that you have not heard about, and could quite possibly be worse than anything that has been attempted in the Novus Ordo. The Tridentine rite has been in use for hundreds of years. I am sure that many more abuses have occurred than you have listed.

It is harder to see abuses in the Tridentine liturgy in the present day, since the Tridentine liturgy in no longer the norm.
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Worse than Novus Ordo abuses?

Exactly what could some of those be?
 
Deacon_Ed said:
Catholicguy,

Abuses in the “old Mass”? Of course there were abuses. The Council of Trent listed abuses present at the time of the it ordered the Mass to be reformed. Following the Council of Trent there were no magisterial documents addressing abuses directly – that was generall handled between the priest and his bishop, although certain of those abuses were noted by Pope Paul VI when he wrote of the abuse of praying the rosary (a private devotion) during the Mass (a communal celebrfation).

Other abuses that we who are old enough remember include the priest racing through the Mass, no one going to communion except the priest (Pope Leo XIV wrote about this, as did others), and a failure to participate in the Mass (Pope Pius XII wrote about this).

Deacon Ed
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So, abuses in the Old Mass included:
  1. Praying of the Rosary
  2. Priest saying it too fast
  3. No sacrilegious communions (it’s not accurate to say that “no one” went to Communion)
  4. Too much reverence and silence (aka “not enough participation”)?
Abuses in the New Mass include:
  1. Priests dressed as clowns
  2. various other food items being used in place of a host
  3. lay persons handling the Sacred Species
  4. lay persons giving sermons
  5. holding hands around the altar
  6. no concept of being in a state of grace for Communion (everyone receives, whether they should or not)
  7. songs with heretical lyrics
  8. inclusive language
  9. search the threads on Catholic Anwers for the rest, there are literally hundreds of different abuses that happen in the New Mass
Can we PLEASE have the Old Mass back?!
 
My grandfather lived in a little Austrian village near Salzburg. He can recall as a young altar boy in the 1930s the village priest and nuns from a nearby convent telling them that if they misbehave and abuse the Mass the “gates of hell will open wide for you, right before this very altar, and God help me I’ll throw you to the flames and thats more then you deserve!” (that is an actual quote from my grandpa about what the priest told them). Apparently this was drilled into all the servers, and so none of the boys in the village ever wanted to serve Mass out of fear that they would go to Hell for messing up.
 
Hmmm, I’ve yet to experience this rushed Mass, every TLM I’ve attended has lasted around 1.5 hrs and the priest seems to be reading really fast, well at least faster than I can really keep up in the missal…I usually just give up and put it aside hehe.
 
Deacon_Ed said:
Catholicguy,

Abuses in the “old Mass”? Of course there were abuses. The Council of Trent listed abuses present at the time of the it ordered the Mass to be reformed. Following the Council of Trent there were no magisterial documents addressing abuses directly – that was generall handled between the priest and his bishop, although certain of those abuses were noted by Pope Paul VI when he wrote of the abuse of praying the rosary (a private devotion) during the Mass (a communal celebrfation).

Other abuses that we who are old enough remember include the priest racing through the Mass, no one going to communion except the priest (Pope Leo XIV wrote about this, as did others), and a failure to participate in the Mass (Pope Pius XII wrote about this).

Deacon Ed
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But, personal devotions are common and encouraged in the TLM, or at least the ones I have attended.

All that “participation” means in attending the Mass. For the laity to assist in the Mass all they have to do is attend.
 
UKcatholicGuy said:
Abuses in the New Mass include:
  1. Priests dressed as clowns
  2. various other food items being used in place of a host
  3. lay persons handling the Sacred Species
  4. lay persons giving sermons
  5. holding hands around the altar
  6. no concept of being in a state of grace for Communion (everyone receives, whether they should or not)
  7. songs with heretical lyrics
  8. inclusive language
  9. search the threads on Catholic Anwers for the rest, there are literally hundreds of different abuses that happen in the New Mass
Can we PLEASE have the Old Mass back?!
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Pssst, you forgot to include bare-breasted native women reading the epistle.
 
Marines said:
Fr. Scott Archer writes:

“To worship at the Tridentine Mass is to worship in the same rite as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Bernadette, St. Thérèse and a countless number of other holy men and women…”

Semper Fi,
  • Marines
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Because that was the Mass that was celebrated in the Latin Rite at the time. If the NO had been the Mass, you can bet they would have been worshipping at that one.
 
Deacon Ed,
Maybe here in Orange County there is a new Pope Leo, We seem to be marching to our own drummer much of the time anyway in the Roman rite. That’s why I’ve been attending Eastern Rite Catholic Divine Worship a lot lately, where if there are abuses, they are not blatant.
 
Ok, I am going to have to agree that the TLM was not free from abuses. The only real differance is that today, because of exceptions and allowances and options of all kinds, we have more “experimental” and “innovative” abuses (ie. liturgical dancing, holding hands around the altar, clown Masses, ect.). In the old days, if there was a liturgical abuse it was probably caused by laziness or indifferance on the part of the priest.

But (and I hope the other trads here dont stone me for this) we must remember that the reason the TLM today is so much more free of abuses then the NO; and the reason why the congregation is so much more reverant and focused then those in the NO; is because the priest wants to celebrate the TLM; the congregation wants to attend this Rite. Before 1970 there was no NO, there was no TLM, there was just the Mass, which is what we call the Traditional Latin Mass today. Everyone there wants to be there, hence why it is so much more reverant then the NO (although I’m sure even before 1970 the Mass never saw some of the things we have today!).
 
Caesar said:
My grandfather lived in a little Austrian village near Salzburg. He can recall as a young altar boy in the 1930s the village priest and nuns from a nearby convent telling them that if they misbehave and abuse the Mass the “gates of hell will open wide for you, right before this very altar, and God help me I’ll throw you to the flames and thats more then you deserve!” (that is an actual quote from my grandpa about what the priest told them). Apparently this was drilled into all the servers, and so none of the boys in the village ever wanted to serve Mass out of fear that they would go to Hell for messing up.
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😃 I’ve copied and saved this one.

I think people would have much more success if they went looking for abuses in the 16th and 17th century or even the 19th rather than just pre-conciliar when the “abuses” pale in comparison with what happens after.
At the time of Trent there were real abuses like that custom of having communicants hold a candle with money attached if they wanted to receive communion at Easter (halted in the dioceses of Rome a little after St. Pius V’s reign). Or those notorius parody Masses.
 
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Caesar:
But, personal devotions are common and encouraged in the TLM, or at least the ones I have attended.

All that “participation” means in attending the Mass. For the laity to assist in the Mass all they have to do is attend.
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Are you saying this is what is expected in the current TLM? To privately engage in one’s personal devotion while mass is being celebrated? :eek: And you only need to be physically present in the pew to fulfill your obligation to “worship God”? :eek:
 
Originally Posted by UKcatholicGuy
Abuses in the New Mass include:
  1. Priests dressed as clowns
  2. various other food items being used in place of a host
  3. lay persons handling the Sacred Species
  4. lay persons giving sermons
  5. holding hands around the altar
  6. no concept of being in a state of grace for Communion (everyone receives, whether they should or not)
  7. songs with heretical lyrics
  8. inclusive language
  9. search the threads on Catholic Anwers for the rest, there are literally hundreds of different abuses that happen in the New Mass
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While you are “searching the threads on Catholic Answers,” take special note that these are not the practice of 95% (or higher) of the masses celebrated. It is the unfortunate practice in a “few” isolated parishes where the abuse may have already been rectified, or has been reported to authority, and may be in the process of being rectified. Headlines, while providing juicy gossip and indignation, do not depict the customary orthodoxy of virtually hundreds of parishes.

I can say that in the many parishes I have attended, these practices have NOT occurred whatsoever. Other than inclusive language (8), and I’m not sure one can classify that as an abuse.

(6) This is a subjective judgment that I have never seen expressed on this forum until now. No one is qualified to state with certainty that those receiving the eucharist are not in the state of grace.
 
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