Posted on 10/25/2003 3:40:08 PM PDT by Dajjal
That's already been done. Pastors are combining these less-attended Masses due to the shortage of priests.
Right, and Ademec, Mahoney, Pilla, Imesch, O'Brien, Cawcutt, etc., are all in Communion with Rome. Give me a break.
He said they want it because of a pretended invalidty of all Novus Ordo Masses. People like that do tradition an incredible disservice.
Yes. Don't you recall the ICEL made a "Dynamically Equivalent 'Translation'" of the Mass?
Doyou believe that? In the past you've said that the indult will be ended under the next pope?
Yes I did. Now, I don't. The next Pope will likely be a John Paul II-type, who will travel, be very ecumenical, and retain the status quo.
But, the indult is at the pleasure of bishops, and some will continue to refuse to grant the Indult.
Why did you change your mind?
Not necessary.
Neither an indult nor a mandate is required for a Catholic priest to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Tridentine Rite.
The next Pope will finally tell the SSPX to just stay where it is. The SSPX knows what it has to do to reconcile; if it doesn't do those things, it can stay outside the Church.
So, he will continue to provide the Tridentine for communities who want it, through the local bishop.
The Novus Ordo is normative, and will continue to be.
It seems to me that saying there is no demand for Latin at NO Masses or that there is no demand for Tridentine Masses hardly argues that neither should be imposed. After all, the traditional understanding is that people do not form the liturgy, the liturgy forms the people. So when the liturgy is shallow, banal, superficial and stupid, it makes its participants to be shallow, banal, superficial, and stupid people. And people who have thus been made shallow, banal, superficial and stupid are inclined by their second-nature-so-malformed-by such-liturgies towards further degradation of worship. Why then would you use the opinion of people who have been malformed for thirty years to measure the merits and demerits of certain liturgical practices?
Of course, you may maintain that today's Catholics are not malformed at all. They are just as well-formed, both in their faith and in their character, as our ancestors.
But that is demonstrably false, at least for the United States. So again, why would you use the opinion of those who still need elementary conversion, basic formation, the overturning of essentially secularist presuppositions about reality, and years of reform of wrong character and the development of right character to measure liturgical proposals?
Nothing like a loaded question, heh?
Three Popes have declared the Novus Ordo the normative Mass, and one has offered the Tridentine as an Indult, at the discretion of the bishop.
You're not a Novus Ordo supporter, so I fully expect you to say what you've said. Most traditionalists think their fellow Catholics are stupid and ill-informed because, in fact, they attend the Novus Ordo and prefer it.
Things are not going your way, so you are going to have to persuade your bishop to offer more Tridentine Masses in your diocese; it appears Rome, even under a conservative like Arinze, is not going to push the Tridentine any further than they've pushed it so far.
So, I support the NO mass in the sense that I accept it's validity. I do think, though, that it has been carried out in a way that has been a great disservice to the faithful. They have been malformed by their pastors, in the name of a Vatican II that does not exist, in the name of a liturgical reform that bears virtually no resemblance to what Vatican II called for, and the primary instrument through which their pastors have malformed them is an NO mass that is largely a fiction of a.) imagination, b.)ICEL "translations", c.) liturgical experts who have no such right to the name.
If you find the question loaded, let's back up and ask some not-so loaded questions.
Is there such a thing as the right worship of the Triune God or not? If there is, is the right worship of the Triune God a learned skill or not? If it is learned, who is it learned from?
I say there is such a thing as right worship (and there are counterfeit look-alikes of right worship). That the right worship of the Triune God is a learned skill, and it is learned in a master-apprentice relationship from someone who already has the skill.
The people who already have the skill are a.) the canonized saints, b.)our ancestors, and c.) those who themselves have mastered the skills that first two groups have to teach.
So, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council count as masters from whom we can learn, but most American pastors (and American laity) acting today do not. For a simple reason. Their whole ministry and liturgical practices are based upon, and developed from, a conscientious and systematic rejection of the skill of right worship that was supposed to be learnt from the canonized, the ancestors, and the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. We have on our hands a generation whose liturgical practices, put forward in the name of Vatican II, are in fact an invention out of thin air that cries out "incompetence" from every angle that you look at it. (It does no good to maintain that I cannot say they are incompetent unless I first have the skill of right worship myself. This is false. it is possible to recognize that someone lacks a skill even if you do not have the skill. For example, I can see that a person is no chemist, or not a good musician, even if I myself am not a chemist or a musician.)
So, let me ask the question again, why ask the apprentices what good liturgy is? Why ask apprentices who have not even been properly apprenticed in the first place? And why look to elders whose claim to fame is the systematic rejection of what their masters had to teach?
I think that JPII-style masses can be a way of teaching right worship. But most NO mases in the United States bear virtually no resemblance to JPII-style masses. I have been to Rome, worshipped in St. Peter's, and came away thinking that my whole life I have been deprived of true liturgy.
I have the same experience after attending Maronite liturgy, and after attending very certain NO Masses.
So, why bother paying attention to the opinions of Catholics who have never learnt the skill of right worship? Please answer that question. Or do you think that most Catholics in America today really do know how to worship the Triune God rightly?
Most Catholics in America worship God the way they worship, in Churches whose liturgies conform, more or less to the GIRM. The GIRM is issued by the Vatican. Bishops should insist, as ours does, that the GIRM be followed.
But, your overly-analytical approach to worship (something that could have been dreamed up by a monk with a lot of time on his hands) turns the liturgy into something sterile: as long as you're following the rubrics perfectly, you're worshipping "the Triune God" rightly.
We have on our hands a generation whose liturgical practices, put forward in the name of Vatican II, are in fact an invention out of thin air that cries out "incompetence" from every angle that you look at it
Every single liturgical practice is an invention?
Are you maintaining that the Pope himself, who ultimately sanctions the General Instruction on the Roman Missal, is incompetent to determine right liturgical practice?
It seems to me that you want to say that following the rubrics in the GIRM is sufficient for right worship. This is absurd. No skill is reducible to a matter of rule following. For example, riding a bike, playing the piano, performing a surgery, even cooking, are skills that cannot be taught simply by stating rules, demanding behavioral conformity to the rules, and then learnt by conformity to rules. For there are many subtle nuances in the skill that are beyond the power of articulation. They can only be learned by physical contact with the teacher, imitation of everything he does, then subsequent careful reflection upon the imitative episode. Skills surpass articulation in terms of absolute generalizations. What is needed, therefore, is not rules, or even the right rules, but PEOPLE who know how to do it.
But, your overly-analytical approach to worship (something that could have been dreamed up by a monk with a lot of time on his hands) turns the liturgy into something sterile: as long as you're following the rubrics perfectly, you're worshipping "the Triune God" rightly.
Now this is odd. First, you justify the claim that Catholics are rightly worshipping the Triune God because they are following the rules in the GIRM, as if rubric following were sufficient for right worship, then you fault me for reducing right worship to rubric following. Why would you attribute to me the view that rubric following is a sufficient condition for right worship? I only maintain that it is a necessary condition (and not even as an end it itself). Since I think it is necessary, but not sufficient, I think it is ridiculous to attribute to me some sort of reductionism-to-rules in matters of worship. Looking at the first thing you said, though, it seems that you think rubric following is sufficient for rightly worshipping the Triune God.
Besides, why in the world do you associate sterile liturgy with monasticism? And why do you associate overly analytical approaches with monasticism?
Every single liturgical practice is an invention?
A great many of the actual practices in American parishes are inventions. First, the translations contain many linguistic expressions invented out of thin air, excuse me, dynamic equivalence principles. Second, regularly inserted into masses are quasi-rituals invented by "liturgy committtees" the week before as experiments. Third, there has been the abandonment of a whole heritage of hymnody and the substitution of decade-old pieces that reflect the times of the author more than the timeless faith of the Church. Fourth, the sacred language of Latin has been abandonded like a disease or something detrimental to right worship. Fifth, typical accessories to right wroship such as incense, icons, statues, etc. have been jettisoned. If the latter two are essential to right worship, then most American Catholics are not worshipping the Holy Trinity rightly.
Now, it does no good to simply point to the authorities and say that "They say so" as if that were sufficient to rest assured that all is ok. For we know that the authorities themselves have doubts about whether the current setup is really an act of right worship in all its fullness. We know that many of the Bishops are looking to redress the disaster of the last forty years, and we know that right worship is not simply a matter of following the current rules. Really, it is a matter of looking to people who know how to do it, and my claim is that most American pastors of your generation refused to do just that, that most liturgy committees are either in the same boat or never had the chance to imitate someone who kew how to do it, and most older American Catholics are in your boat, and virtually none of the younger ones have even been offered the chance to learn it.
As for the Pope, I told you that JPII-style masses are an act of right worship. But most American Catholics have never attended a mass resembling in important respects the Mass as it is offered to God at St. Peter's. Of course, even if all american pastors started following the rules of the GIRM tomorrow, that would still not be an act of right worship. They need to imitate those who do it rightly: the saints and the ancestors. They need to imitate the way it is done at St. Peter's or other places where right worship is offered by people who know (learned) how to do it. If they did the latter, then things would look alot more like they do on EWTN or at St. Peter's. There would be more Latin, more sacred music, more polyphony, more icons, etc. It would be much more "vertical" as the liturgists like to say. So, as we await new translations that will literally shock American Catholics at the riches they have been deprived of for forty years, why should we take the opinion of those who have either openly rejected or never been exposed to the subtle nuances of the liturgical masters: saints and the ancestors? Why should we take seriously the groans of american laity who have been malformed for so long?
Look, I think our basic difference is that you look at American Catholics and say "for the most part, these people have not been malformed". You think that, for the most part, American Catolics are ok. I'm ok, you're ok.
I think, rather, that they are wandering in darkness because the method for learning to walk and worship in the truth was largely abandoned somewhere in the late sixties and early seventies. To know the truth without learning it from someone who already has it. This desire is the hallmark of irrationality, yet is one of the chief aims of modernity in matters of morality and worship.
As I've maintained all along, though you follow the Novus Ordo, you are, at heart, one who longs for the Tridentine Rite.
They need to imitate the way it is done at St. Peter's or other places where right worship is offered by people who know (learned) how to do it.
And, of course, those who don't sprinkle the Novus Ordo with Latin and reminders of the Tridentine "don't know how to do it."
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