Latin Mass
Posted on 05/03/2024 2:05:26 PM PDT by ebb tide
Latin Mass
This essay by Fr. Joachim Heimerl was originally written in German. It has been translated and published with the permission of Fr. Heimerl.
(LifeSiteNews) — “Dell’ odio i tristi frutti.” Anyone who loves opera knows these words. They are taken from the prologue of Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci,” in which flaming jealousy first leads to fiery hatred and then to double murder.
However, the “sad fruits of hatred” are not only found in the opera but everywhere in the world, and the “Pagliacci” quote could also describe the current situation of the Church. Whoever hears it automatically thinks of the Lord’s greater words: “By their fruits you shall know them” (Mt 7:16), and indeed, the fruits of demonic self-hatred can be seen throughout the Church; they are the fruits of hatred of everything that is Catholic and perhaps even of hatred of God.
It is true, we live in sad times: Supernatural faith has been extinguished up to the highest ecclesiastical circles and has given way to a new atheism that seeks an unholy connection to the world and its ideas.
The consequences of this are terrible because they would mean the end of the Church and the papacy: where supernatural faith is absent, the pope becomes a mere dictator who only sets a political direction; God himself is just an empty formula.
The beginnings of this development go back a long way: they start with what Pope John XXIII called “aggiornamento” in 1962, the adaptation of the Church to modern times.
This went terribly wrong, and it had to; the Church is not a product that can be cleverly placed on the market and adapted to the times. Jesus Christ did not do this either, on the contrary, and St. Paul admonishes the Romans: “Do not conform to this world” (Rom. 12:2).
Anyone who does not believe in this principle no longer believes in anything at all – just like a large number of the highest prelates: Their faith has evaporated before everyone’s eyes and now only consists of a hollow belief in “climate change” mitigation and pointless church reform. The faithful, however, sense that they are only receiving stones instead of bread from these people (Luke 11:11); their exodus from the Church can no longer be stopped.
Sixty years after John XXIII, the bad seed has sprouted and threatens to choke the wheat, only now the “aggiornamento” has turned into a synodal madness that wants to destroy the Church once and for all.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller has aptly called this a “hostile takeover.” Catholicism is to be gutted, and this is precisely the plan of the current “Synod on Synodality”: They want to make the Church “fit for the future” by destroying its identity.
But please, who destroys something they love? Only hatred destroys, and hatred of Catholicism is now destroying the Church from within.
That is why this development also began in the innermost and holiest part of the Church, namely with the hatred of the liturgy that had been handed down for at least 1,500 years, which Paul VI replaced with a semi-Protestant Mass in 1970.
This process was unprecedented, and no other religion has ever allowed itself such an intrusion into its cult. But, as always, it got worse: in the meantime, the followers of the traditional Mass are being downright persecuted and insulted as “inidietrists” or “schismatics.” This was seen in drastic fashion at the funeral of the retired Bishop of Chur, Msgr. Vitus Huonder, who was buried by the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.
It is obvious: there is no greater hatred in the Church than hatred of the traditional Mass, but the question remains as to why that is.
One might answer: because the lie hates the truth and the darkness hates the light, and surely this is the mysterious root of what is currently happening in the Church.
To put it more simply: the “old” Mass is incompatible with everything that has begun since the “aggiornamento” of John XXIII and that Francis now wants to complete. The point is to bury the “old Church” alongside the “old” Mass so that the true Church can be replaced by a new church.
The fact that this new church has lost its faith in God has long since been made visible in the conversion of its altars: they are no longer oriented towards God but only towards the people. This says it all: the “aggiornamento” has opened the door to ecclesiastical atheism, and with it began the “hostile takeover” that we are now experiencing to its full extent.
This takeover is only possible if one deeply despises the faith, and it only appears to be supposedly “Catholic” if one first destroys what is truly Catholic. Let me put it this way: hatred of the traditional Mass is not only hatred of Catholicism, it is above all the precondition for synodal “church reform.” Or could you imagine a Solemn High Mass with the female “deacons” that Francis and his synod so long for? Hardly!
The ultimate goal of this great work of destruction can already be seen in Germany, and it is only for this reason that Francis is giving the ex-Catholic bishops free reign there.
The little skirmishes between the Curia and the Germans are just a ruse. The real battle plan looks different: Rome will not stop the decisions of the German “Synodal Way”; instead, they will be exported from Germany to Rome and paid for in cash by the rich Germans. Yes, it is as Jesus said: “You will recognize them by their fruits!” And these fruits stink to high heaven!
Sometimes, you wish the final curtain would fall, and all this would just be a tragic opera. Nevertheless, faith teaches us to be confident: the time of confusion and apostasy will end. Then, the Church will return to the true Catholic faith – and to the traditional liturgy. Frankly, it has no other choice; people are now fleeing in droves and going to where the “old Mass” is celebrated.
The great Pope Benedict XVI recognized this prophetically, and the good fruits of his pontificate will stand the test of time, even if people want to destroy them now.
The sad fruits of hatred, on the other hand, have no chance. This is shown warningly and cruelly in “I Pagliacci” – and the Bible shows it too. Certainly, “I Pagliacci” may be a gloomy opera about fools. Nevertheless, the tragic main character, Canio, recognizes himself at the end. He realizes that his hatred is poisoning his heart and bears harrowing witness to this in the famous aria “Vesti la giubba.” Such self-awareness is currently a long way off in the Church.
Pope Benedict XVI saw that Catholicism was incompatible with gay priests, and sought to purge the gays. But the opposition was too strong and he was deposed.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2016/12/07/vatican-reaffirms-ban-gay-priests
He was replaced by pro-gay leftist Francis
https://apnews.com/general-news-7b465b60945f40deb3a68b3de742f84a
Otherwise you not continue to go off topic.
You also appear to be super-sensitive to any rebuttals.
I read the article - and I read Campion.
I still don’t see any justification for your dismissive response to Tell It Right.
If you wanted to enlighten people to your faith - or just ‘make friends and influence people’ - you wouldn’t tell someone that their question was ‘stupid’.
Have you heard of the Pentecost?
The disciples receive the Holy Ghost. Peter's sermon to the people. The piety of the first converts.
1 And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place: 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. 5 Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
6 And when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded in mind, because that every man heard them speak in his own tongue. 7 And they were all amazed, and wondered, saying: Behold, are not all these, that speak, Galileans? 8 And how have we heard, every man our own tongue wherein we were born? 9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome,
11 Jews also, and proselytes, Cretes, and Arabians: we have heard them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. 12 And they were all astonished, and wondered, saying one to another: What meaneth this? 13 But others mocking, said: These men are full of new wine. 14 But Peter standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke to them: Ye men of Judea, and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known to you, and with your ears receive my words. 15 For these are not drunk, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day:
Really?
What are the implications of the question?
Excellent reply. It is NOT just a matter of language, but of the whole attitude. I would add that in the old Latin mass, the priest said many of the prayers facing away from the congregation and towards the alter and tabernacle. This signified that he was speaking for the people and addressing God. Much of the new rite consists in kind of a self-congratulatory “dialogue” between the priest and the congregation, and the God-centeredness is de-emphasized with a kind of humanistic approach.
Post 13
I don’t know. Maybe it was a rhetorical question, intended to start a conversation. (But maybe you don’t want to ‘converse’, and just like to pronounce.)
Maybe you should just stop mind-reading.
One can tell a lot about a person by how he acts.
(I think somebody once said that ‘You will know them by their fruits’.)
“I’m not a Catholic, but ending the Latin Mass was of a part with post-WW2 Progressive thinking, where even things that were working perfectly fine had to be thrown over so they could become more “modern” and “relevant”.”
Typical leftist idiocy, IOW.... ie change strictly for the sake of change. So they can pretend that they’re actually doing something vs. their usual mode of FUBAR. They’re only “progressive” in that they are progressively destructive.
Yeah, and that works both ways.
Historically the pre tridentine Mass of the West likely changed to Latin from Greek in the 200's and had some reordering in the 500's but was fairly consistent after that. Some of the smaller western rites had drifted which was one of the reasons Pius V issued Quo Primum in 1570 to regularize it. Throughout any changes were always gradual and made with good reason- unlike the 1969 "revolution" which brought us the Novus Ordo.
The biggest issue is that when you look at all the changes- they always diminished what made the Mass uniquely Catholic - the sacrificial nature of the mass, and the focus on the worship of God as opposed to focusing on humanity's inherent goodness. The changes were made with an obvious agenda in mind.
Nailed it.
Doesn’t matter. We hear his words in the Gospels of the Church, which are in Latin, then translated to whatever doggerel is in people’s mouths at the moment.
When I visited Israel years ago I enjoyed visiting the Church of the Nativity. Was it really built on Jesus’ birthplace? We don’t know for sure. But I got chills standing in a room downstairs that we know for a fact something momentous happened: where Jerome translated the Bible to the Latin Vulgate. That changed the world. People speak the language of the most powerful nation at the time finally could read the Bible for themselves (if they could read at all and could get their hands on a copy LOL). That was one of my favorite places in Israel to visit because it’s a place that I knew for sure had a particular historical event happen there.
But we all know that the Gospels were written in Greek. The translation to Latin is no more valid than a translation to any other language today.
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