Why was the Latin mass forbidden, now allowed

[TrueLight]

They never abolished the TLM. It isn’t right that an organisation excommunicates itself in order to hold onto their favourite Mass. Mass is Mass. You can have a very big fondness for the Liturgy of the Tridentine Mass, but that doesn’t mean that it is the ‘correct Mass’, or that it was ‘Correct’ for the SSPX to excommunicate itself because it didn’t like the Novus Ordo. If the Church tells us to do something, we obey, that is what being a Catholic is. Changes to the Liturgy come and go, I’m wondering if there were any ultra traditionalists that broke from the Church at the Council of Trent, because they didn’t like the Tridentine Mass?

I agree. One should be obedient.

But why are we now allowed to have the Latin mass? Why Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae? I guess that was the OP’s original question.

Edited: And other traditional organizations such as the FSSP, Institute of Christ the King etc.

 

[Cider]

Sounds like a technicality.

So for all intensive purposes (de facto), it was banned?

Yes for all intents ( and many were intent) and purposes it was banned.

 

[hudson]

We have a far way to go to get the EF equal to the OF as far as access. We are no where near that.

I know that is true, but the Pope stated that they are equal recently.

 

[TrueLight]

Yes for all intents ( and many were intent) and purposes it was banned.

Ha ha. I meant to say “intents and purposes” not intensive purposes.

 

[PiousTemplar]

Just a note: I love traditional Catholicism, but until the matter is resolved, I’m sticking with Rome’s point of view.

 

[TrueLight]

Just a note: I love traditional Catholicism, but until the matter is resolved, I’m sticking with Rome’s point of view.

Which is what?

 

[Cider]

They never abolished the TLM. It isn’t right that an organisation excommunicates itself in order to hold onto their favourite Mass. Mass is Mass. You can have a very big fondness for the Liturgy of the Tridentine Mass, but that doesn’t mean that it is the ‘correct Mass’, or that it was ‘Correct’ for the SSPX to excommunicate itself because it didn’t like the Novus Ordo. If the Church tells us to do something, we obey, that is what being a Catholic is. Changes to the Liturgy come and go, I’m wondering if there were any ultra traditionalists that broke from the Church at the Council of Trent, because they didn’t like the Tridentine Mass?

No groups have excommunicated themselves only because of the mass. The SSPV have excommunicated themselves because they are sedevaticantist. The SSPX were never excommunicated as a whole, only the archbishops and the bishops he consecrated without Papal authority. And it was the disobedience of the consecrations not the celebration of the mass that incurred it.

The Old Catholics broke with the Church and the Pope after Trent and they are also Sedes IIRC.

 

[MarkThompson]

Why was the TLM Mass forbidden, but now allowed? I do not want to start an arguement, but it makes no sense to me. It seems like the Vatican banned it long enough so that there could be a generation of Priest that don’t know how to do it. Now they allow it as if it was never banned but very few Priest can do it. Someone please make me understand. I was born in the 80s and have no idea about any of this. I did look at some newspaper stories from back in the 70s/80s and they all say the TLM was banned. Here is one.

news.google.com/newspapers?id=KXpQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AxIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6509,1196170&dq=marcel+lefebvre+latin+mass&hl=en

You – and I hardly blame you, people for decades have done so – are confusing two separate issues: (1) whether the old Mass was abrogated, and (2) whether people were allowed to say it. Just because a missal has not been abrogated does not mean that any priest is allowed to say it. You can see this when you consider that, for instance, the liturgy of the Melkite Catholic rite is totally valid, licit, and current, yet the priest at your local (Roman-rite) church is forbidden to say it. This does not make us ask, “Why is the Melkite Rite banned at my church?!” We simply understand that the Church has desired to restrict the use of that liturgy to priests of that rite, for various reasons which I’m sure are perfectly good. It is not that “the Melkite Rite is banned,” it is merely that your priest is not allowed to celebrate in the Melkite Rite.

Likewise, when restrictions on the TLM were in place, it was not that “the old rite was banned,” but simply that priests were not permitted to celebrate it: the Church was restricting the old liturgy in an attempt to promote the shift to the reformed liturgy. This, I hope, points toward what the Holy Father is getting at when he says the TLM was never abrogated. He does not mean – which would have come as a complete surprise to everyone at the time – that any priest was allowed to celebrate it at will. What he does mean is that in those days the Church was not forbidding (i.e. abolishing) the TLM itself, it was forbidding (i.e. restricting) saying the TLM. That this is the case is proven by the very fact that there were, almost from the beginning, indults to say the TLM.

The difference is of course subtle – I’m not at all sure I’ve done a good job of explaining it here – and it is in most practical cases irrelevant, which is why so many people have ignored it and just said “The TLM was banned” and so on.

 

[Cider]

I agree. One should be obedient.

But why are we now allowed to have the Latin mass? Why Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae? I guess that was the OP’s original question.

Edited: And other traditional organizations such as the FSSP, Institute of Christ the King etc.

I don’t think we can say, as it would be considered proselytizing

 

[ProVobis]

Good points. So I don’t know if the “forbidden” part is simply semantics.

Then again, I don’t know what I’m allowed or not allowed to say when it comes to the SP, cited by ProNobis, so I think I’ll just observe for a bit.

EWTN News asked one of the key men responsible for implementing the reforms, Monsignor Guido Pozzo of the Vatican’s Ecclesia Dei commission.

“This older missal fell into disuse in many places after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and some people believed it to be abrogated,” he explained.

“The Holy Father, though, in his Motu Proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum’ clarified in law - that the missal had not been abrogated. And in his letter accompanying the Motu Proprio he said of the older missal ‘what earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too and** it cannot be all of a sudden be entirely forbidden **or even considered harmful’.”

mysite.verizon.net/vze12ezwl/fatherthomasjsmith/id125.html

 

[PiousTemplar]

Ha ha. I meant to say “intents and purposes” not intensive purposes.

I shall wait for some decent answers as to why it was restricted in some areas. (not banned according to bbc)

 

[TrueLight]

Likewise, when restrictions on the TLM were in place, it was not that “the old rite was banned,” but simply that priests were not permitted to celebrate it: the Church was restricting the old liturgy in an attempt to promote the shift to the reformed liturgy.

This is basically what I said in my first post. Which makes sense. The Church had to transition to the new mass.

This gets at what the Holy Father is getting at when he says the TLM was never abrogated. He does not mean – which would have come as a complete surprise to everyone at the time – that any priest was allowed to celebrate it at will. What he does mean is that in those days the Church was not forbidding (i.e. abolishing) the TLM itself, it was forbidding (i.e. restricting) saying the TLM. That this is the case is proven by the very fact that there were, almost from the beginning, indults to say the TLM.

With all due respect, it’s a technicality. If priests used to say the latin mass before and now most of them were not allowed to say it, well…

You did a good job explaining the technicality.

 

[PiousTemplar]

No groups have excommunicated themselves only because of the mass. The SSPV have excommunicated themselves because they are sedevaticantist. The SSPX were never excommunicated as a whole, only the archbishops and the bishops he consecrated without Papal authority. And it was the disobedience of the consecrations not the celebration of the mass that incurred it.

The Old Catholics broke with the Church and the Pope after Trent and they are also Sedes IIRC.

I stand corrected, however, did he ordain new Bishops because they were traditionalists like him? Or am I just speculating?

 

[At_Trent]

The Mass was suppressed in order to make the transition to the Novus Ordo.

 

[Cider]

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say why he ordained them, it would probably be considered proselytizing. I’m not sure what the exact boundaries of the new rules on this are.

 

[hudson]

Markthompson if that were true would it be allowed to suspend a Priest or Bishop for celebrating the banned? TLM?

 

[Cider]

Oh and that should have been singular, archbishop in my previous post. Typo.

 

[Zhenia]

Why was the TLM Mass forbidden, but now allowed? I do not want to start an arguement, but it makes no sense to me. It seems like the Vatican banned it long enough so that there could be a generation of Priest that don’t know how to do it. Now they allow it as if it was never banned but very few Priest can do it. Someone please make me understand. I was born in the 80s and have no idea about any of this. I did look at some newspaper stories from back in the 70s/80s and they all say the TLM was banned. Here is one.

news.google.com/newspapers?id=KXpQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AxIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6509,1196170&dq=marcel+lefebvre+latin+mass&hl=en

The TLM itself was not banned back in the 1970s, etc., but priests needed permission to say it. If a priest said it without permission, it was forbidden to attend his Mass. I think that led a lot of people to assume that THE MASS ITSELF was banned, when that was never the case.

I was born in 1959 and converted to the Catholic Faith in 1978. Except for one novus ordo in 1978, I have attended only TLMs (obviously I went to the “forbidden” ones!)

 

[hudson]

The Mass was suppressed in order to make the transition to the Novus Ordo.

So was it decided recently that it had been suppressed enough? What would happen if it grew in popularity to challenge the ordinary form? Would it once again be suppressed?

 

[MarkThompson]

With all due respect, it’s a technicality. If priests used to say the latin mass before and now most of them were not allowed to say it, well…

Yes and no. From the standpoint of the end user, it looks like a technicality, in that if they no longer have the Latin Mass at their local parish it doesn’t matter much whether it’s due to Reason A and Reason B. However, it is not a technicality, in that (1) the fact that the missal itself was never abrogated means that, going forward, it can be reintroduced simply by relaxing the restrictions on using it, rather than by having to re-promulgate it in what I’m sure would be a bizarre process, and (2) it helps define the way we look at it. As the Holy Father said, things that were sacred to one generation cannot now be considered un-sacred. They can be forbidden in practice, though: this happened, for example, with Communion in the Hand and Communion under both Species, both of which were practiced in the past for generations and later forbidden by the Church for prudential reasons. When, by contrast, something is abrogated entirely, the Church is more or less saying it has no right to existence.