Church authorities in England and Wales say they do not expect resistance to the new translation of the Roman Missal when it is introduced in September. See “Bishops liturgy official: English priests will adapt to new translation” by Anna Arco.
English priests will adapt
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133 responses to “English priests will adapt”
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Good news and a witness for us all. We don’t need a Lefebvrism from the left.
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I look forward to the new translation. I will attend Mass and give my contributions to holy priests who implement the new translation with respect and reverence.
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Amen.
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“I will attend Mass and give my contributions to holy priests who implement the new translation with respect and reverence.”
Alas, 1970 revisited!
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Brian, what happened in 1970 and after was a mess. What I am saying is this: The new trans. will give us a clear way to discern between sheep and goats. We can therefore choose to attend Mass at faithful parishes where priests respect the divine mysteries. A good indicator of that is if they are faithful to the text. If not, I take myself and my money to a good, Catholic parish. We must support holy priests. To be honest I’d love to attend an FSSP parish where the EF Mass is offered but there are none here so I have to make the best of the OF and try to find a parish where it is offered as reverently as possible.
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Isn’t FSSP in schism?
Why do people who want something retrograde have so little sympathy with those who want something progressive?
It is ironic that this writer wants Mass in his preferred way and wants to declare evil, un-holy, those who want to have it another preferred way.
Are you willing to support yet another Extraordinary form for people who in good conscience want the 1972 missal as much as you want the Tridentine?
Why have those who support the Tridentine form not been willing to develop the materials needed to follow the revised calendar and support that much unity with the rest of Catholicism rather than trying to overthrow all the changes since the last ecumenical council in union with the pope, that being the highest teaching authority of the Roman Church?
I am very tired of this hypocrisy that allows decades of objections to the teachings of the Church and maneuvering in secret and now insists that those of other inclinations may not do the same.
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No, the FSSP is not in schism.
From their website: “The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is a Clerical Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical right, that is, a community of Roman Catholic priests who do not take religious vows, but who work together for a common mission in the world. The mission of the Fraternity is two-fold: first, the formation and sanctification of priests in the cadre of the traditional liturgy of the Roman rite, and secondly, the pastoral deployment of the priests in the service of the Church.”
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@Tom Poelker — No, the FSSP isn’t in schism. You’re thinking of the SSPX, the Lefebvrist group.
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Tom, Michael is not looking for his own kind of liturgy, what he is talking about is a parish where priests respect the “giveness” of the liturgy. These are priests who “say the black and do the red” with approved liturgical forms.
There is nothing “retro” about the two contemporary forms of the one Roman rite. Both are highly contemporary as well as ancient.
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While we’re at it, the Vatican has repeatedly said that the priests of the SSPX are suspended, but not in schism.
Why have those who support the Tridentine form not been willing to develop the materials needed to follow the revised calendar and support that much unity with the rest of Catholicism rather than trying to overthrow all the changes since the last ecumenical council in union with the pope, that being the highest teaching authority of the Roman Church?
Because the calendar is an integral part of the liturgy. They can’t keep the Missal and toss the calendar without creating the need for a wholesale reordering of the Missal, which is just what they’re trying to avoid.
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The new trans. will give us a clear way to discern between sheep and goats.
Silly me. I thought this was the prerogative of the Son of Man at the end of time (see Matthew 25:32).
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Dcn. Fritz, perhaps separating the wheat from the tares is a more appropriate scriptural allusion…
The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.
So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the householder came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?”
He said to them, “An enemy has done this.”
The servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?”
But he said, “No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
All in God’s time, please. As I heard a couple days ago, we’re called to God’s work, not His job.
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The tone of encouragement is hardly ringing.
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Tom, the EF Mass is not ‘retrograde’. It is holy and venerable. The New Mass that we got after the Council was not what the Council Fathers had in mind, but it happened, and we now have to accept what happened even as the Church tries to fix things. The new translation is an effort to restore the sacred to the Mass.
I am very distressed at the following:
‘It is ironic that this writer wants Mass in his preferred way and wants to declare evil, un-holy, those who want to have it another preferred way.”
I never said anybody was evil, so I am not quite sure where you got that idea from.
Holy Mass is supposed to be holy, sacred, and reverent. There is no pop-Mass or ‘progressive Mass’. Mass is Mass- Mass ought to be holy, conservative, and reverent. Any desire to dumb Mass down or centre it on us rather than Our Blessed Lord is gravely mistaken.
A lot of funny stuff happened after Vatican II that cannot find any support in the Council documents.
There is no ‘Tridentine Mass’. It is the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Mass, according to the Pope.
I know you mean well, but the confusion and ‘spirit of vatican ii’ which have dominated the Church for the last 50 years distorted and misappropriated the true teachings of Vatican II. Stay close to the Holy Father, that way you can be sure you are getting the true teachings, amidst so much error, confusion, and dissent.
Additionally, the FSSP is not in schism. They are in perfect communion with Holy Mother Church.
We do not reject the Second Vatican Council. What we reject is the ‘spirit of Vatican II’, which Bishop Vasa described as a demonic spirit that needs to be exorcised from the Church. This way, the true spiritual fruits of the 2nd Vatican Council may be realised. Like I said, stay close to the Pope and the Magisterium.
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“The New Mass that we got after the Council was not what the Council Fathers had in mind, but it happened. . . ”
Then why did they allow it to happen? The same Fathers who promulgated the Constitution on the Liturgy, for the most part, oversaw the implementation, at times encouraging its extremes.
I respect the authority of those who are attempting a reform of the reform. But the claim that they are being authentic or faithful to the vision of the Council fathers — or more faithful than were the Fathers themselves in the years following the council — simply cannot be held within an historical consciousness.
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I think the bishops were enamoured with and abdicated their authority to liturgical ‘experts’.
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“abdicated their authority to liturgical experts”
History repeats itself because that’s exactly what the current crop of bishops have done in allowing the “experts” (in Latin? in English?) of Vox Clara to do their own 10,000 revisions!
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So it’s acceptable to support the bishops when it suits your opinion, and to attempt to discredit them and the scholarship to which they turned when it doesn’t?
Am I the only one who sees this sort of pick-and-choose approach as problematic in the extreme?
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Rev. Cody, I think the historical post on this site where the bishops you refer to scolded the assembled members of the soon-to-be-formed FDLC, the many instructions issued from Rome to control excesses (from LI to RS), together with the Agatha Christie indult, the soon to follow Eccesia Dei indult extending Agatha Christie to the whole world, and the even more recent SP show us what the Council Fathers had in mind.
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Isolated, if prominent, examples over against the clearly observable trend of the whole in a well-documented period of history: I’m sorry, but I remain unconvinced.
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MM,
What is your authority for all that you say?You are an example of several in these conversations who simply assert that their opinion is right and that others are wrong.
You plead for people to follow the present church authorities, yet you unilaterally reject any expertise with which you disagree. You repeat respect for authority and for tradition ad nauseam, yet you insult the authorities of the past two generations, of the council fathers, of the experts who served at their pleasure.
It would be much more honest of you and more charitable to others to identify what you say as being your personal opinions or matters of your taste and preferences. To take the absolutist position shows a lack of intellectual honesty and an absence of humility.
You throw all who disagree with you in one big heap and identify them with the most disturbing excesses, as if all who disagree with you on anything favor everything which is erroneous.
You toss so many red herrings that you become stained and stinky.
In particular, you have ten paragraphs and only two of them deal with what I actually said. One provides an answer to the question about the FSSP. The other in disingenuous to the point of being insulting. You identified others as evil when you call “holy” only those who are doing what you wish that they do.
You have not addressed the main issue I raised. Why has it been okay for you all to oppose Church authorities and the majority of liturgical and ecclesiological experts and cling to your minority path and it is objectionable to you for those who disagree with you to follow the their path now?
After writing your response, please re-read it and eliminate or re-write anything which claims more authority or expertise than you have personally, which states opinion as fact, which assigns to an entire category of people some particular things which particular people done. It will make it easier for me to see any logic or facts which…
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Tom,
I’m not MM but nearly everything you write here could describe the progressives who regularly blog here better than MM.
And Tom, what makes one an “expert” anyway? Agreement?
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Whatever one might think of the Novus Ordo, be it good, bad, or indifferent, let us not forget the “holy fathers”, went back to their respective dioceses, and were largely responsible for permitting the liturgy to develop in their churches along the lines it has developed into over the years. Pope Paul VI and until 1988, Pope John Paul, whatever you may think of their thoughts on the liturgy, permitted these developments to take place.
If the bishops ended up with something they never intended, or it was sprung on them because of devious, behind-the-scenes machinations in Rome, cry not for these fathers. They brought this on upon themselves. Few bishops so much as bothered to speak up and speak out about what was happening to the liturgy.
Silence denotes consent. Those bishops who did speak out , are pitifully few in number.
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“The new trans. will give us a clear way to discern between sheep and goats.”
I really do not understand how a mistranslation will help people discern anything. Loyalty to the holy church demands a true translation.
IMHO, what needs to be done is somewhat similar to the process followed by the Episcopal Church in the seventies. Offer people the chance to evaluate various translations. Pick traditional and contemporary translations which are most pleasing to all. Experiment with them and finally select the two best.
Also continue offering the option of the EF so that all may have some contact with the western rites which sanctified so many holy women and men in the past.
Festina lente or brick by brick!
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Trouble is, people can’t agree amongst themselves. We could just use the translation of the EF Mass in the old hand Missal – it’s good exalted English, it’s accurate and we’d save a lot of time and money.
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That’s setting the bar way too low. Even Liturgiam authenticam wouldn’t approve of this. The old hand missal translations were for private reading of an individual worshiper, they were never intended for public proclamation. The criteria for these two things are very different.
awr
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(Following Fr. Ruff) — not to mention the fact that although imprimatured, the handmissals had various translations: each publisher more or less had her or his own, and in any given church three or four translations may have been followed by various members of the congregation. No agreement, no uniformity there.
So which translation would be “the one”? And on what basis would that decision be made?
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For 40 years many priests made up their own words to portions of the Mass and nothing happened to them. What’s to prevent priests in the future from doing the same thinkg, or, choosing their favorite translation of the Bible?
I am not a fan of Latin on a regular basis, especially for the readings, but one of its advantages in the olden days was that since most priests could only read it, they weren’t able to extemporize in Latin, so they had to follow the missal.
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I have one of those missals myself. It has the Douai/Rheims translation and it is very beautiful. Yes, archaic, hieratic, sacral, old fashioned, Tudor-style English, but it is perfectly “Catholic” for those who think this is a critical feature.
Why this wasn’t at least used as a transitional translation after the Council remains a mystery. I think it was a major mistake by the authorities who should have known better. Just as it is a mistake not to have it as an alternative translation today.
By the way, the Episcopal Church had an extremely divisive fight over translations in the 70s. That fight is still going on today with parishes doggedly sticking to the 1928 Prayer Book no matter what.
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@Dunstan Harding — As Fr. Anthony and Fr. Cody point out, the hand missal translations were for private reading. There was no single approved translation. The hand missal you have has “archaic, hieratic, sacral, old fashioned, Tudor-style English.” But the 1961 hand missal I have (“Daily Missal of the Mystical Body”) is entirely different.
The language is modern. The prefatory notes to this hand missal explicitly state that “The prayers of the Roman Missal have been translated in such a manner as to retain the sense and spirit of the Latin prayers while avoiding the complex Latin idiom.”
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Some context is needed to the newspaper article qouted. The Catholic Herald is the most conservative of the British catholic newspapers. Indeed Damian Thompson (Editor in chief) has a very controversial blog on the Daily Telegraph blog (not attached to the catholic hearld). The tone of articles on Damian’s blogs gives you some indication of his influence upon the editorial policy and direction of the Catholic Herald. This paper has not given any coverage of difficulties with the translation process and has sought to uncritically support the development and introduction of the new texts which is highly supportive of the official ‘party line’. I think generally Martin Foster is right in saying that there will not be widespread resistance to the new missal but that is not to say there are not pockets of congregations and clerics that are not in favour – however, unlike other countries, this discomfort is being aired mostly behind the scenes. The British catholic church is constructively focussing on making the best out of a bad situation so there is not widespread alienation and confusion when the texts are introduced which is to their credit. However, the Catholic Herald has simply chosen not to air the criticisms and discomfort of many within these isles which is NOT the same as saying everyone here is favourable to them, far rom it in fact.
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I have tried to read Damien Thompson’s blog, but it is appalling, in an entry I felt impelled to tell him too. (This is not something I do lightly.)
There has been little mention of the New Translation in my diocese (Northampton) apart from two study days. Apparently there are to be more in the coming months. My parish priest seemed surprised that I knew as much as I did about the New Translation, and admitted that I did not like what I had read so far. -
What a pity there seems to be no present day Dame Agatha Christie Who would be ready to petition the pope to step in and stop this madness.
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Is it time to form the Baptized Fellowship of St. Jerome, who translated the Sacred Greek Scriptures into the vulgar tongue of Latin? The BFSJ could support the training of liturgical ministers in the authentic teachings of the Pope and Bishops in Council.
Is anyone yet working on exceptions for those who do not like the new Missal and prefer to keep the Missal of Paul VI?
Is there any sympathy among the present episcopate for people who would prefer such things?
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As a matter of comparison, the differences between the 1962 “strain” of Missal and the 1969 “strain” of Missal is a different magnitude than between individual editions of the 1969 strain.
There have been numerous changes across three editions of the “Ordinary Form” of the Roman Missal. Do people prefer one edition over the others? Or is it a matter of the translation?
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Addendum for MM
Retrograde, from the Latin, a step backward, as in going back to an understanding of liturgy before what the Church taught in an Ecumenical Council in the Twentieth Century.
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JN
What you wrote is simply insulting.
Please make a point.
How would you distinguish expertise from personal opinion?
Personally, I spent almost thirty years reading the documents and educational materials provided by church authorities and article written by people academically credentialed in matters of liturgy.
I then took a surprising opportunity to obtain a graduate degree in liturgical studies at a recognized Catholic theologate. I entered that program anxious that I might have become very idiosyncratic in my ideas and fearing that my own approaches to things might have to be abandoned because they were formed too much on my personal tastes and opinions and not on historic or legal facts. I was happily surprised to find that my understanding from the lay press was in accord with the established academic studies of liturgy.
Having had the humility to challenge my own opinions and to study with those who had spent decades learning and applying both historic and theoretical knowledge, I consider myself an expert within my specific areas. I have spent 15 years teaching in those areas and keeping up in my field and related ones.
I am expert enough to plan and serve as master of ceremonies in the EF or along the entire legal spectrum of the OF. I am expert enough to train presiders, lectors, servers, cantors and other liturgical ministers. I am expert enough to find the advice and understand the diverse opinions which specialists offer outside of my own areas.
I am expert enough to recognize unsupported opinions, progressive or reactionary, when I see them, to recognize what are matters of taste and what are matters of interpretation. I am expert enough to recognize unsupportable generalizations when I hear them, and I am expert enough to occasionally catch myself offering such and to identify them as opinions.
These are the sorts of standards of expertise and humility to which I aspire and which I would like to see more often.
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Then being an expert, you know that “experts” frequently disagree among themselves, that “experts” are sometimes wrong, and that the common people are not only free to have religious opinions but they also have the right to make their religious needs known to their pastors (1983 code & SP). Additionally, since you recognize unsupported opinions you must know that they appear quite regularly here and in other places.
Pax
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Are you just bent on insulting people, or do you have something relevant to say instead of avoiding the topic of traditionalists protesting for four decades against Church authorities and now insisting that those who disagree with them should not protest?
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I am expert enough to plan and serve as master of ceremonies in the EF or along the entire legal spectrum of the OF.
That’s a rather ambiguous way of putting it, focused on expertise rather than experience. Have you actually been an M.C. for the EF regularly?
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When you make me a job offer, I will offer my full credentials. Meanwhile, this type of approach appears to be an ad hominem attack and another way of avoiding the question of why it is logical for the traditionalists to have protested the liturgy of the Church for four decades and now demand that those who disagree with them not protest.
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When you make your arguments in part based on appeal to authority and that authority is your own experience, it’s fair to ask for more information about that experience.
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There are some aspects of the EF I would change, certainly some of the current OF I would change and its translation and surely that same will be the case with the new translation. But as a former bishop of mine reminded me that it’s not mine to change. Certainly all the approved books of the Church are authoritative and given to us by the proper authorities even if there are things we would change if we were pope. Thank God I’m not.
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None of you still have been able to respond to Mr. Poelker’s well-reasoned points.
Please help me understand:
a) appealing to exceptions such as the Agatha Christi indult, SP, etc……even the current pope has clearly stated that these are exceptions for a very small minority because of their inability to pray using the “ordinary form” of the current latin rite church (some of you argue as if these exceptions create two rites for the western church; give folks carta blanche to do whatever with the EF? and you use the pope’s permission as if it was a blanket guarantee because, I guess, “you know the mind of the pope with certitude?”
– above, some of you referenced an order of priests whose founding and purpose is the EF…..help me understand how in the history of the church we have had religious orders founded to address the needs of the church, the world, correct church issues, etc. but this order is focused on a “liturgical form” that, in the history of the church, had been suppressed (except for the exceptions)
Even the separate blog post on the FDLC – here is one instance in the US only early after the end of VII, and you have two bishops who stated their opinions (Cody – please, if he is your guiding light, you are in trouble). Some of you cite Vasa – same thing as Cody.Here is an article written by J. Komonchak about the “hermeneutic of the reform”
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11375
– quote: “I think it is more plausible that the pope sought to persuade a different group of people, traditionalists whose rejection of the council derives in no small part from their belief that its teachings on church and state and on religious freedom represent a revolutionary discontinuity in official church doctrine.”
“…..council was the fruit of 20th-century movements for renewal: in biblical, patristic and medieval studies; in liturgical theology; in ecumenical conversation; in new, more positive…
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You are editorialising about what the Pope did or didn’t mean to do. Better for you to read Summorum Pontificum and the accompanying letter.
The EF Mas was never abrogated according to Benedict XVI.
”a) appealing to exceptions such as the Agatha Christi indult, SP, etc……even the current pope has clearly stated that these are exceptions for a very small minority because of their inability to pray using the “ordinary form” ”
— How patronising. Maybe if the NO Mass was offered in continuity with Sacred Tradition, we could pray, but as it is, with all the abuses and distortions, we can’t. I’m not against the NO – I am against the abuses. If we can’t learn how to offer Holy Mass in the NOin a reverent way then we doom the NO to die a death. Maybe that is what the Spirit is trying to say to the Church – I don’t know.
All I want is a reverent and holy Mass I can attend – is that too much to ask?
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The pope’s claim that the old rite of Mass was never abrogated doesn’t hold up in the view of many critics. And since this isn’t an area of papal infallibility, scholars are free to hold various judgments.
The January 2011 issue of Worship has an exhaustive study of the issue, “Was the 1962 Missale Romanum Abrogated? A Canonical Analysis in the Light of Summorum Pontificum” by Chad D. Glendinning. Unfortunately it’s copyrighted and can’t be reprinted here. I warmly recommend this study to anyone interested in the issue.
awr
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The non-abrogation finesse in SP was a legal fiction to avoid a brutta figura. One way you can tell is the implication is that every pre-1970 edition of the Missal other than 1962 is abrogated, which creates a non-falsifiable feedback loop. For that matter, other editions of the post-conciliar Missal face the same feedback loop (like, what happens if the current translation is not formally abrogated before the pending translation is implemented; we will have a decree about use but not an act of formal abrogation supposedly required, et cet.)
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Tom Poelker said:
”Are you just bent on insulting people, or do you have something relevant to say instead of avoiding the topic of traditionalists protesting for four decades against Church authorities and now insisting that those who disagree with them should not protest?”
— You don’t know how funny it is to hear you say that.
I think it’s a bit rich to say that faithful, Tradition-oriented Catholics have disobeyed. Let’s be honest, you are trying to lump all Catholics who desire faithfulness and fidelity to Sacred Tradition with the disobedience of the SSPX. I have no association with the SSPX, although I sympathise with them. Anyway, I only want a holy, sacred, reverent Mass, in either form. I am tired of clown-Mass. I am tired of folk Mass. I am tired of all the hideous abuses by the progressivists and liberals who have sought to turn holy Mass into a talk-show for their own egos.
I am not, contrary to what you may think, a die-hard 1962-er, but what if I was? The Pope supports me and gifted me with Summorum Pontificum.
Read the documents of the Church. Read Redemptionis Sacramentum. Read the Catechism, and then look at the shananagans that go on in so many parishes.
No, the disobedience is not from faithful Catholics who adhere to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, it is from the liberals who seek to turn the divine mystery into a sham. That is why they are resisting this new translation so viciously. They want more of the same – it is they who have disobeyed and subverted for too long. The tide has now turned.
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The examples you cite, namely “clown” and “folk” masses, are few and far between. Egregious, absolutely — that I will easily grant; but not in any way characteristic of the vast majority of OF Eucharistic celebrations throughout the world on any given day. Your caricatures of more progressive-minded persons are offensive, and your presumption that resistance to the new translation is a measure of their fidelity or obedience rather than having to do with the well-documented linguistic problems with the translation itself, its generation in contradiction to the norms established for it by the Holy See, the tampering with the translation at the last minute, etc., etc., is shamefully inappropriate and offensive.
As for your assertions that SP is a gift, I can only offer a personal observation: I think it a pity that the EF was implemented according to the 1962 missal. Owing to certain decisions that were taken after the council by the Holy See and its dicasteries, the OF is something with which the church must live — a point which the current pontiff has affirmed in noting that it is the ordinary, i.e., normative, form of the Latin Rite liturgy. But those who claim that the Council has not been implemented, or implemented correctly, are often also the greatest proponents of the EF. It is that liturgy that the Council ordered to be reformed — and so long as it is permitted to be used in its unreformed state, then yes, technically the will, mind, intention of the Council remains unfulfilled.
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Every Sunday, the 3 priests in my parish abuse holy Mass (NO) in the following ways:
– Sanitizing Mass texts (usually Gospel and Creed) to attempt to make them ‘gender inclusive’.
– priest giving Holy Communion to Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion before he receives
– priests (and even the bishop last year) sitting back in the sanctuary whilst lay people distribute Holy Communion
– priests omitting prayers of the Mass e.g. introductory to the Our Father
– priests ad libbing prayers willy-nilly
– Replacing the Psalm with a hymn or religious song
– Priest inviting people to recite DoxologyThere are lots of other reegular abuses; the above is just a selection.
The EF Mass can be offered irreverently too, but the NO in the vernacular and offered with priest and people looking at each other, encourages abuses and fosters irreverence.
We can thank God that the EF Mass survived without tampering by the liturgical wreak-o-vators, so maybe in due course Holy Church can go back to the drawing board and make of the EF Mass what the Council really intended. Providence, I suggest, protected the EF Mass from destruction so that when the time is right a truly organic reform can occur.
The Holy Father must work with what he has got, but he himself described the NO as a ‘banal, on the spot product like something from a manufacturing process.’
I suggest we look at the EF Mass with the vision of SC with a view to authentic and genuine renewal in accord with Sacred Tradition. That is my guess to how this will pan out over the next few decades. I think the NO will be consigned to history. Time will tell.
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Reverend Cody,
All things being equal, any refusal to employ the approved translation in a public Mass would be disobedience and would give scandal. Once the text is promulgated that is it especially when we know that all priests have the option of celebrating in Latin whenever they wish, this is an important provision for priests unhappy with the new translation to remember.
By the way, the most recent ecumenical council did not actually implement or promulgate a new liturgy and the specific recommendations it did delineate for the future reform of the liturgy can easily be met within the EF, SP anticipates it. As far as the intention of the council being fulfilled, it could be argued that the EF implements article 36 better than most OF celebrations. Something to think about. -
Jack,
Cody is fine, or Fr. Cody — Reverend and its abbreviations are a “style” of written address, though I know some of my colleagues do use it in speech.
I don’t disagree with your reading of the documents in the main: let’s be clear, though: nowhere did I suggest above, nor anywhere else on this blog, that a priest celebrating the OF should not use the forthcoming translation once implemented. Nor did I assert that the Council itself promulgated the post-Conciliar order of mass. Like the Council of Trent, Vatican II entrusted the preparatory and promulgation to other bodies. What happened after Vatican II is arguably not what’s envisioned in SC, though I stand by my assertion that it was tolerated and even promoted by bishops who were there.
My point above had to do with the fact that SC 21 demands in regard to what is now the EF a reform, in which “both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community.”
Until the EF liturgy itself has been overhauled, that work remains unfinished.
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Until the EF liturgy itself has been overhauled, that work remains unfinished.
So? The disciplinary norms of a council can be changed by later legislation as the Church decides, just like any other disciplinary norm. They’re not binding forever and always or you’d also have to be upset about the fact that we’re no longer following Quo Primum.
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The Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum is a papal document of promulgation. A Conciliar constitution is quite another matter, and so far as I know, its call for reform of the liturgy that QP promulgates has been neither revised nor disregarded.
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and so far as I know, its call for reform of the liturgy that QP promulgates has been neither revised nor disregarded.
Well arguably Summorum Pontificum does just that, saying that the ancient usage should be preserved and not reformed out of existence as certain members of the Concillium attempted to do in the 1960’s.
It matters not a whit whether QP was papal or conciliar, since disciplinary norms of a council are entirely changeable by a Pope of his own authority.
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How can you say for certain that the “liberals” are disobeying simply because thay don’t like this New Translation. It is you who are now making assumptions.
It is also insulting to say that they have turned “the divine mystery into a sham”. So you are tired of “clown Masses” and “Fold Masses”, easy solution – don’t go to them. They are there to meet a need. Not everyone feels God’s presence so easily in a High Mass. How would you propose Mass for those with learning difficulties be done?
I would regard myself as a faithful Catholic but I’m not happy with this translation.
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The pope’s claim that the old rite of Mass was never abrogated doesn’t hold up in the view of many critics. And since this isn’t an area of papal infallibility, scholars are free to hold various judgments.
The January 2011 issue of Worship has an exhaustive study of the issue, “Was the 1962 Missale Romanum Abrogated? A Canonical Analysis in the Light of Summorum Pontificum” by Chad D. Glendinning. Unfortunately it’s copyrighted and can’t be reprinted here. I warmly recommend this study to anyone interested in the issue.
awr
If the Pope said it was not abrogated, then that should be enough. Pray Tell is not an alternative Holy See and has neither the competence nor the expertise to make such determinations.
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Hello Michael, for some of us here the problem isn’t the new translation which we sure did need and waited 40 years for, but the almost 10,000 last minute revisions of which some are actual mistranslations of the Latin (one of the examples given on here was St Benedict’s collect) and some are mistakes in English grammar. There were several detailed articles which you can find in the Pray Tell archives right on here I think. In fact someone on another thread has pointed out that there’s a mistake in this weeks prayer post communion. I’ve copied from that posting the two prayers so you can see that the revised one that turns out to be official has a mistake with a “so” where there shouldn’t be one in the third line.
2008 text
Having feasted on heaven’s delights,
we pray, O Lord,
that we may always hunger
for the food by which we truly live.
Through Christ our Lord.2010
Having fed upon these heavenly delights,
we pray, O Lord,
so that we may always long
for that food by which we truly live.
Through Christ our Lord.-
I personally blame the last minute changes on liberals hauled up in the Vatican. They do say the Vatican is infested by demons, so a few liberal hijackers would not be out of the ordinary. We’ve seen that before.
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I personally blame the last minute changes on liberals hauled up in the Vatican.
I personally blame the last minute changes on Thetans occupying the bodies of members of Vox Clara.
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Shh, Fritz, only exorcists are supposed to talk about Thetans. The Church had L Ron Hubbard set up a Potemkin church to divert attention away….
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Does this mean the smoke of Xenu has entered the Vatican?
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MM,
With this post you are showing that you don’t understand the nature of theology. I respect papal authority and accept the Petrine ministry. But I certainly don’t think that the pope has the power to change the past. Nor do I think that theologians must accept his judgments on entirely non-doctrinal issues when the arguments do not support this.
If you hold otherwise, I wonder whether you’re able to contribute to the discussion here.
awr
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I think Pope Benedict has an issue with what happened after Vat. 2. It was unprecedented what happened: the Mass was dumped and a new one created like a product on a production line put in its place. Sometimes, you know Father, it is the little children who can see the simple truth, while the learned are very often blinded by their own intellectual pride. I’ll take my lead from the Holy See, not this blog, which I really should avoid. I must mention it in my next confession. I’ve relapsed. 🙁 I apologise for any offense my presence has caused to anybody here, you included Father Ruff.
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The 200 year rule would seem to apply as does the fact that the Church has never juridically abrogated an orthodox liturgy.
Here is a different view on the non abrogation issue:
http://www.lms.org.uk/resources/articles-on-the-mass/was_the_old_rite_abrogatedThe most interesting part to me was the discussion of SC 49 suggesting that the reform sought by V2’s SC was to be applied only to Masses celebrated with the people, not Masses “sine populo”.
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Thanks for that Jack. I’ll take my lead from the Holy Father who says the Rite was not abrogated. The article makes clear the Mass was not abrogated.
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As an argument, this is weak in the extreme. By comparison, the Worship article thoroughly treats many, many documents – most of which are ignored in this post. One is left with the impression that “the Pope said so, so that settles it.” This isn’t an argument, it’s an assertion based on, according to St. Thomas, the weakest of all argumentation, the appeal to authority.
awr
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Quote
I think Pope Benedict has an issue with what happened after Vat. 2. It was unprecedented what happened: the Mass was dumped and a new one created like a product on a production line put in its place.
An odd way of demonstrating “taking my lead” from this pope, considering he has repeatedly asserted there was a hermeneutic of continuity. I don’t think Pope Benedict has “an issue” with what happened, but you definitely do.
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Popes like other ‘authorities’ at times have thought to arrogate to themselves the power ‘to declare the circle squared’. Of course, this can be asserted by those, who like the courtiers admired the “Emperor’s new clothes”, but it does not wipe away the true and honest situation that the Emperor, as the child said, was naked. On this question, one does have to look to the ‘realpolitik’ of the present Pope in relations with the Lefebvrists among others — who besides their liturgical ‘complaints’ want to ‘re-negotiate’ the Second Vatican Council to their own desires. [Another thought: much of this discussion rests on the ‘personal preferences of the present Pope’. This is a height of ‘ultramontanism’ which even the most rabid enthusiasts for the notions of Pope Pius IX before Vatican I would quail at. The present Pope has every right to use his personal preferences in his own celebrations of the liturgy — and he does seem to carefully advertise these as ‘nudges’ in a particular direction — following the ideals in some of his pre-papal writings, but they are not meant for all the celebrations of the Roman Rite/Usage in all the parts of the Western Church — nor in every circumstance. It is also to be noted that the discussions here are centered on the difficulties of the Roman Rite/Usage in various English translations as opposed to Latin — but do not refer at all to the other vernacular translations of excellent quality which are used widely in large areas of the Western Church.]
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Philip S—The present Pope has every right to use his personal preferences in his own celebrations of the liturgy —-
Dear Philip,
Nice of you to grant the Pope the rights you might assert for every little priest! But wouldn’t you also agree that the Pope is our teacher? and the best way to teach is by way of the example he sets?
As a Catholic, I cannot accept the liturgy as simply a conglomeration of ‘personal preferences’. Is it not supposed to be a participation with cherubim and seraphim, and the white-robed Army?
That’s why I believe liturgy wars are supremely important. Father R, and Bill d, and Brigid R, and many other worthy opponents here *also* believe liturgy is supremely important.
If this all is a matter of ‘personal preference’, then no one would be arguing!
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mm
You still have not even attempted to explain why 40 years of disa disagreement from the traditionalists is good but that present disagreement from academic experts is not. -
I only want a holy, sacred, reverent Mass, in either form. I am tired of clown-Mass. I am tired of folk Mass.
I too want a reverent mass, but I doubt that it will come from people who are willing to refer to services as “clown masses.” Irreverence is not the way to reverence.
I have probably been to so-called clown masses. I certainly have been to folk masses. At them, I have come together with other people to praise God’s name as we join in offering myself to God in union with Jesus. Denunciations of these services are the opposite of reverence, and show a value system that is based not on the immutable elements of the ritual, but on the changing styles.
That Mass that Paul VI gave us, and the English translation of it that we have had for the last 40 years, are now part of our tradition. Every effort to improve our liturgies must be based on an acceptance of what we have now, and a desire to move forward with it. That is what we call Tradition.
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Hear, Hear.
What strikes me is the use of demeaning terms, as noted above, used by those who dislike the NO.
Can there not be a place for the Pontifical High Mass and the folk Mass? They meet a need or they would not exist.-
Do people use the term “clown-Mass” to make fun of Masses in the Ordinary Form, or do they use the term to refer to Masses in which persons (sometimes celebrants) are actually dressed up as clowns?
Because those literal clown-Masses do exist, they do happen from time to time. If “clown-Mass” is not an accurate name for them, by all means, please provide another.
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Jeffrey,
I assume a clown mass is one in which someone is dressed as a clown. But I am responding to the implication that being tired of clown masses is a reason to want the EF or some other substitute. I see no reason why an EF liturgy could not be done in clown makeup, or why stilted, awkward language should not be spoken by a clown, yet people cite clown masses as if they will disappear with some liturgical reform.
My whole point here is that rites or liturgical forms should not be judged solely on the basis of changeable adaptations, whether it is clown makeup or cappa magna. Those are not the important parts of the liturgy.
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Jim, I think the people who choose to attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form would not put up with an EF Clown Mass for more than 30 seconds. So even if an EF Clown Mass did exist, it would be a Missa sine populo.
Why do clown Masses and dress-up-for-Halloween Masses happen in the Ordinary Form? I could make my guesses… perhaps because it doesn’t surprise anyone. They don’t see it as being inappropriate or out-of-place or profane or against the rubrics, etc.
I don’t think the liturgical abuses and aberrations will cease with the new translation, especially among priests who don’t want to use the new translation, and especially among priests who make up their own prayers for the Mass.
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In regard to Jim McKay’s last comment from #67 I would like to point out some important examples from the history of the Church that teach us that even something that has been in use for 40 years does not necessarily become part of the unchanging Tradition, nor does it necessarily become the guiding reference point. While probably not as widespread as the current translation and usage of the Paul VI Missal in English, one example of this is the abrogation of the Quignonez Breviary. Another would be the abrogation of the liturgical usages of the Roman Liturgy that did not enjoy the 200 years of uninterrupted usage at the time that Quo Primum was promulgated. In the case of the Quignonez Breviary even after being introduced and allowed by ecclesiastical approbation it was later withdrawn, and the 1568 Roman Breviary was published, following an earlier and clearly “Roman” pattern going back centuries. In regard to the whole question of whether or not the Missale Romanum of 1962 was abrogated it would be interesting to note the kind of decree and the language found therein that abrogated the Quignonez Breviary. Perhaps a more recent example would be to compare the abrogation, or conversely the suppression of the former Breviary dating before St. Pius X reforms with the one that was promulgated by him. Perhaps the author of the Worship article had done that, in any event I have not read it. But I would be interested to know how St. Pius X promulgation of abrogating the former Breviary differed from Paul VI promulgation of his Missal in relation to the former. What formulas were used by Pope Paul VI in the Apostolic Constituion, “Missale Romanum? In what ways are they similar, and in what ways were they dissimilar to other examples. Does the presence of the various indults, whether the Agatha Christie indult, or the 1984 indult or even the permission granted for Bishops to allow older priests to continue to use the now extraordinary usage even at the beginning of the 1970 Missal suggest that something less than abrogation occurred?
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Isn’t the Quignonez Breviary part of our tradition?
I am not saying that the English translation of the first typical edition of the Roman Missal of Paul VI should continue in use. Or that it is even a standard for all future missals or English translation. It is a precedent that tells us something about our faith. It has not been repudiated, though some act as if it has been. Accepting the current English translation is a needed precursor to asking people to accept the upcoming English translation, particularly if one is using arguments from authority.
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Continued…Or does the mere presence of an indult mean there was in fact an abrogation? In any event, I don’t think St. Pius X made exceptions for anyone to use the former Breviary. Maybe he did and I am ignorant. Maybe Paul VI allowance for the continued usage of the 1962 MIssal by various means teaches us that there was not a formal abrogation. Regardless of the scholarly debate on the question, the fact remains that the chief lawgiver, PP. Benedict XVI has given us a new law, and as chief lawgiver he has even interpreted the meaning of the former laws so as not to include formal abrogation for the 1962 Missal. What is his basis for doing so? Is it whim? Is it politics(certainly this would be part of the conversation since everything is politics at least to a certain degree)? Is it the conclusion of the 1986 commission of Cardinals to investigate the question (we would have no strong evidence here since that inquiry has never been publicly made known? Regardless the issue of that commission BXVI’s prudential reasoning has differed from that of JPII on the matter. So how can we know? That the pope has manifested his mind on the subject gives us some indication. Does not the authority and mind of the lawgiver control the debate somewhat? How about the mind of the lawgiver in 1969?
I have certainly meandered in this post, and I will do my best to get to the library to look at the article in Worship to provide more context for this argument. In any event these are interesting legal questions, and I am sure that Pope Benedict XVI will not be ordering the Holy Office to suppress or abrogate the topic at least. We do have at least some clarity on what the current law is, and that law means the Missale Romanum 1962 is not abrogated now if ever indeed it was.
It will be interesting to see if some permissions are given to use the current translations. Will the current translation be formally abrogated? Or because it is a translation is the concept of abrogation the wrong category. These are interesting questions from a theoretical point of view. Yet, from a polemicists position this debate is frought with challenges to personal charity. That much is certain as demonstrated by both poles of commentary as found in the pray tell blog.
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If we can’t appeal to authority to settle matters, then we might as well become Baptists and interpret things our way and multiply and divide as congregations over and over again. It seems that the papal authority to loose and bind is very important and yes that can mean what was abrogated is once again allowed. And yes, that’s a very high appeal to authority on my part for without it you have anarchy. Almost every priest today celebrating the EF Mass was not allowed to do so up until three years ago. And yes once the new translation is promulgated for use in Advent, the old might be on the loose again too in the future, who knows? And yes, the EF Mass could once again be “bounded” by another Holy Father at another time. He can do that.
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Here, once again, is Pierre Jounel on abrogation:
What would you say to those people who don’t want to know the Missal of Paul VI, and to those who, while respecting it, regret that it was imposed to the exclusion of the Tridentine Missal?
I would say to them that they use computers, that they live with the instruments of the culture of their time, and that they have no reason to get stuck on the 1570 date when the Missal of Pius V was promulgated. Why should the liturgy be frozen then, when it had been periodically renewed up to that date? These people lack historical knowledge. Msgr Lefebvre was absolutely convinced that the ancient formula for Confirmation goes back to the time of the apostles, when in fact it only dates back to the 13th century.
Jounel then goes on to demonstrate how Paul VI followed exactly the same procedure with his Missal as Pius V had with the Missal and Breviary in 1570, Clement VIII in 1595 with the Roman Pontifical, Pius X with the psalter of the Breviary in 1911, and Pius XII with the Holy Week rites in 1955. In all these cases, the previous usage was abrogated and replaced by the new. This is the Church’s constant practice.
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If the previous rite had not been abrogated, what need would there have been for the indults in the different countries that actually existed? It quite clearly was abrogated, and the Pope was very badly advised by those who drew up his motu proprio for him.
And here is a quotation from another distinguished liturgist who occasionally posts on this blog:
“Summorum Pontificum was a reward for disobedience.”
Discuss!
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Paul, the answer lies in your own comments. The previous rite was abrogated as the “norm” for the liturgy of the Latin Rite. However, indults for special situations remained ever since that abrogation, older priests and the like. The fact of the need of an indult indicates that the previous rite was considered “extraordinary” but allowed and depended on need and permission. Originally it was a “clerical” need and had nothing to do with the laity who wanted it. Later it was extended to the laity as an indult (1980’s) for those who “needed” it. And today it is clear that the previous rite is an “extraordinary” expression of the one Latin Rite, and that the ordinary expression is the Ordinary Form or the Pauline Rite if you will. The only thing that has changed since it was abrogated as the normal or ordinary liturgy of the Church is that it is now available to more, but based upon need or request and less interference from nasty old authority. It is still extraordinary though, not ordinary. It is still abrogated as the “normal” or “ordinary” expression of the Church’s liturgy. The Holy Father was served very well by his advisers in writing SP although I suspect he knew what he was doing and that he understood what “abrogate” in terms of the “ordinary” expression of the Liturgy means. But abrogate does not mean outlawed once and for all, from this day forward for better or worse until the Second Coming. The Holy Father knows his stuff!
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Fr. Allan,
This isn’t what “abrogate” means canonically.
awr -
Maybe so, but in practice in terms of the EF Rite it never was “actually” abrogated. There really has not been a time when the EF was literally outlawed by Church authorities after Advent of 1969–there was a caveat for older or infirmed priests and that caveat eventually grew, so maybe there was a mistake in calling it an “abrogation” in the first place, although I still contend it was and still is “abrogated,” “abolished, non-existent” as the Ordinary Form of the Mass, but was it ever totally abolish and thus became totally non-existent? No.
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There is no doubt in Pope Paul’s mind. He was acting on the instructions of the Council in introducing a new form – the Vatican II form – and that it replaced the Tridentine form, just as the latter itself had previously replaced earlier forms in the sixteenth century.
The use of the new Ordinary of the Mass is definitely not left to the free choice of priests or Christian faithful… After mature deliberation, following the requests of the Second Vatican Council, the new Ordinary was promulgated to replace the old. In no way different, following the Council of Trent, did our holy predecessor St. Pius V make the Missal reformed under his authority obligatory.
It seems clear to me that Pope Benedict has countermanded Pope Paul.
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I think SP says that priests are not free to exclude the Ordinary Form of the Mass if they embrace the EF as the extraordinary.
Again, nothing that Pope Paul writes indicates anything other than what I have suggested. The Pauline Mass does indeed replace the previous Mass as the “Ordinary Form ” of the Mass, but the previous Mass is not outlawed and now one is free to celebrate it without recourse to one’s bishop. I like that kind of freedom. I’m sure that Paul VI knew that if he gave priests and laity the choice in 1969, the newly revised Mass would have sunk like a ship taking on water. That wasn’t the case any longer in the 1980’s with the indult to allow more flexibility with the previous rite and now with total flexibility under SP. Maybe we’ve grown up as a Liturgical Church and don’t need rigid liturgical uniformity that existed prior to the Council in the Latin Rite and more than likely this was what motivated Paul VI to want it to be instituted with rigid uniformity. He was a pre-Vatican II Pope, promulgating a Post Vatican II Liturgy, with Pre-Vatican rigidity. Maybe Paul VI’s advisers at the time did not serve him well in the wording of the promulgation? -
“…the new Ordinary was promulgated to replace the old. In no way different, following the Council of Trent, did our holy predecessor St. Pius V make the Missal reformed under his authority obligatory.”
Graham, that is the point. St. Pius V permitted the continuation of rites with 200 years of legitimacy. Looks like the same was done in the 20th c.
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Except that no juridical abrogation ever happened. The Pauline Missal does not include one. The two-hundred year would apply anyway.
Pierre Jounel’s take on “frozen liturgies’ is not terribly ecumenically sensitive toward the Eastern Orthodox Church’s venerable liturgies or the Catholic Eastern rites. -
(Note: I am NOT MM). Abrogated or not, the Tridentine Rite is now authorized by Summorum Pontificum. Here’s my educated guess as to why SP happened in the first place.
When JP II, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta (1988), asked bishops for “wide and generous” permission for the Tridentine Rite, leaving authorization in their competence, our Ordinary at the time, who permitted annual “clown Masses” to conclude CCD conventions, “polka Masses in the diocesan Polonia, a “floating parish” of malcontents who used paper purificators and homemade leavened bread, steadfastly refused permission for Tridentine Mass on the grounds it would be “divisive.” He claimed he and “other bishops” were meeting at Seton Hall to figure out ways “to get around” Ecclesia Dei. His refusals, by the way, were written by the Chancellor who, when HE became a bishop and SP came out, hastened to celebrate Tridentine Mass amidst great publicity.
My educated guess: THIS situation with regard to Ecclesia Dei resulted in the former Cardinal Ratzinger, who witnessed such episcopal equivocation/outright opposition, issuing SP and removing the local Ordinary’s right to thwart it.
If I read SP correctly, NO ONE is OBLIGATED to attend Tridentine Mass EVER. Free choice. So what’s the problem? What happened to the great cry: “Let a thousand flowers bloom?” Or “unity not uniformity”? Some political commentator remarked: “There is no one as illiberal as a liberal with power.” Remember Rabbi Gamaliel’s advice? Just leave people alone! Proponents of gay marriage often ask: “Is heterosexual marriage so shaky that permitting gay marriage will harm it?” Well, is the Ordinary Form’s “case” so weak that a nearby Tridentine Mass is going to do it in?
One rite, two forms. Love and do what you will. “Dilige et quod vis fac” (Augustine, Tractatus VII, 8).
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What happened to the great cry: “Let a thousand flowers bloom?”
I would not use Mao Zedong’s great purge of Chinese intellectuals (more properly translated as “Hundred Flowers Campaign”) as a model of liberality. Mao deceived intellectuals by feigning interest in their notions of “liberal” government (or at least something other than brutal Maoism), only to massacre intellectuals for their gullibility.
A brief note: back in my fundamentalist “EF or nothing” days I would often hear Avery Cardinal Dulles say Mass in one of Fordham’s chapels. At that time I barely held onto the notion that the OF was valid, let alone worthy of attending. Cdl. Dulles said Mass from the Sacramentary word-for-word and gesture-for-gesture, nothing more, nothing less. (Okay, at the ite, missa est he said, “Go, the Eucharist is ended.” If this slight change upsets you, consider psychiatry.)
Cdl. Dulles’ superlative preaching bound me to the chapel Masses. Sometimes even those who sharply disagree on liturgical text and translation can join together through other aspects of liturgy. In my case, the desire to hear the wisdom of a great Catholic scholar kept me within the Fordham worshiping community. Soon we English-speaking Catholics will have the EF and two translations of the OF in common circulation. Let’s look towards the few stitches that will keep us sewn together rather than the ugly tears evidenced in threads such as these.
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I’m sure that Martin Foster is correct and English priests will “comply” (rather than the ambiguous “adapt”). The question that needs to be asked is:
“Will this priestly conformity benefit their Parishioners? And what if the priest has serious personal misgivings about the usefulness of the latest translation, but forces himself to accept the text imposed by the Powers-that-Be. Does this not do violence to his integrity?”
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It’s not about the priest. I’m tired of priests misusing the Mass for their own egotistical ends. It’s not about them. It’s about the Church gifting us, the members of the body of Christ with a new, corrected translation of holy Mass. If the priest has an issue, he should pick it up as his personal cross in life and offer holy Mass according the the words and rubrics of holy Mass.
If I go into McDonald’s for a Big Mac, I’m not interested in whether or not the person behind the counter believes in the product – I’m entitled to my burger, which I’ve paid for. Similarly, priests are required to offer holy Mass according the the wishes of Holy Mother Church Who alone decides what way Mass is offered for the good of souls. Priests are servants, not Lords. It’s not about priests. They don’t get to decide whether this translation is good or bad. We’ve suffered for 40 years at the whims of priests who use Mass as their personal plaything while those in the pews get ticked off and leave or suffer in silence. I’m suffering at Mass every Sunday and I don’t feel I can say anything to the priests about what they are doing because I fear being written off as a rigid, reactionary crank, or else meet the attitude, clerically classic this one, of ‘who are you, a layman, to tell me, a priest, how to say Mass?’ And here we are. Proud, ignorant priests, and helpless, young, informed laymen. Sad. How long, Lord?
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And now we are to suffer the whims of Vox Clara.
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Fr. Allan – your reconstruction of history and “knowing what Paul VI” intended is almost “criminal” in its lack of facts; lack of historical analysis; etc.
Your comment: “…..I’m sure that Paul VI knew that if he gave priests and laity the choice in 1969, the newly revised Mass would have sunk like a ship taking on water. That wasn’t the case any longer in the 1980’s with the indult to allow more flexibility with the previous rite and now with total flexibility under SP. Maybe we’ve grown up as a Liturgical Church and don’t need rigid liturgical uniformity that existed prior to the Council in the Latin Rite and more than likely this was what motivated Paul VI to want it to be instituted with rigid uniformity. He was a pre-Vatican II Pope, promulgating a Post Vatican II Liturgy, with Pre-Vatican rigidity. Maybe Paul VI’s advisers at the time did not serve him well in the wording of the promulgation?”
Numerous folks have given you the historical facts:
– the history of liturgical/missal changes has always suppressed all preceding missals/liturgies
– facts indicate that overwhelming the bishops of VII laid out principles and directions ….by 1967 most conferences were asking Rome for approval for vernacular liturgies (there was no fear that groups, many priests, etc. would not comply – they were demanding these changes and the level of enthusiasm in the church was also measured and confirmed – your rewriting of history doesn’t change these things
– your description of Paul VI is very inaccurate. He was educated, followed, and supported the french thinkers, theologians, and pastoral initiatives long before John called VII. This included liturgical, scriptural changes; changes in pastoral ministries e.g. worker priests, etc. If anything, late in his papacy, his writings indicate that he constantly struggled with the tensions between even more liberal directions and curial positions that were much more “conservative”
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cont… VII, he granted “temporarily” permission for aged priests, etc. for good reason to continue to use the older form of the liturgy. (You have twisted and used this to somehow create a foundation for two forms of the one rite? (not sure this has ever happened in church history?)
– quote from John Page on Paul VI: “As someone who has lived through six papacies and trained in Church history, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, I hold Paul VI in great esteem. He continued the Council. And his audience talks as well as his homilies in the parish churches of Rome, in the late 1960s, on implementing the liturgical reforms reveal a remarkable pastoral sensitivity and wisdom. He clearly regretted the loss of the Latin but saw the vernacular as the surest way forward.”– would suggest reading this link about Paul VI and his times: http://celledoor.blogspot.com/2011/02/spirit-of-change-shakes-church-popes.html
– tidbits: “But the main intellectual influence on his life has been Catholic and French. Paul identified particularly with the Christian humanism of Jacques Maritain, even when Maritain was regarded by powerful conservative churchmen as a near-heretic. Maritain, a vigorous critic clerical privilege as well as political authoritarianism, urged the Church to identify conspicuously with the poor. As Archibishop of Milan, Montini practiced what Maritain preached by frequently visiting mines and factories and became known as the “archbishop of the workers.””
– “…But as a very young priest he became associated with some of the most progressive thinkers of pre-Vatican II Catholicism and though he served in increasingly important Vatican posts for three decades, his progressive ideas seemed an obstacle to his own advancement in the hierarchy.”
– End with a quip from BXV: ““I know that as pope I have all the treasury of wisdom and knowledge. Now if only I could find the key to it.”
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Bill: they [priests] were demanding these changes and the level of enthusiasm in the church was also measured and confirmed – your rewriting of history doesn’t change these things […] (my additions)
Traditional Catholics must remember this very important point. A good number of priests at the time of liturgical reform were insufficiently literate in Latin to sightread propers. The episcopal indult for priests to say the Office in the vernacular was granted liberally for good reason. Many priests insufficiently understood the Missal. It must have been liberating for many of them to actually understand the texts rather than mumble syllables.
I suspect that few Catholics question the need for a vernacular liturgy. Even those who worship exclusively in Latin must concede that the vernacular is a worthy development. It is unhelpful to conflate vernacularization with the Pauline rites, however. Vernacularization could have been implemented under a different Pope at a different time and according to a different liturgical philosophy. Pope Paul’s personal liturgical ideology is not synonymous with vernacularization.
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Jordan – not sure where you are getting this information – e.g. “insufficiently literate in Latin to sight read propers”….that may be a very accurate statement today but in 1969-1973 most seminarians were still required to have 4-5 years of latin and those in diaconate were still practicing mass in latin? (lifers – those starting in minor seminary probably had 6-7 years of latin)
You mix the saying of the office in latin with the mass/sacraments. Would agree that most did welcome the ability to say the office in the vernacular but your above statement doesn’t reinforce this.
Not sure where you coined the term “vernaculization”, conflation, Pauline rite, etc. Guess your point may be correct but it is a guesstimate at best.
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Bill, I make this request in all sincerity, with the desired goal of improving the success of our conversation. Could you please write in complete sentences? More than once I have been unable to figure out what you are trying to say. This sentence is one such example:
Not sure where you coined the term “vernaculization”, conflation, Pauline rite, etc.
I really don’t know what you are asking Jordan. You’re not sure where he coined the term “vernacularization”? He didn’t coin it; he used it in his post. It means “the act or process of making vernacular.” And he didn’t coin the terms “conflation” or “Pauline rite”, but I don’t think that’s what you were asking. I can’t tell at all what the “etc.” is implying, either.
Could you be a bit more clear or specific in your replies?
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Bill: you are right. The first paragraph was not written well.
In short: I suspect that _a number_ of priests struggled to read the Mass propers. I made an illogical leap from Mass propers to the Office. In my experience, the Breviarium Romanum is even more difficult than the Missale Romanum 1962 propers. The Office contains a much wider range of literary styles than the Mass. One needs a relatively large Latin vocabulary to read the Matins selections, for example. The pre-conciliar indult for the vernacular Office demonstrates that some priests struggled with sightreading to various degrees. It’s entirely possible that some priests could sightread or memorize the Missal, especially the requiem and votives, and still require a dispensation to use a vernacular breviary.
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“Will this priestly conformity benefit their Parishioners? And what if the priest has serious personal misgivings about the usefulness of the latest translation, but forces himself to accept the text imposed by the Powers-that-Be. Does this not do violence to his integrity?”
Mary’s comment appears to be about pastoral leadership, not the whims of a priest.
The person in the pew counts on his or her pastor’s intergrity.
To use your ananlogy – If the meat in your Big Mac tastes somewhat “old”, you go to the person behind the counter to ask if it is fresh. You trust that the person who made the burger will have your health as primary concern, not the company’s public relations.
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MM 84: I really don’t think anyone is arguing the Church’s authority to provide us a “corrected” translation. The biggest issue, even bigger than the lack of justice in it’s dealings with the English world through the process, is the fact that the translation we are being given is full of bad grammar and other inconsistencies (cup/chalice = calix). I will do my best to support the implementation. However, in some cases it will be with the same energy and effort that I have to use to eat some vegetables, such as beets and collard greens.
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Back on the subject about the English priests.
They will adapt to it better because as Bp. Trautmann reported, many find it is “British sounding.”
Brent: Dear man, how can you not LOVE beets?
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Trust me, Fr Jim, it doesn’t sound at all British to many of us living in Britain!
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Too true!
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[am #74 If we can’t appeal to authority to settle matters, then we might as well become Baptists]
You are confusing two meanings of authority. Papal jurisdiction is one thing and only applicable itself in limited cases. Papal expertise is another thing and requires the same standards of adhesion to fact and logic as anyone else’s authority as an expert
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[mm #58 I think it’s a bit rich to say that faithful, Tradition-oriented Catholics have disobeyed. Let’s be honest, you are trying to lump all Catholics who desire faithfulness and fidelity to Sacred Tradition with the disobedience of the SSPX.]It is very tiring of you to so frequently mis-quote me and then argue against the resulting straw man you infer illogically from the mis-quotation. You will find nothing in my posts about obedience. I asked about protests and you have again avoided replying.
[TAP #41 Meanwhile, this type of approach appears to be an ad hominem attack and another way of avoiding the question of why it is logical for the traditionalists to have protested the liturgy of the Church for four decades and now demand that those who disagree with them not protest.]
[TAP #70 MM You still have not even attempted to explain why 40 years of disagreement from the traditionalists is good but that present disagreement from academic experts is not.]
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{mm #87 Priests are servants, not Lords. It’s not about priests. . . .We’ve suffered for 40 years at the whims of priests who use Mass as their personal plaything while those in the pews get ticked off and leave or suffer in silence. I’m suffering at Mass every Sunday and I don’t feel I can say anything to the priests about what they are doing because I fear being written off as a rigid, reactionary crank, or else meet the attitude, clerically classic this one, of ‘who are you, a layman, to tell me, a priest, how to say Mass?’ ]
I would like to offer the blog readers the unusual opportunity to read me agreeing with MM. I, too, have been insulted by that classic of clericalism. Beyond that, I have pointed out to a pastor that what the pastor wanted to do was specifically prohibited by the GIRM and been told, “That’s not the way we do it here.” For such invincible egoism there is no solution. Even after acquiring a Master’s degree in liturgy and serving on Archdiocesan Commissions, and joining their own parish liturgy committees, pastors continue to go with what they like and reject information from me regarding liturgical law and options.
Someone, perhaps MM, has blamed the faults with their parish Mass experiences on the bishops not enforcing the correct use of the Missal of Paul VI. I agree. The bishops accepted the advice of the Counciliar periti and passed a document and approved texts but did not further educate themselves or their clergy. We have had forty years of priests who have not studied or been held accountable for following the GIRM.
Indeed, priests are servants, but not of the Lord, they are servants of the people. They are supposed to MINISTER to the needs of the assembly when they preside. They are supposed to lead the people praying, not put on their own show. How they can claim to serve without learning their trade shows tremendous vanity, and I have experienced this from both progressives and traditionalists.
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GMG: If I read SP correctly, NO ONE is OBLIGATED to attend Tridentine Mass EVER. Free choice. So what’s the problem?
That’s precisely the problem: parishes where the priest decides arbitrarily that one or more masses per weekend will henceforward be in the EF, thus alienating parishioners who do not want that form of celebration and who are not able to attend masses at other times. The only option left is not to attend at all, or suffer a priest imposing his own personal tastes on his people.
I can think of a number of parishes in this country where this is precisely the situation, and some where there are no more OF masses at all — all because of SP.
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Summorum Pontificum only allows one EF Mass per Sunday. Either I’m misunderstanding your point or you’re exaggerating a bit. Besides, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a priest ran people off because of his liturgical impositions.
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Paul;
I suppose they have to then drive 150 or 200 miles to find an OF Mass? That would be irony of the highest degree…
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A number of parishes that have moved to EF only? Which parishes would those be? I don’t believe it.
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#69: I thought I was only pointing out the obvious, that is the Pope can and does choose among the ‘legal options’ the same as any Bishop &/or priest of the Roman Rite/Usage. His particular choices in his particular situation bind no one else in a different circumstance of time or place. That is why the options were put there in the first place — to adapt the Divine Liturgy to its time and place and other circumstances of celebration. What I was questioning was the ‘copying of his choices’ as somehow an ‘ideal format’ applicable outside of his own particular time and circumstances.
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For the benefit of those who weren’t around at the time, what happened between 1964 and 1967 was a liturgical revolution without parallel in the history of the Catholic Church. To find anything like it, you would need to look at the protestant Reformation, particularly events in England from 1548 to 1555. Like that revolution it was imposed from above. The laity were not consulted (that goes without saying) and many of the bishops were uneasy, including John Carmel Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster. However, there was a culture of obedience in those days, and the best that was available was damage-limitation; Cardinal Heenan insisted that the daily Capitular Mass at his cathedral be sung in Latin at the high altar, and so it was until his death in 1976.
Before the Council, there were plenty of lapsed Catholics, but no-one lapsed because the Mass was in Latin, and many said it was the one thing that they missed. But I know of quite a few who don’t attend Mass nowadays because they can’t stomach kindergarten “liturgies” and music which is inferior to most advertising jingles.
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John Nolan: “. . . a liturgical revolution without parallel in the history of the Catholic Church.”
Uhm. . . the first four centuries of the Common Era? The Carolingian impositions of the ninth century? The suppression of the local rites and uses in 1570?
Liturgical revolutions. Parallels.
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“The only option left is not to attend at all, or suffer a priest imposing his own personal tastes on his people”. (Paul Inwood, above). I rest my case.
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John;
As I commented to Paul above… surely they can find an OF Mass within a 200 mile range. EF Mass goers have been doing that for some 45 years now…
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If in my small country town parish the priest were to celebrate Sunday Mass in EF only, contrary to the preferences of a substantial number of the parishioners, some would try to attend Mass elsewhere, However, as the area is aging, fewer among us are able to drive and there is no public transport on Saturday evenings or Sundays.
The priests have the laity over a barrel.
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surely they can find an OF Mass within a 200 mile range
I’m sure they can — as long as they’re not living in the Channel islands, for example. But that is scarcely a pastoral way of dealing with the problem. At the moment, the only people in my diocese who can’t find an EF Mass within 40 miles are those who live on those very same islands.
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Mr. Inwood, you wrote:
I can think of a number of parishes in this country where this is precisely the situation, and some where there are no more OF masses at all — all because of SP.
Where are these parishes (note the plural)?
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Sorry, Jeffrey Pinyan. I will try to write “complete” sentences. But, you did correctly get my sense. Read my comment – #91 – I think it meets your editorial needs.
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[TAP #70 MM You still have not even attempted to explain why 40 years of disagreement from the traditionalists is good but that present disagreement from academic experts is not.]
Because the goal of the traditionalist’s protest was to
do what is good…. upholding the Church’s traditional
teachings and practices.What is the goal of the current “academic” disagreement?
Is it to uphold the Church’s traditional teachings and practices?
If so, I think there would be no problem.
But that isn’t really their point, is it?.
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Cody: There is a difference between evolution and revolution which seems to have escaped you. And you know well that the 1570 reform respected local uses with a pedigree of only 200 years, most of which differed from the Roman use only in detail. By the way, people who use CE in preference to AD are making a political statement as well as advertising the fact that they are probably not historians.
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CE has become very common among professional historians in the last generation. AD can be a polemical statement, too.
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AD can be a polemical statement, too.
It certainly can be. The Cross is a scandal to non-believers. But we are all Christians here, and don’t stop being so when talk turns to history.
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Robert
So let’s not fake it that CE is necessarily polemical while AD is necessarily not, that’s all. Either can be polemical, and either need not be.
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Just trying to point out that “polemical” isn’t categorically evil. Use of AD is a Christian’s way of proclaiming that Jesus is Lord of time also. It’s not neutral to use AD — and that’s a good thing. As Christians we’re not called to be neutral.
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Yes, and my point stands.
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Only comments with a full name will be approved.
[TAP #70 MM You still have not even attempted to explain why 40 years of disagreement from the traditionalists is good but that present disagreement from academic experts is not.]
Because the goal of the traditionalist’s protest was to
do what is good…. upholding the Church’s traditional
teachings and practices.
What is the goal of the current “academic” disagreement?
Is it to uphold the Church’s traditional teachings and practices?
If so, I think there would be no problem.
But that isn’t really their point, is it?
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Can you actually not see the subjectivity and bias in your reply? You define what you like as good and conclude that the means are justified. You then decide that the same means are not justified for use by others who are just as sure that what they like is good.
I am willing to grant your right of conscience to decide to act for what you think is good.
I insist that you are being unjust and oppressive to condemn others for acting in the same manner on the basis of their consciences.
Also, this discussion is still about a mere translation and one that has not yet been published or required to be used, so opposing it is far less serious than opposing the Missal of Paul VI after it was in use.
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CE is PC. AD is not.
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Actually, AD is just as politically correct in a different wing of writers.
That is, people who make a fuss to use AD instead of CE are being politically correct for their ideological framework. Shibboleths know no ideological boundary. It’s not only lefties who have them, but righties, no less.
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How is it that insisting on using AD is “making a fuss”. We were using AD for centuries before people started using CE. Karl thinks that insisting on AD is only from political motives.
Sounds like a perfect analogy for our current liturgical struggles. Those who want the EF are merely working from their political motive in spite of the fact that it was around long before the OF.
A lot of people were just fine with AD before someone had to go change it. It’s the same issue for the liturgy.
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“A lot of people were just fine with AD” — just as a lot of people are fine with atheists saying In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti when conferring degrees in Oxford. Retaining Christian diction without Christian substance can be poisonous.
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Why the big deal about this? In Church circles, use AD. In secular matters, use CE, which does not require even the tiniest bit of a ‘confession’ on the part of non-Christian folk. Are we that insecure? Sure, you can call it PC, and in some ways it is, but if you stand in a slightly different spot, it’s being aware and respectful of other people’s point of view. Is that not one of the ways we show our love for others? Or did I miss something?
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Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists, in religious contexts, use their religious dates, so I think Christians would appropriately use AD in those contexts. But in academic works, which is where CE and BCE are most likely to occur, it is better to stick to this now established convention.
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