Local clergy not expecting big demand for ‘Dominus vobiscum’
BETH PRATT
A-J RELIGION EDITOR
The Latin Mass is unlikely to generate a lot of interest in the United States for several reasons, according to Catholic clergy in Lubbock.
The announcement or church permission, called indult, [NO! NO! NOT AND INDULT! The Motu Proprio does something quite different. It doesn’t create an exception. It declares that the faculties priests have are far wider than they were previously considered to be.] released in July by Pope Benedict XVI, is about church unity, Rodriguez said. It is the bishop’s call to learn whether a Latin Mass is needed in his diocese. [NO! NO! NOT UP TO THE BISHOP! The provisions of Summorum Pontificum say that the PASTOR of a parish makes this decision.]
"I will study it and see if there is a pastoral need for a Tridentine Latin Mass," he said. [I hope he does study. But the fact remains that the parish priest is the point man for this.]
The bishop can still say Mass in Latin, [Just read that statement and think about it for a while.] "although you get rusty. I had plenty of it for years and years in Chicago. For our parish priests to conduct a Latin Mass, they would have to train and be tested. [TESTED? Here is that old testing canard again. This oozes with a negatively biased double-standard. Are there going to be tests for men saying the newer Mass too? Let’s see if they actually no what they are doing and understand what they are saying.] What is important to me is that through the document of the pope, he is affirming the validity of the Tridentine Mass, a bridge, as equally sacred as the ordinary way now in the new order." [Just think about that last phrase. Could there be a doubt?] The pope’s motive has to do with trying to maintain Christian unity with very traditional Catholics who prefer the Mass all in Latin, he said. [This is not a terribly profound way of interpreting the Holy Father’s motive.]
"We don’t have many of those people here. We don’t know Latin. The newer generation of priests didn’t study it."
Tridentine Mass • The Tridentine Mass was celebrated for almost 1,500 years throughout the church. The name comes from the 16th-century Council of Trent. Parts of the Tridentine Mass date back to the sixth century. • Along with the reforms made by the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965, the introduction of the new Mass in the language of the people was approved to make it more understandable and accessible to congregants. Some see the revival of the tradition as a signal that the pope’s sympathies are with the more conservative Catholics. • Celebrated entirely in Latin except for a few phrases in Greek and Hebrew, the Tridentine Mass is celebrated by the priest with his back to the congregation. [GGRRRRR…..] |
So far, the bishop has not had any requests for a Latin Mass in the Lubbock diocese. [I wonder if that is really the case.]
"It is not so much applicable to the U.S. as it is for Europe [ROFL!] where the archbishop broke away," Rodriquez said.
The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a French bishop traditionalist who took the lead in opposing changes and reforms made by the Second Vatican Council in 1962, continued to conduct [second time that word is used, hmmm] Mass in Latin rather than in the vernacular, which means the language of the people.
Lefebvre founded a traditionalist Catholic priestly society in 1970, called St. Pius X. In 1988, he consecrated four bishops to continue his work before he died in 1991 at the age of 86.
Lefebvre consecrated the four bishops without permission from Pope John Paul II and as a result was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. [This article is poorly written.]
Rodriguez noted that there has been confusion between the Tridentine Mass and the use of Latin.
"It’s not a completely different liturgy," he said. "We still use Latin in song and the Gregorian chant."
The Rev. David Cruz, pastor of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, was not sure at first how to interpret the media reports of the document coming from Rome.
"Now that the ancient tradition has been revived, my feeling is that it is not apt to diminish the way that the majority of Catholics in our country worship today," Cruz said. "It is just another means to celebrate the Eucharist, but that the way we celebrate it now is just as meaningful, just as beautiful, just as sacred to us."
As a pastor, he has not had any comment or request for a Latin rite. [Look what happens when sloppy terms are thrown around.]
"Overall, believers ought not to infer that this revival of the Latin rite is meant in any way to suggest that the way we worship now is any less beautiful. Sometimes we think that because something was done centuries ago that it carries some kind of sacred quality."
If that were the case, he noted, "the original Eucharist was in homes, informal settings [By which he means to say that the early Christians treated Mass informally? What a load of….]
The Latin rite "is not even a blip on the radar screen of most people I know," he added. "Most are happy with the way they worship. ... I can’t see us going back to the way it was done centuries ago."
Monsignor Ben Kasteel, rector at Christ the King Cathedral, said that some of the church’s concerns about Mass in the vernacular is really more about the quality of the translations from the Latin. [This is one of the most intelligent statements in this article.]
That Rome might have questions about a more contemporary worship style and how it might have found its way into corrupting the essentials of the Mass is not surprising, he said.
These concerns might have something to do with the pope’s giving more visibility to the Latin rite Mass. Whereas with the Tridentine Mass, the movements and gestures are clearly prescribed and recognized for their uniformity wherever Catholics worship in the world, the fear is that the Mass in the vernacular may result in "deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear," according to a document Kasteel provided addressing such questions. [The writers are entirely CLUELESS. What is this, a high school newspaper?]
The mandate from the Second Vatican Council for the renewal of the Sacred Liturgy is in the Constitution on the Liturgy, No. 50, in which the writers decreed that:
"The Order of Mass is to be revised in a way that will bring out more clearly the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, ... and will more readily achieve the devout, active participation of the faithful." [for heaven’s sake… talk about cherry-picking a quote.]
To the question of whether the new norms will cause division in parishes among those who favor the Latin rite and those who prefer the post-1962 rite, the pope is said to view those concerns as unfounded.
To comment on this story:
beth.pratt@lubbockonline.com 766-8724
shelly.gonzales@lubbockonline.com 766-8747
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Welcome to the inaugural installment of What Does the (Latin) Prayer Really Sound Like? 
ST. 
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