Why Hostility for the Latin Mass?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Entwhistler
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I prefer the regular mass in the vernacular. But I would love to see that said with the priest facing away for the Eucharist Prayer. I also would like a few more “bells n smells” in the mass.

That said I’d love to be able to go to the Latin mass more often. I love that too and my nearest one is in Dublin City, an hours drive from my home.
 
AdamPeter said:
I prefer the regular mass in the vernacular. But I would love to see that said with the priest facing away for the Eucharist Prayer. I also would like a few more “bells n smells” in the mass.

That said I’d love to be able to go to the Latin mass more often. I love that too and my nearest one is in Dublin City, an hours drive from my home.
Click to expand...
😆

City people.

I’m in rural USA. The closest mass is 25 minutes away, followed by 30 (the one I now go to). My parents drive 35 minutes and my inlaws 40.

An hour away really isn’t that bad, if you really want it.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
An hour away really isn’t that bad, if you really want it.
Click to expand...
I used to travel an hour and a half or so via public transit to get to the parish I was volunteering at, including Sunday evening Mass.

Like you said, if you really want it, you want it.
 
Calling it Traditional Latin Mass is not correct. Technically the Ordinary form of Mass is in Latin. It’s the Extraordinary form which can legally be used using the 1962 Roman Missal.

I notice many liberal priests are against it because they view it as questioning the Church. I have one priest who even discouraged me to attend EF Mass. It seems there’s this disconnect between older people who grew up with this form, younger people who are interested in it, and then it seems middle aged people who seem to have somewhat of a hostility to the EF. I am not sure why that is, maybe they didn’t like the chaos of the 1960s and 70s when the changes were occurring first letting the EF be said in the vernacular and then a complete change of the mass. It seems this was somewhat of a confusing stage in the Church.
 
No, if you have the transportation. Unfortunately due to vision problems which are becoming more and more severe, I am no longer able to drive. There is a TLM 30 miles away from me. Five years ago I was driving round trip to work a longer distance than that. Then we had to move, now I live in a town where there is no public transportation on Sundays or beyond 5 p.m. on Saturdays, my son works evenings, and so there is no opportunity for me to go. (No, unfortunately nobody who attends that Mass can take me). I don’t earn much plus I’m responsible for caring for a 5 and a 6 year old, so taking a CAB isn’t feasible either.

So people can say, “The Mass is available” but you know, it really isn’t. There are older people like me who can’t drive. There are places, LOTS of places, where public transportation isn’t an option.

I’m very happy for the people who have the time, the transportation options, etc. But it’s hard when people just assume that everybody else is ‘just like them’ and that because THEY can do things easily, everybody else can too. Sheesh, on another thread when somebody was having trouble getting to a place 8 miles away, some ‘helpful soul’ told that person to ‘bike it’ and when he was told that vision problems meant they couldn’t bike, snarked that HE had vision problems but he biked ANYWAY. See, that is the kind of attitude of “works for me, has to work for you too or else you’re a lazy idjit” that can drive nails into a person’s heart.
 
Hmmm. Maybe I should open a thread titled, “Why Threads on TLM always devolve into slug-fests”. There may or may not be hostility towards TLM but there is definitely controversy surrounding it.
 
You are setting up a false dichotomy.

If you live in a rural place, you choose things both good and bad.

Can’t drive. Don’t live in a rural area.

Soon enough we’ll have self-driving cars and those who want to pull the “it’s impossible” will have no excuse.
 
Last edited:
Entwhistler said:
Hmmm. Maybe I should open a thread titled, “Why Threads on TLM always devolve into slug-fests”. There may or may not be hostility towards TLM but there is definitely controversy surrounding it.
Click to expand...
The primary controversy is not around the EF, but with the OM, ranging from the Ultra-traditionalists who think the OM is invalid to the disparaging of the OM and the people who support it, to the use of nicknames for the OM.
 
Last edited:
stpurl said:
No, if you have the transportation. Unfortunately due to vision problems which are becoming more and more severe, I am no longer able to drive. There is a TLM 30 miles away from me
Click to expand...
Don’t listen to sanctimonious carps at you and your situation. There are many in your shoes. I, too, was in a similar situation in which I could not drive, no way to get to Mass 25 miles away (the only Mass available), and the Priest did not even return my calls to ask him to come to my house to administer the Sacraments. I even told the bishop about the Priest refusing to answer my calls. Nothing. I was without the Sacraments for almost a year.

These situations happen. I hope you can make arrangements for the priest to come to your house on a regular basis so you can receive the Sacraments. Such is the job of a priest.
 
Last edited:
Let me clarify. 5 years ago when we bought, I was driving (and driving even a greater distance than 30 miles round trip)

Therefore your statements of “Can’t drive? Don’t live in a rural area” aren’t pertinent to the situation. I could and I did. Now I can’t and I don’t. And getting a serious illness is not something I chose, nor something I could have avoided.

As for the driverless cars, aside from the fact that by the time they arrive I might not be around to try them, I hardly think they’ll come cheap. It’s going to take a few years even beyond that for ‘preowned driverless cars’ to become cheap enough for the less affluent to afford. Besides, I grew up with The Jetsons. I want one of those little personal flying cars that folds into a briefcase!
 
stpurl said:
Let me clarify. 5 years ago when we bought, I was driving (and driving even a greater distance than 30 miles round trip)

Therefore your statements of “Can’t drive? Don’t live in a rural area” aren’t pertinent to the situation. I could and I did. Now I can’t and I don’t. And getting a serious illness is not something I chose, nor something I could have avoided.

As for the driverless cars, aside from the fact that by the time they arrive I might not be around to try them, I hardly think they’ll come cheap. It’s going to take a few years even beyond that for ‘preowned driverless cars’ to become cheap enough for the less affluent to afford. Besides, I grew up with The Jetsons. I want one of those little personal flying cars that folds into a briefcase!
Click to expand...
Most states have approved laws for driverless cars. It’s happening in the next decade or so, and it won’t be expensive because cars are already outfitted with half the technology anyway. Most likely, most will not even be owners but subscribe to a membership service like ZipCar. Car ownership, as a whole, might even go away.

If you have to move into town, then that’s what has to be done. Church wouldn’t be the only issue, but shopping, doctors, etc. If that can be managed then other things can be, too.

Basically, rural lifestyle comes along with needing a car. One can hardly place Mass as more or less difficult than anything else. Those who cannot drive, cannot afford to live in a rural setting anyway.

But thats splitting hairs.

If one can get themselves to Mass, that is all that is needed. The general majority of people who get themselves to Mass have the option to drive further to do so.

I live in a rural area. So do my parents, so do my inlaws. There are many elderly/disabled that can’t make it to Mass. More than parishioners could accommodate even if every last one offered a ride. But the fact dosn’t change the reality for many. That church is ALREADY far and that an enormous amount of “city folk” who complain about needing to drive/travel an hour to go to Mass are simply being incredibly lazy.

Some will always struggle to get to Mass because of age or disability. But for many of us to hear people FULLY capable of travel whine that an hour is too much to drive is utterly ridiculous. That’s what it takes to get much of anywhere.

Does that make the struggle of the old and infirm less relevent to their lives? No. But to sit here and pretend that there is not a cohort of people who are physically able to travel but choose not to is ignoring the realities of having an EF Mass.

As other posters have stated, the EF Masses offered basically relay on that far-flung “willing to travel” draw because otherwise they would be unsustainable. Reality is that people who are choosing it aren’t doing so because it’s in their backyard.
 
I’ve read of people who in the 80’s/90’s (?) when the EF was even more rare than it is now, drove anywhere from 3-8 hours ONE WAY every week to attend. I’m pretty sure God blessed them for such a sacrifice.
 
That’s a sacrifice right there. One of the families at TLM parish that I attend used to travel 2 hours to Mass one way. Thankfully, the church moved closer to where they live and they only drive an hour and twenty minutes one way. Hardcore Catholics right there.
 
Yep…and most have a large family to haul around…lol. I’m blessed. I live in the Detroit suburbs and only have to drive 1/2 hour into the city to attend TLM at a beautiful Church with Institute of Christ the King priests.
 
Often defenders of the TLM make their job harder by tying it to other things. The local TLM community brought in a speaker who made it a point to emphasize the 15 (not 20) mysteries of the Rosary. Throughout his talk he went back and forth between some benefit of the TLM and this or that controversial interpretation of some private revelation, always implying criticism of the current pope and bishop.

Sadly, many who might have grown in appreciation of the TLM would be turned off by all the other baggage he had, as well as other controversial messages coming from the localTLM website (in addition to lots of good ideas and solid commitment, such as prolife).

It would be better if TLM supporters would focus specifically on the benefits of the TLM, with no criticism of the Ordinary Form. Since children in Catholic schools are learning about cultural roots of many other ethnic and religious groups, the TLM is clearly a big part of our own roots. Ideally it should be offered to parochial school students once a year, or in many parishes, once a year.

Of course someone will say “those people hate the Latin Mass” but often it is all the questionable baggage, the fringe websites, the anti-religious authority mood that some supporters bring along with the TLM.
 
Last edited:
commenter said:
Often defenders of the TLM make their job harder by tying it to other things. The local TLM community brought in a speaker who made it a point to emphasize the 15 (not 20) mysteries of the Rosary. Throughout his talk he went back and forth between some benefit of the TLM and this or that controversial interpretation of some private revelation, always implying criticism of the current pope and bishop.

Sadly, many who might have grown in appreciation of the TLM would be turned off by all the other baggage he had, as well as other controversial messages coming from the localTLM website (in addition to lots of good ideas and solid commitment, such as prolife).

It would be better if TLM supporters would focus specifically on the benefits of the TLM, with no criticism of the Ordinary Form. Since children in Catholic schools are learning about cultural roots of many other ethnic and religious groups, the TLM is clearly a big part of our own roots. Ideally it should be offered to parochial school students once a year, or in many parishes, once a year.

Of course someone will say “those people hate the Latin Mass” but often it is all the questionable baggage, the fringe websites, the anti-religious authority mood that some supporters bring along with the TLM.
Click to expand...
Bingo
 
Altar boys prior to the council answered for the congregation. In fact, for the most part, they led the congregation as to whether to kneel or sit or ring the bells in preparation for the Consecration, Offertory, etc. And it was the standard. Their role was much different than that of the servers they have today, which is more parish-specific.
 
Last edited:
One thing is certain. If anyone is concerned about “disparagement” of the OF, they should study the history of how it was developed and implemented. The dishonesty and heavy-handed imposition, complete with real contempt for everything that preceded it, did much to harden battle lines in the 1960s and 1970s.

My favorite quote to illustrate this is from Bugnini’s book, where he says of his Novus Ordo…“Finally, there was worship in spirit and truth.”

What an arrogant, astonishing claim. There apparently wasn’t “worship in spirit and truth” until 1970. Truly an outrageous assertion.
 
Last edited:
As I said before – the true enemies of the EF – are the toxic “traditionalist” themselves.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top