Rome - 7 September 2017 - Celebration of the Holy Mass vetus ordo, Mass in Latin, in the days of the pilgrimage Summorum Pontificum decennial
Posted on 08/05/2024 1:34:49 PM PDT by ebb tide
Rome - 7 September 2017 - Celebration of the Holy Mass vetus ordo, Mass in Latin, in the days of the pilgrimage Summorum Pontificum decennial
(LifeSiteNews) — In Part 1 of this two part series, I discussed how young Catholics today view the Second Vatican Council. In Part 2, we shall examine how these young people experience the “fruits” of the Council and the “spirit” of Vatican II. Why is it that so many are fond of the Traditional Latin Mass? Why do so many consult ReverentCatholicMass.com before picking a parish to attend when they move or travel? Why does there seem to be such friction between older and younger Catholics these days? These are the questions this article seeks to examine.
I am sure that some readers will take me to task for discussing these things as “aesthetic” issues and not theological ones. There are very good arguments as to why certain “Spirit of Vatican II” changes were bad from a theological or ecclesiological perspective and not merely an aesthetic one, but one has to be catechized well enough to recognize these problems. What I’ve noted is that young people are often turned off for aesthetic reasons and once they find a better alternative, they then learn the theological basis for the better choice, which makes the aesthetically bad one even more unthinkable. But since the theological understanding is often downstream from the aesthetic issue, we will speak of aesthetics.
Many of the things that it is claimed young people “reject” about the post-Conciliar Church aren’t even related to what the Council taught in its documents but are dated aesthetic choices by the Conciliarists in the “spirit” of Vatican II. Many of the anti-traditionalists look askance at the fact that young Catholics prefer the music of the medieval St. Hildegard von Bingen to that of Marty Haugen and Dan Schutte found in the Gather Hymnal. Nothing in the council documents mandated the use of this new liturgical music, whether in Sacrosanctum Concilium or the instructions for the Novus Ordo Missae.
The fact that young people might prefer to sing the Salve Regina at Mass instead of “City of God” or “Here I am, Lord” is not a rejection of the magisterium or reactionary revolution, yet it often is treated as such when, for example, a new younger priest or music director introduces such music to a congregation. We have a 2,000 year history of sacred music, but in many parishes, 95% of the music you will here is the same 15 or so songs, all written between 1975-1985, by Marty Haugen, Dan Schutte, and the St. Louis Jesuits – we all know the ones: “City of God,” “On Eagles Wings,” “Here I am Lord,” “Sing a New Song,” “Gather Us In,” etc.
These songs are viewed by many, if not most, Millennial and Gen-Z Catholics as banal, sappy, overall terrible, and, in the words of our generations, “cringe.” I once even once heard about a fundraiser in which parishioners bid for the right to pick one of these songs to ban for a year, as if we were required by law to sing these hymns and not something better.
There is nothing in the Vatican II document on the liturgy, Sacrostanctum Concilium, that requires Mass to be said versus populum, and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal even seems to assume an ad orientem posture, telling the priest when to turn and face the people (needless if they were already doing so).
In 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments clarified that ad orientem celebrations of the Mass were permitted, and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained in the 2006 preface to an entire book dedicated to the subject (Turning to the Lord by Fr. U.M. Lang) that the GIRM “required no obligation” to celebrate versus populum.
Despite this, we see that many bishops, including in the dioceses of Cincinnati, Boise, Chicago, and Venice, Florida, have instituted formal rules banning or restricting the use of ad orientem, apparently in keeping with the “spirit” of the Council. Similarly, we also see many pro-Conciliar clerics refuse to administer Communion in any way other than in the hand, despite no Conciliar decree pushing for this and despite receiving on the tongue being a right of all the faithful.
The Council did not say you had to receive Communion in the hand. The Council did not mandate Mass versus populum. The Council did not argue for Starship Enterprise style church-in-the-round architecture. The Council did not decree felt banners or “wreckovation” of historic churches, and the Council did not mandate that the same 15 or so songs from the Gather Hymnal would be played with guitar accompaniment every Sunday, all across the country. Since the Council did not decree these things, and the fact that many young priests or faithful who advocate departures from these are met with anger, resistance, correction from their Bishops or bands of irate parish council Susans, it seems very much that “accepting Vatican II” in parish life means “you have to have the same taste as us, and like the things we older Catholics like.”
Younger Catholics resent this. They are not schismatics because they have a hard time taking seriously an environment where “City of God” is sung to the accompaniment of an off-beat tambourine 30 times a year, and they shouldn’t be accused of not accepting the Council because their aesthetic tastes differ from that of the Conciliar generations.
In the fallout from Traditiones custodes, the message from Rome has seemed to be that the continued toleration of the Traditional Latin Mass is a pastoral concession to allow for the gradual transition of virtually all the faithful to the Novus Ordo. “If only you’d try the Novus Ordo, you’d see that it’s fine and has everything you’re looking for” has been the message. What many of the clerics seem to miss is that the makeup of traditionalists today is not the same as in 1980. Most people in the pews at the TLM grew up with the Novus Ordo, often not discovering the usus antiquior until adulthood. For most of our lives, we only ever knew the Mass of Paul VI and the Conciliar, “Spirit of Vatican II” Church.
It is precisely because of that, and the “cringe factor” of the experiences described above that we were led to look for something else, finding it in the TLM. As I stated in Part 1, there are some Novus Ordo parishes that have phenomenal, reverent Masses, and these have surging popularity, but they also tend to be the ones that don’t look like the Conciliar aesthetic choices I described.
Our postmodern reality is one of the most caustic environments for the soul in human history. I am not sure it is possible for previous generations to understand what it is like for younger Millennials and Gen Z to have had a 24/7 broadcast of the zeitgeist into our brains and hearts via TV and the internet since a young age. Unlike the optimism that existed in society during the Conciliar era, we are now awash in near universal nihilism, as is reflected by the decline in birthrates as many people choose travel and consumerism over children.
Everything is negotiable and nothing is true in modern society. The only definition of “good” or “moral” at any given time seems to be whether a majority of society approves of it. We live, as Pope Benedict XVI said, under the “dictatorship of relativism.” In this environment, young Catholics turn to the Church, seeking stability, firm answers, and timeless truths in an era where cultural mores change nearly overnight (not even 15 years ago, a majority of Americans disapproved of homosexual “marriage,” and gender ideology was a fringe topic most hadn’t really heard much about).
Postconciliar pastoral approaches are not giving them what they need. The teachings of Christ, passed on to us as the Church’s doctrinal positions on faith and morals, are countercultural, and in this era, being countercultural is not easy and invites one to negative social consequences and censures. Rather than affirm the faithful that their difficult stands against the zeitgeist are good and just, often we get the impression that many in Church leadership feel embarrassed by these positions or apologetic about them and seek to devote their teaching authorities anywhere else but the unpopular and difficult.
When I was a student at my Catholic high school, a sizeable portion, maybe even most, of the girls were taken by their mothers to get put on birth control around the time they turned 16. I would see these classmates and their parents in the pews every Sunday (yes, receiving Communion). I cannot recall ever hearing a sermon on Humanae Vitae in any parish I attended. Standing against the tide requires conviction and courage, but instead of affirmation, many Catholics hear squishiness. Instead of explanation of the Church’s position on “female ordination” in the face of the power of modern feminism, we hear that yet another committee or synod is going to “study” the issue. Instead of affirming Catholics that our countercultural position on homosexuality is correct and good, we see German bishops do mass “blessings” in violation of instructions from Rome, and Fiducia Supplicans – in the wake of which a prominent activist priest even publicly exceeds the norms allowed by the heterodox document and faces no censure.
All of this leads to the feeling that bishops and other senior churchmen do not have the backs of young Catholics trying to do the difficult thing and stand for Catholic teaching. Many of us are filled with dread at the thought of the Synod on Synodality and what new statements may come from it (it seems the “listening Church” isn’t interested in what we have to say). I’ve heard one commenter describe standing one’s ground against the spirit of this age as akin to being a soldier defending the fortress of Helms Deep in the Lord of the Rings against the hordes of secularism and modern society, but then someone senior in the Church will go and make a statement or announce a policy that’s like opening a gate to the fortress.
What results is the impression that the Church, as an institution, has lost confidence in itself, its doctrine, and what it teaches. This seems to be from a deep uneasiness about how out of step these positions are with the zeitgeist and a fear that holding to these positions will cause people to turn away. What they fail to appreciate is that an organization that seems to lack confidence in itself also isn’t going to keep adherents and it will struggle to attract vocations.
That young Catholics would be disappointed by this is apparently shocking to senior members of the Church hierarchy. In a recent interview, Bishop Georg Batzing, the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference (who therefore plays a major role in the heretical German “Synodal Way”), said of his recent interactions with young people “they ask the questions that are important to them. And interestingly, these are not the big questions that usually come up: celibacy, ‘women’s priesthood’….” There seems to be a disconnect between what older leaders think the kids want and what they actually want.
I’ve heard it said that the Catholic Church may be the only institution where 70- and 80-year-olds tell people in their 20s to “get with the times.” Why is it this way? I think there’s a few potential problems. Some of it may be simple ignorance. When these older people think of “what the kids want,” they naturally think back to what they wanted when they were in their youth, not realizing the fallacy in this.
It’s likely especially incomprehensible to them because the young seem genuinely interested in the things older Catholics rejected. Some of it, though, I think is an issue with empathy and humility. For many older Catholics, both clerical and lay, changing the Church in the wake of the Council was a labor of love that they felt necessary and wholly good. They feel personally slighted and attacked by the lack of interest among young people in continuing those efforts and deeply offended by the fact that many would view it as a problem that needs redressing through adoption of that which was discarded by their elders.
This is entirely the wrong attitude to have though. It is ironic that some who felt that the Holy Spirit spoke definitively through the Council and its implementation seem blind to the idea that He might continue to speak today but prescribe different things to meet the current moment. If Church leaders are serious about the salvation of souls, the pastoral needs of the youth – as the youth express them and not as assumed by older generations – need to be considered and fostered, even if older Catholics find it difficult to understand.
Ping
GAAAaaaaaahhhhh!!!
I hated that drivel back in the 1970s when it was new.
One should not assume that the "conciliar generations" liked the "Glory and Praise" songbook. Back in the 1970s when this wretched "music" was unleashed upon an innocent and unsuspecting world, I and other youngish men and teenage boys made (often bawdy) parodies of them. Doing such with traditional hymns was unthinkable. You just don't parody Tantum ergo ....
That should be warms the earth, not “arms the earth”.
Dr. Hittinger described the song as pure panentheism, which is, of course, a heresy.
LOL. So true … and an optimistic harbinger of things to come in the Church.
Nevermore.
Marty Haugen is not and was never a Catholic.
Dan Schutte left the Jesuit Order in 1986 and his most famous song, “Here I am, Lord” is the anthem for the gay rights movement within the Catholic Church.
The New Mass and all of the “art” and “music” that comes from it is so faggy.
And then there’s David “Pedo” Haas ...
A huge fraction of the Haugen/Haas/Schutte/StLJ oeuvre is, musically, show tunes. Imagine the cast of some inane musical singing the thing then striking a pose as it comes to an end.
They’re worse than campfire songs ...
I have more respect for Bugs and his friends than for the Schutte/Haugen/Haas mafia ...
There should or could be alternatives to the sappy new mass and the old Latin mass. I can imagine a mass in English that retains the dignity of the old Latin mass.
That's how the first novus ordo masses were originally.
No ad populum, no altar chicks, no Holy Communion in the paw, no lay readers, no eucharistic monsters, etc.
That's when the modernists invented and then invoked their "Spirit of VC II". And they've been doing so ever since.
(Recall that we didn't go straight from the 1962 TLM to the Novus Ordo; there were several transitional stages beginning in 1964. (Somewhere I have my First Communion missal from 1968; the 1968 Mass was basically the TLM, somewhat simplified, in English. The major change when the NO was introduced the next year was much more simplification / abbreviation, and 4 Eucharistic prayers instead of one.)
The rest of the stuff you mention are all later additions/innovations.
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