I think there’s a lot in this piece you’d appreciate!
Thanks! That was fast! :)
Thanks for the ping! Yes, there is.
I was just thinking about some of these issues today, after Sunday mass. I live in a diocese where we recently received a very firm “NO” on the celebration of the TLM, including the forbidding of priests to say it as their private mass (fortunately, I think that’s unenforceable). I noticed the practice of the bishop who did this, and while he’s pretty orthodox in many ways, his mass is a prime example of all the points above.
He’s an inveterate ad-libber, obviously feeling that what it says in the actual text isn’t enough, he occasionally leaves parts out (I assume he does this intentionally), and he loves the candidate-for-an-Oscar reading style.
What this means to me is that even the priests themselves, even the most ardent defenders of the NO, such as our bishop, realize there is something lacking there.
They know the language is flat and dull (although our bishop has actually supported Trautperson’s criticism of the new translation coming out this fall as too “high flown” for the average drooling idiot - er, sorry, that would be parishioner - in the pew to understand). So they try to compensate.
They know that the scatter-shot effect of the unfocused, abbreviated readings means that most of the hearers turn their ears off, so they attempt to add drama in hopes that it will compensate and capture the attention of the listeners.
And the fact that there are numerous different canons and numerous different options for just about everything in the NO gives them the feeling that, after all, anything is permitted, and it’s really all about putting on a personal show based on their own choices and taste (or lack thereof).
I realized that one of the things that is most disturbing to them about the TLM is that it is an exact reversal of all these things, and they see it not simply as a challenge to the NO in general, but to the “personal mass” they have constructed individually within the NO.