[kitkat]

As far as the Tridentine Mass is concerned, we have to take it in the perspective of the '60s.

After WWII, enormous changes occurred in the population of this country. Servicemen returned home, married and had families. The trek to the suburbs began in earnest in order to find housing.

Catholic schools in the suburbs were vastly overcrowded. Where it had been traditional for a Catholic family to send their children to their local parish school, most were now in public school.

Because of this there was not enough instruction on the meaning of the Latin Mass. By the '60s, a vast number of Baby Boomers were fleeing the Church. The English Mass was a godsend. It allowed far more understanding of the ritual.

Actually, it should have happened a generation sooner.

By the way, the real reason the Mass had been said in Latin is simply because Latin is a dead language and not subject to changes in meaning. It would seem to me that as long as the Latin is kept in a vault somewhere and used as a reference to make changes in the English Mass, then the English Mass will always conform to the original meaning of the Mass.

As a Catholic, I can only wish that when we threw out the Gregorian chant, we had adopted some more stirring hymns to replace it. Someone commented that the Catholics got an English Mass and the Protestants got all the good hymns. LOL!

[MrLeRoy]

Catholic schools in the suburbs were vastly overcrowded. [...] By the '60s, a vast number of Baby Boomers were fleeing the Church.

What is your source for these claims?

[SoothingDave]

It would seem to me that as long as the Latin is kept in a vault somewhere and used as a reference to make changes in the English Mass, then the English Mass will always conform to the original meaning of the Mass.

Would that this were true. Those who produced the present English-language texts for the Mass did a horribly unfaithful job of translating the Latin.

SD

[TightSqueeze]

Catholics got an English Mass and the Protestants got all the good hymns. LOL!

It wasn't like they won them in a lottery, they wrote the hymns.

[Seajay]

I dunno ... at least at my parish, we are singing such good old Protestant super hits : "Old Rugged Cross", "How Can I Keep from Singing", "Amazing Grace" . Lets rock - AMEN !

[TexanToTheCore]

and the Protestants got all the good hymns....

and are getting new ones all the time... A few weeks ago our music director decided that the congregation would sing Agnes Dei (Michael W. Smith)rather than having one of the praise team sing it, as is usually done, as a solo. It caught all of us in the choir by surprise as he hadn't informed us ahead of tme.

There were 7,000 people singing their own solos, veins popping in their necks. The choir broke their normally uniform ranks and gathered around the microphones (they are not supposed to do this, ever), and sang at the top of their lungs. The sound was positively astounding, the choir loft was shaking (I'm not kidding, we could feel it move under our feet) and I'm sure they had to check the foundation before the next service.

It was one of the most powerful moment I have ever experienced in Church.