Revival of Latin Mass upsets liberals

Seattle Times ^ | Nicole Winfield

[narses]

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday removed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass, reviving a rite that was all but swept away by the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The decision, a victory for traditional, conservative Roman Catholics, came over the objections of liberal-minded Catholics and angered Jews because the Tridentine Mass contains a prayer for their conversion. ... In addition to Jewish concerns, bishops in France, and liberal-minded clergy and faithful elsewhere expressed concerns that allowing freer use of the Tridentine liturgy would imply a negation of Vatican II and create divisions in parishes since two different liturgies would be celebrated.

[gorush]

Sucipiot dominos sacrificium demonibus tui, ad laudem et glorium de nominus sui, ad utilitatum quoque nostrum, totiusque ecclesiante sui sancte. (sp)

[MondoQueen]

“Finally, I walked away and let the whole thing go to H*ll in a handbasket.”

Looks like you have all the answers and don’t really need a church.

[jrny]

Mware,

Don’t you live in near Hammonton in South Jersey? If so, you have a full time all Tridentine Mass parish in your backyard.

www.materecclesiae.org

This is my parish. We had a very joyous celebration today upon release of the Motu Proprio, with two priests from the Diocese of Camden and one from Philadelphia as guest visitors. In fact, our pastor has about 20 of his fellow priests in the area committed to the Traditional Mass, and I would expect that nearly all of them are going to be putting this Motu Proprio in action come September 14th. Freepmail me if you like more info.

[Mannaggia l'America]

On Good Friday in 1963, John XXIII underlined the importance of this decision when the old formulation of the prayer for the Jews was read. The Pope interrupted the liturgy and asked that that the liturgical invocations begin again from the beginning, following the new text.

Our pastor notified us during his homily about the Pope allowing the Latin liturgy to be used.

First, he said that the John XXIII missal would be used if the Mass were to be said in Latin (and he had no plans to do that unless several people asked him to do it). As quoted above, the John XXIII missal removed the "conversion" prayer, which shoots the ADL/Abe Foxman's and the news media hype out of the water.

Second, he told us to be prepared for the news media to get it all wrong.

[B-Chan]

In the Anglican Usage of thr Roman Rite, we sing the Credo, Gloria, Sanctus, Paternoster, and Agnus Dei in Latin. (The Kyrie is of course sung in Greek.) We are thrilled at the MP and the prospect of millions of our Catholic brethren joining us in praying in the universal language!

[MondoQueen]

Wow! I think you’ve either been practicing or you have a photographic memory if you can remember the confiteor after all these years! If they have a Latin Mass in your church, I’d suggest you volunteer to be an altar boy/man and teach the new kids how to do it. That’s what they did in one of the Churches I go to for the Latin Mass. There were two middle aged men showing the young boys how to do it, and there were a few jabs of the elbows when the response wasn’t fast enough. Now the young altar boys have got it perfected and the original old guys are just sitting with the congegration waiting to be called up there to help, and wishing they could.

[MondoQueen]

I always thought that the Anglicans had not changed with Vatican II, so maybe we Catholics could come to your services and learn a few things. The Eastern Orthodox Churches never abandoned the Latin, either, as they are not in communion with Rome, so there are still some pockets of the old Mass left in this world. I understand that the African Catholics are much stricter than we are in this country.

[sgtyork]

Liberalism in all things. This liberal priest scare mongering about the Latin rite really takes the cake!

[writmeister]

I guess this is another matter where the liberals do not believe in choice.

[PackerBronco]

Now, this clown Ratzinger ...

Ah, then that must make you the "real" Pope. I'll notify the press ...

[AnAmericanMother]

I hate to say it, but that priest is not telling the truth (I almost called him a liar, but decided it would be disrespectful. Maybe he is just mistaken or misled).

We just went to a Latin Mass a couple of weeks ago. It was celebrated by the rector of the local FSSP (indult) parish. You will not find a more orthodox priest anywhere on this continent, and he gave the homily in English (heavily accented English, because he's a Frenchman, but English nonetheless. You had to listen up, but you could understand. It was a good sermon, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.)

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

But have these same Liberals expressed any outrage about a Black Mass?

[oakcon]

I used to sing Gregorian chant when I was at St. Michael’s Choir school.

It is in my opinion one of the most beautiful types of music ever.

[gorush]

Indeed, especially inside a tall, preferably corbel arched, stone cathedral.

[CaptainMorgantown]

I don't think the intention is to go back to the days where all or even most parishes use the Latin Mass. I think the purpose of this pronouncement was to clairfy that it is acceptable to use the Latin Mass. I think in some dioceses the perception has been that it was somewhat outside the accepted faith to use the Latin rite. I think there were even a few cases of small schisms of conservative Catholics where one of the primary issues was the use of the Latin Mass.

[do the dhue]

What about the fact that liberals upset me? Anybody gonna do anything about that?

[AnAmericanMother]

Actually, if you just get yourself your own Latin/English missal, you can follow along and learn the Latin easily, by listening and repetition. That is the way little children learn to speak, by listening and repeating -- and there is far less material to learn in the Latin Mass than a little child hears every day (since all of us old folks' brain cells aren't as retentive as the little ones').

"Repetitio mater memoriae est."

Look at that phrase, and see how much Latin you already know and didn't know it!

Repetitio = repetition

Mater = mother (think: "maternal")

Memoriae = of memory, the "ae" on the end shows you that it is the possessive or 'genitive' form of the noun memoria = "memory"

Est = the Latin verb "to be", third person singular form = "is".

See how easy that is! "Repetition is the mother of memory!"

[AnAmericanMother]

1. That's not what McAuliffe said.

2. You need to get a handle on that anger.

3. If you think BXVI is a "clown", you also need a reality check.

4. Liberals get what they want by incrementalism. BXVI carefully worked to get as much back as possible by incrementalism. Don't complain because he didn't get the whole schmeer all at once -- it's like complaining that your drink in the lifeboat doesn't have a little umbrella in it.

[Heatseeker]

You're probably right, at least in the larger US dioceses. The larger problem, as several posters have pointed out, is the low level of knowledge of Latin among the clergy, which is a shame because the 'Vulgate' or church Latin is relatively easy to pick up (in comparison to Classical Latin) certainly to the limited degree one would need to say a decent Mass.

As for the arguments that prayers for non-Catholics is somehow awful, I remember my mother, who like the rest of our family was Episcopalian, telling stories of attending Notre Dame in the 40's (the Catholic girls school in Baltimore, not the Indiana University) and one of those stories was the nuns and her fellow students razzing her for being a heretic. Then everybody thought it was a laugh. Nowadays the school would probably be sued out of existence.

[irishjuggler]

and he had no plans to do that unless several people asked him to do it

So, what are you waiting for? Ask him. :-)