More Latin to be used at Mass in Vatican clampdown

Sunday Business Post, Ireland ^ | Kieron Wood

[Polycarp]

Sunday, May 25, 2003 :

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More Latin to be used at Mass in Vatican clampdown

By Kieron Wood

The celebration of a Tridentine-rite Mass by a senior Vatican cardinal in Rome yesterday looks set to mark the start of a clampdown on worldwide liturgical abuses and a return to the use of Latin in the Mass.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, celebrated Mass in the basilica of St Mary Major using the traditional Latin liturgy, which was the nor m in the wester n Church before the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. He is the first prelate to use the old rite in Rome for more than 30 years.

According to the magazine Inside the Vatican, Rome is also planning to issue a major disciplinary document, ending liturgical experimentation. The document ^ already in draft form ^ is expected to encourage wider use of the Tridentine Mass, possibly on a weekly basis, in every parish.

Fr Paddy Jones, director of theNationalCentrefor Liturgy at Maynooth, said the new document was signalled in the Pope's recent encyclical on the Eucharist.

Jones,who has just returned from a US liturgical conference inWashington, said he expected the Congregation for Divine Worship to publish the document before the end of the year.

The head of the Congregation, Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, told Inside the Vatican: ``We want to respond to the spiritual hunger and sorrow so many of the faithful have expressed to us because of liturgical celebrations that seemed irreverent and unworthy of true adoration of God.

``You might sum up our document with words that echo the final words of the Mass: `The do-it-yourself Mass is ended. Go in peace'.''

Also last week, Pope John Paul set up a newVatican commission to restore Latin to its ``proper place'' in the Roman Church. Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, the prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, will head the commission. Grocholewski is said to be more fluent in Latin than in his native Polish.

As long ago as 1988, Pope John Paul addressed the concerns of Catholics by issuing a document insisting that ``respect must be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application'' of Vatican directives allowing the use of the old Latin rite.

Despite the Pope's expressed wish, most bishops throughout the world have refused to allow regular use of the old rite.

In Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell has allowed only one regular Sunday Mass, at 11am in St Audoen's church near Christchurch Cathedral. Daily Mass is not permitted. Other Irish bishops have flatly refused to allow any celebration of the old rite, despite repeated requests.

The Pope's 1988 statement followed the excommunication of the former head of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for illicitly ordaining four bishops without Rome's permission. The bishops were also excommunicated.

Pope John Paul is known to be anxious to reconcile the followers of Lefebvre with the Church before his death. Last year,he approved a settlement with traditionalist Catholic Bishop Fernando Rifan in Brazil.

Last month, the Irish superior of Lefebvre's Society of St Pius X, Fr Louis-Paul Dubroeucq, told The Sunday Business Post: ``Any reconciliation depends on Rome granting liberty for all priests in the world to celebrate the Tridentine Mass if they wish to do so.''

The chairman of the Latin Mass Society of Ireland, 34-year-old civil servant Peadar Laighleis,welcomed the developments in Rome.

``Cardinal Hoyos' Mass and the ending of the ban on traditional rite Masses in Rome's major basilicas are a major step towards the acceptance of traditionalism worldwide,'' he said.

``This is a concrete gesture in the Pope's own diocese, which reinforces what the Holy Father called for in the 1984 indult and in his 1988 letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta.

``Rome is acknowledging the rapid growth of the traditional movement on every continent. Even here in Ireland, we are expanding, with regular Masses in several dioceses, and more planned. As the rest of the Church reports decline in all the Catholic indicators ^ vocations, church marriages, baptisms and Mass attendance ^ we are experiencing increases.

``In regard to vocations, for example, the traditionalists have a different sort of crisis: there isn't nearly enough space to accommodate more than a small fraction of the applicants.''

[american colleen]

I believe some of the bishops support EWTN although by "support" I mean appear on it and seem to be in agreement with what Mother Angelica has set out to do. They would be the "usual suspects" like Bruskewicz, Dolan and several others of that ilk.

EWTN is independently run by donations, etc. and so I do not think the bishops fund collection of last week supports anything but the USCCB and individual diocesan television stations. Since that particular collection was not explained beyond the words on the envelope (which led me to come to the above conclusion about its purpose), I did not donate to it either. Why buy an inferior product.

I have no idea of the quality of other diocesan tv stations, but the one in my diocese is no where near the caliber of EWTN and it also pre-empts EWTN for several hours in the morning which annoys me to no end. The last straw for me was when I saw a local priest fairly well known for his dissidence explaining the virtues of "centering" prayer in a thoroughly modernistic way. We would have been better served by a program explaining how to say the rosary or maybe the divine mercy chaplet. I fired off a charitable letter to the station and received an unsatisfactory letter back. So, the bishops can look for donations all they want, but not from me.

Mother Angelica as a poor nun has managed to do what the bishops, taken as a whole, and with million$ at their disposal, have failed to do. That is, teach the basics of the faith.

[Aloysius]

enforcing Ecclesia Dei involves the potential loss of a lot of $$$.

How so? A dozen Tridentine Masses per Diocese isn't going to have that much of an effect.

A return to some Latin in the Mass and a halt to abuses (although I think the laity would probably be the enforcers if the priests don't follow) won't cost the coffers a cent.

Then why hasn't this been done already? I'm not sure money is the driving force here.

[american colleen]

I am an idiot! And also there is way too many papers with Latin titles floating around. I mixed up "Ecclesia Dei" with "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" --- like an idiot!

[ArrogantBustard]

Latin (and Greek) in the Liturgy isn't a real problem, except in so far as reciting or singing the prayers in Latin reveals how inaccurately they have been translated into English. At my Parish, we generally sing the "Kyrie" in Greek and the "Sanctus" and "Agnus Dei" in Latin. I'd like to have the "Gloria" sung in Latin as well. Perhaps I should pester our Pastor about it again...

I'm referring to the "new" Mass here.

[Aloysius]

I mixed up "Ecclesia Dei" with "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" --- like an idiot!

Now I understand your original comment.

[Romulus]

I was, however, never able to understand the new-age, mumbo jumbo spoken at the Novus Ordo.

You weren't supposed to.

[Revelation 911]

and numerous visual cues exist to assist the congregation.

...and this "speaks" to the repentant sinner hearts how exactly?

[Conservative til I die]

Like a lot of the local bishops care what the Pope thinks.

[Alex Murphy]

Presumably, before all that non-unity stuff occurred at the Tower of Babel, everyone spoke Latin. Even today, if you wake someone up at three a.m., they will actually talk in Latin! People speaking different languages is a direct result of a secret U.N. conspiracy, and it is perpetrated via the fluoridation of our drinking water, polluting our precious bodily fluids and causing us to speak oddly.

That is the mystical secret behind Catholics and "Holy Water". Get repeated exposure to it (baptism, etc), and voila! The fluoridation gets purged from your system, and you begin understanding Latin again. That, my friend, is the real reason why Perrier and other bottled waters became so popular years ago. Notice the flowchart, though - the government is involved in the process, and that means the Jesuits. Obviously, bottled water still contains some type of particulate that interrupts the cleansing process, keeping the monopoly on truly pure water within the Vatican itself.

[B Knotts]

Did you read what I said? I said that I was happiest about the crackdown on liturgical abuses.

As far as the Old Mass goes, I have never been to one, so I don't know that much about it. I do know that the missal has the Latin side-by-side with an English translation.

[ultima ratio]

This is so much malarky. There has not been the slightest indication of any "clamp-down" beyond these newspaper stories. Abuses have now been going on for thirty or more years. Things get worse, not better--and so far the Vatican has done absolutely nothing but put out these gossipy but substanceless pieces. In fact, the Pope himself is responsible for many abuses, particularly at youth rallies where sacrilege is commonplace due to indifference or ignorance.

[Antoninus]

Seminaries bulge in poor countries...I'm sure you can figure it out.

It has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, of course...

[Antoninus]

I understand that seminaries in Africa are filled to overflowing. Given conditions in the continent, that's not surprising. Seminarians don't starve.

Thanks for the non sequitur. You're purposely getting away from the crux of the argument. The article was specifically talking about traditional seminaries and said generally "around the world" not specifically "in Africa." How many traditional seminaries are there in Africa, anyway?

Furthermore, it strikes me that a seminarian who was just looking for three squares a day and who was not truly called to serve the Lord, would gravitate toward a "path of least resistance" seminary, which traditional ones generally are not. Thus, your argument fails on several fronts.

[ultima ratio]

This is just the same old same old. Remember the draft document on prohibiting gay seminarians? Nothing came of that and the gay subculture of dissent still has a stranglehold on the seminaries in Europe and America. There has been absolutely no reform--not even the hint of one.

This is all in the "drafting" stage--which means it is strictly p.r. But in fact, despite his voluminous publications, this pope has shown no interst in practical liturgical reform whatsoever and has done nothing for twenty-five years to correct abuses. He has relented in every instance when bishops have instituted ever more liberal innovations.

What's worse, he has himself set the worst of examples. Many of his papal rallies--they can hardly be called Masses--have been the settings for routine sacrilege. This is a weak and ineffectual pope--and a liturgically liberal one. The extent of his failure is clearly illustrated by the universal devastation.

[ultima ratio]

This is just the same old same old. Remember the draft document on prohibiting gay seminarians? Nothing came of that and the gay subculture of dissent still has a stranglehold on the seminaries in Europe and America. There has been absolutely no reform--not even the hint of one.

This is all in the "drafting" stage--which means it is strictly p.r. But in fact, despite his voluminous publications, this pope has shown no interst in practical liturgical reform whatsoever and has done nothing for twenty-five years to correct abuses. He has relented in every instance when bishops have instituted ever more liberal innovations.

What's worse, he has himself set the worst of examples. Many of his papal rallies--they can hardly be called Masses--have been the settings for routine sacrilege. This is a weak and ineffectual pope--and a liturgically liberal one. The extent of his failure is clearly illustrated by the universal devastation.