[mike182d]

The New Mass: Inalienable Right or Inferior Rite?

The article is not very persuasive because his entire attack on the Novus Ordo Mass is a straw-man argument and by his own submission concerning the very nature of the Sacred Liturgy leads to conclusion that I don't think any Catholic can believe.

For example:
1. Latin is the official language of the Novus Ordo Mass and only certain parts are to be replaced with the vernacular but only by exception and not the rule.
2. Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphany has pride of place in the Novus Ordo Mass and is preferred over all other forms of sacred polyphany.
3. The Tabernacle should always be front and center - in fact one of the topics of discussion at the Synod was to enforce this mandate.
4. Altar rails weren't never meant to be removed.
5. The priest is meant to face East - ad orientem.
6. The current English translations are admittedly hideous and a newer, more accurate and less politically-based, translation is in the works that is truer to the Latin text.
7. Receiving in the hand is by exception only. The practice of receiving on the tongue is still the desired method and even intinction.

8. No one is to be in the Sanctuary except ordained ministers and altar servers when needed.

His attack on the Novus Ordo Mass is an attack on a straw-man - a Novus Ordo Mass destroyed by liberal liturgists and not true to its form. Furthermore, I could argue that the ancient worship in Greek or Aramaic is even more holy than the "vulgar" Latin that the Church accepted in the 4th Century as the language of the Church. By his own reasoning, the Tridentine Mass should be rejected too.

Lastly, the Novus Ordo Mass was created by a Church Council and accepted by a vast majority of Bishops present at the Council. Jesus Christ says of the Church that "the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it." With the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass as the heart of the entire Catholic/Christian faith and the source of its very life, the "gates of the netherworld" have prevailed against His Church if the whole of a Church Council, infallible in that moment as successors to the Apostles, was able to tarnish, even slightly, the most Sacred act in the whole of the universe.

To criticize the Novus Ordo Mass is to say that Christ lied and that the Church failed to protect what was most Sacred - which was its primary function. You can criticize its abused implementation but you cannot criticize the Novus Ordo Mass without criticizing the whole of the Church and the promise of Jesus Christ.

[mike182d]

4. Altar rails weren't never meant to be removed.

4. Altar rails weren't never meant to be removed.

*sigh* ...its gonna' be a long day.

[Dominick]

Yeah, what he said.

Very well written. Nice critique.

I think we may also include that not every change that is a problem in the Mass is a official change. Just yesterday we had a fellow tell my daughter's CCD class in front of me that kneeling is going out the door, and officially, nobody in europe kneels. I leaned to another friend who also attends Indults and asked, "What GIRM did he read?"

[murphE]

The article is a comparison of the original Latin text of the Novus Ordo translated into English vs. the text of the TLM translated into English. It is done to show the difference in the prayers of both masses. There is no straw man.

[murphE]

His attack on the Novus Ordo Mass is an attack on a straw-man

Did you read his whole article?

To criticize the Novus Ordo Mass is to say that Christ lied and that the Church failed to protect what was most Sacred

This of course is a false statement. Pope Benedict XVI himself has criticized the Novus Ordo.

[Petrosius]

The normative Novus Ordo Mass all but a fiction that is rarely, if ever, seen in a parish. Indeed, in most places if a priest were to attempt to celebrate is as you have laid out he would be immediately bounced. If the bishops wish those who are attached to the Traditional Mass to stop demanding it and accept the Novus Ordo then they, the bishops, should also respect the Novus Ordo AS WRITTEN and both allow and encourage it to be celebrated as a continuation of tradition in the manner that you have outlined. Otherwise, the Traditional Mass movement is being no more disobedient to the wishes of the Church than the bishops themselves.

[B Knotts]

To criticize the Novus Ordo Mass is to say that Christ lied and that the Church failed to protect what was most Sacred - which was its primary function.

Bogus argument bordering on suggesting a promise of impeccability.

To suggest that the TLM is superior is not to claim that the NO is invalid or improper.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I've seen enough well-done Novus Ordo Latin masses as you describe to know that they are still lacking what the Tridentine Mass has, and what the Mass among the Easterners has - awe, mystery, beauty, lyricality, even flow, etc. The Novus Ordo is too bowlderized even when said perfectly - too much has been stripped away, it is hery-jerky in its flow (especially with the Priest standing around listening to the Sanctus and Agnus Dei rather than praying privately, the Memorial Acclimation, the handshake of peace, the offertory procession, etc.), the saints are almost missing from it, and it frequently has strange choices of readings thrown together.