Posted on 10/30/2011 10:23:37 AM PDT by markomalley
From Bishop Edward Slattery's interview with the National Catholic Register, published on October 28, 2011: Bishop Slattery on Prayer, the Mass and New Vocations.
You’ve made public statements about problems with the liturgy. What changes would you like to see?
I would like to see the liturgy become what Vatican II intended it to be. That’s not something that can happen overnight. The bishops who were the fathers of the council from the United States came home and made changes too quickly. They shouldn’t have viewed the old liturgy, what we call the Tridentine Mass or Missal of Pope John XXIII, as something that needed to be fixed. Nothing was broken. There was an attitude that we had to implement Vatican II in a way that radically affects the liturgy.
What we lost in a short period of time was continuity. The new liturgy should be clearly identifiable as the liturgy of the pre-Vatican II Church. Changes, like turning the altar around, were too sudden and too radical. There is nothing in the Vatican II documents that justifies such changes. We’ve always had Mass facing the people as well as Mass ad orientem [“to the east,” with priest and people facing the same direction]. However, Mass ad orientem was the norm. These changes did not come from Vatican II.
Also, it was not a wise decision to do away with Latin in the Mass. How that happened, I don’t know; but the fathers of the Council never intended us to drop Latin. They wanted us to hold on to it and, at the same time, to make room for the vernacular, primarily so that the people could understand the Scriptures.
You yourself have begun celebrating Mass ad orientem.
Yes, in our cathedral and a few parishes where the priests ask me to. Most of the time, I say Mass facing the people when I travel around the diocese or when I have a large number of priests concelebrating, because it works better that way.
A few priests have followed my example and celebrate ad orientem as well. I have not requested they change. I prefer to lead by example and let the priests think about it, pray about it, study it, and then look at their churches and see if it’s feasible to do.
And it’s positive when people are thinking about and talking about the liturgy.When people make the liturgy part of their conversation, it is a good thing. As priests and laypeople discuss the liturgy, they’ll see how important it is and how it is a work of God and not our own.
But we must approach the liturgy on bended knee with tremendous humility, recognizing that it doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to God. It is a gift. We worship God not by creating our own liturgies, but by receiving the liturgy as it comes to us from the Church. The liturgy should be formed and shaped by the Church itself to help people pray better. And we all pray better when we are disposed to receive what God has offered, rather than creating something of our own.
kinda tough to do after they've ripped out the kneelers
Odd, since that’s what he did with the old liturgy. Funny to see the folks who complained bitterly about what was there before and foisted their change, are unhappy when people have had enough and want to go back.
Apparently it must change and then stop.
OK, councils in the past have disrupted things for 40 years afterward, this one has too. Lots of us suffered. Quit?
No, keep praying until it gets fixed. Like the good bishop is saying.
Follow me - let the anger go, accept that so much unnecessary pain happened and that faiths were damaged, let’s just push for corrections as the bishops are finally getting toward the majority to fix things back to what the council originally intended.
The priests can’t do the new evangelization, God needs the lay folk to do more of it than ever before - He needs you - hence the council and the vernacular (for the newbies that will be coming en mass). We’re finally almost ready.
But your angst means you’re still on fire - good.
I’m old enough (in my 60s) to have grown up with the “Old Mass” .... which was usually badly celebrated, inaudible, had strange inclusions in it, and needed a change.
A Mass came out during Vatican II which we all thought would be “THE” Mass. It cleaned up a few strange repetitions or insertions, mostly acquired from local practice here and there, and was in the vernacular. I think it may have been known as the “Transitional Mass,” but it wasn’t around for a long time and unless you were a Catholic in the 1960s, you probably don’t even know about it.
People could have lived with that. But what happened afterwards was something entirely different, and actually a lot of these things happened after the Council was officially ended and were simply the impositions of the radicals who had taken over during the Council.
An interesting book is “What Happened At Vatican II?” The author is John O’Malley, who is obviously firmly on the side of the “liberals,” but he is very honest and factual and you can see how this happened. It’s available on Amazon.
**kinda tough to do after they’ve ripped out the kneelers.**
Why would any Catholic priest or architect allow that?
Hey, even Communion rails are coming back. Some of these modernist priests are in for a big awakening! Especially when they get a good Bishop like Slattery.
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Could someone tell me who said we should change the pronouns in the Hail Mary?
What do you mean?
I have always said the Hail Mary the way it is posted on the Daily Readings thread.
If you mean the “you” and “your” — I’ll bet you money that it was an OCP trick, just like they tried to get the gospel acclaimation that is being dumped by the new translations. in (they created it)
I have 2 grandchildren in CCD programs and they are changing the thee to you.
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