More and more I’ve been musing, under the shadow of shifting demographics and the Church’s self-devastation wrought by those in the stratosphere of power, about the short and long term of the Novus Ordo and TLM. I’ve been wondering if, sooner than we think, we will see a massive increase in the use of the Extraordinary Form and priests who want to celebrated it.
In the end, will the TLM be the predominant form? A couple years ago, I scoffed at the idea. Now, I am not so sure. A new factor in the mix is the utterly shocked environment which has resulted from those in power around Francis, including The Present Crisis. Now we see that Rome has hamstrung the USCCB on the eve of their meeting. People are rather pissed off about that and rightly so. It’s like the term in Italian, “auto-goal” used in soccer for when you score a point against your own team. To continue for a moment with sports, it’s really hard to win games when you have your own hands squeezing your own neck.
Moving along, I regularly text with a priest who wants to learn the TLM, but is hampered by the lack of Latin. He has gotten to the point where he has a strong desire to acquire what the TLM can give him as a priest. Alas, the Latin is an obstacle.
Those lib bastards in Catholic schools and priestly formation during and after the Council (read: “new springtime!”) really knew what they doing when they crushed Latin. May they burn slowly in the deepest cinders of hell, if that is where they wound up. The damage they did to the entire Church is impossible to evaluate.
I get email from priests all the time asking about Latin resources. Why? Because they want to learn the TLM but they are intimidated by the language. They are frustrated.
Imagine yourself standing in front of the newly discovered massive door to a wondrous treasure to which someone, years ago, took away the key and then lied to you about its existence. And you know that that treasure belongs to you by right. It is your patrimony.
My first advice to these good men is to put yourselves in the shoes of those altar boys of so many centuries: just start learning the prayers and responses by rote… at first. You have to get your tongue around them and your ears tuned up. More and more will come in time, I promise. I had made some audio resources once upon a time and I can make more. Try HERE.
Shifting gears, but not really, I have also seen an upswing in articles from folks who go to the TLM either for the first time or who are starting to get into it.
For example, today at Crisis I read an interesting piece.
Millennials, Authenticity and the Latin Mass
My wife and I have recently started regularly attending our local Latin Mass in the Extraordinary Form. We took our two young boys one Sunday in July, shortly after the news of Theodore McCarrick’s sins jumpstarted the current round of clergy sex scandals. We had previously attended about once a year just to mix it up, but since July we have gone every other week and now three weeks in four. We may switch permanently.
The antiquity of the Mass contrasts with the youth of the congregation. […]
My wife and I are Millennials. Like most of my cohort, I exclusively attended the Novus Ordo in English growing up. My wife converted from Evangelical Protestantism during college. Yet we are poised to join a puzzling trend of modern American Catholicism: the small but growing set of Millennials finding a home in the Mass of Trent.
This confuses our bishops and elders. Catholicism, they say, should make itself more understandable to the modern world. […]
But the young families I have met almost completely lack such pretense. They do not consider themselves better or seek some false comfort. They acknowledge they are sinners living in a sinful world—indeed, that’s what makes them seek out the old rites. They engage the modern world around them, hold down ordinary jobs, cheer for the same sports teams, and spend their weekends doing ordinary modern things. But they share a particular priority: To raise children in twenty-first century America while remaining authentically Catholic.
Millennials and “authenticity” go together. Brand managers speak of a brand being “authentic” to itself or its corporate values to draw in Millennial consumers. Workplace gurus teach older generations how to be “authentic” around Millennials to attract and keep good young employees. Millennials themselves discuss seeking “authenticity” and meaning in their lives and often do so through their choices in consumption, such as by buying locally sourced food produced by old techniques, local craft beer and liquors, handmade products, and “artisanal” goods.
[…]
There’s quite a bit more, and I would like to have a discussion with this young man about a couple of his points. However, he nailed it pretty well.
What I also found interesting is, in his first paragraph, a reference to The Present Crisis.
It is all of a piece, isn’t it?
Priests and lay people… authenticity.
I read at Sandro Magister’s place today a piece which brings the move of Francis and the Congregation of Bishops to gut the USCCB’s efforts at “synodality” after we hear endless harping about giving more over to conferences. And yet this is what they do. This was brought side by side with what Francis did to the Chinese. Rather than listen to people in China, he moved monarchically.
It is all of a piece.
The writer of the piece about the TLM wants authenticity. But if all policy (including liturgical) is coming from an environment now dominated by lawyers and insurance companies who, out of terror of lawsuits and bad press micromanage everything, the last thing that the institutional Church of chanceries and curias will produce is authenticity.
It is all of a piece.
You lay readers have strong influence. Get organized. Find friendly priests. Form base communities and get to it.
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A friend of mine, without a lick of Latin went into the Choir loft and with no practice was thrown right into Gregorian chant and a crash course in Latin and has been welcomed despite his status as clueless.. He’s figuring it out as he goes and well not knowing a language shouldn’t be an obstacle if you can at least read words! Jump in and just do the best you can! It’s like the old saying: how does one eat an elephant? Answer, one bite at a time!
encouragement is needed, remind the young priests that it will also help with other languages, especially spanish!
we need to be able to reverently say both forms of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! my reasoning is due partly to the fact that, in our diocese, the list of those credibly accused have names of more than a few who knew the Mass well (tdl) & abused… in addition, the 2 most recently accused & awaiting trial are both men who were tdl.
this is a crisis of a lack of prayerfulness, humility and abuse of power/pride… no matter where one is on the so-called left/right, the place we all need to be is on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament & in the confessional!
Father Z., I believe the move to Latin exclusively will occur within 20 years. I pray I live to see the day.
Fathers should just jump in after listening to your tutorials. So what if they pronounce a few words oddly. Our Lord and His Mother will smile down on him and many graces will flow.
Thanks for all your work toward the restoration. Hundreds of years from now Catholic graduate students in theology will be analyzing your blog as they write their dissertations for the effect it had on the faithful in the first two decades of the new millennium. The cause for your being declared blessed might even occur…
I have mentioned it before, but The Great Courses has a Latin 101 course in video. It is available for free through many libraries with the Hoopla app, and for a cheap price as part of the Amazon Prime video channel from the Great Courses. (More expensively from the company webpag e, but then you own it.)
The pronunciation is Classical instead of Church Latin, but it is a very good course and very accessible.
I was blessed to be able to attend TLMs offered by a priest who had studied Latin and was proficient so I knew what it sounded like. Especially when reading a long Epistle or Gospel at a low Mass.
I also attended a Mass offered by a priest who was learning the TLM. I don’t know if he knew Latin beforehand but I could sense he was struggling with the language at that Mass. Even so, for me it did not detract from the holiness of the Mass.
A few years later I attended another Mass offered by this priest. His Latin rolled off his tongue as if he had been using it all his ordained life!
Fathers, do not be discouraged! Just keep doing it. Parish priests, use the EF as your private Mass on days you do not have a parish Mass!
Dear Father,
My family and I attend a wonderful parish. We have confession before and after every Mass, every day of the week. The average family size is probably 4 kids. Our priests are good and holy men from a Spanish religious order who are pursuing lives of virtue. I do find the TLM to be beautiful and attractive, but very foreign. I wish we would switch to a Latin N.O., for the beauty and continuity but keeping the readings in the vernacular for our children’s sake (and ours).
(N.B. My siblings and I were dragged to Latin Mass as teenagers after my parents quit our local parish after an abusive priest attacked my mom, so I do probably associate the 2 hour round trip and the whole sad situation with that traumatic period in our family’s faith life.)
That being said – and here is the crux of my comment – if Rome were to suggest tomorrow that all priests cease praying the TLM and return to exclusively celebrating the NO, I would take that as sure sign to get myself to the TLM parish ASAP, or to beg our good priests to make the switch to celebrating the TLM. That’s where I’m at as a Catholic right now.
The Latin is an obstacle, even for good priests trying to do better.
It would be wonderful to have an approved form of the EF in English. Both the Mass and the Rituale.
The Anglican Use is a true gem, as is the Eastern Church’s Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in the vernacular.
Could someone create some sort of a clearing house so priests desiring to learn more Latin could be put in touch with qualified people willing to tutor them. I have taught Latin and Greek for almost thirty years and would be glad to help a couple of priests with private tutorials via e-mail or such. Perhaps Fr. Z. could play matchmaker in much the same way that he has managed “birettas for seminarians” etc.
This isn’t even one that we can blame on the Council. It’s the fault of the hierarchy afterwards.
Sacrosanctom Conncilium: “36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.”
And para. 54 “Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.”.
Not even the most “conservative” bishop would dare to take the steps necessary to ensure that every participant at mass on a given Sunday could say the responses in Latin.
After many years of – first supervising the first Traditional Mass in the Bronx – and then traveling throughout New York City to attend various TLMs, I am now lucky enough to live near the Queens parish that celebrates the TLM every Sunday, on Holy Days, 1st Fridays etc. I feel like I am living in a dream. My teenage son is one of many young people who attend this Mass enthusiastically. This blessing is the best reason I can think of for staying in NYC!
Other parishes in Queens and the Bronx that I sometimes attend, that just celebrate the NO, are almost empty with mostly people in their 70’s. They recognize there is a problem and are looking for “new” ways to attract attendees. I always suggest the TLM – but they think art shows and ‘self-awareness” conferences are the answer. At some of these NO masses you could swing a baseball bat and not hit a parishioner.
No doubt the TLM is the (very near) future of the Church and that the demographics are very much on our side!
Charles
There are several reasons I think that the EF will become dominant in the future (at least in the US, can’t speak for other areas):
-Procreation. Trads have babies, usually in greater numbers than mainstream Catholics. The WWII generation and baby-boomers can’t have any more children, and they demographically dominate NO parishes in the US. You will usually find a couple big families in each NO parish, but not enough to stem the looming demographic disaster.
– Catechesis. NO parishes and schools in the US have an abysmal track record of training and retaining Catholics. Many US trad Catholics were raised NO and may not have been given good catechesis as children, but they tend to receive good catechesis in the homilies given at the EF Mass, and this tends to spur them to research their faith more as adults. Trads tend to steer toward meatier catechisms from the past, which give logical reasons for faith in the midst of a depraved world. Much of NO catechesis emphasizes the love and mercy of God, but fails to provide reasons for the existence of God, evil, and suffering. In short, many NO-raised Catholics are spiritually neglected by their pastors and teachers to the point that their faith is shallow and does not hold up to the inevitable waves of trouble that adult life sends them. Lest anyone think that I say these things out of pride, I was raised as a NO Catholic, and Catholic schooled. I didn’t know the differences between mortal and venial sin until my early 20s, I had never heard an exposition of the reasons for belief, didn’t know why contraception was forbidden or how to make a proper examination of conscience, didn’t know that the Latin Mass still existed, and watched the majority of my Catholic friends fall away from the Church as adults (we are in our 30s). When I came face to face with grief and my own weakness as a young adult, I had to claw my way back to faith, learning as I went.
-Authenticity. The EF Mass communicates the reality of the human condition, and the salvation Christ won for us in a radical way that the NO typically does not. The priests may or may not be holier than NO priests, but their personalities are much farther removed from the spotlight in the EF, and that guards the faithful in a way. The EF also developed over a long period of time, in an organic way. The NO was developed in a hurried and dishonest manner, with the principal architects having ulterior motives that did not have to do with upholding the deposit of the faith. The NO is very much a product of a particular generation, and in that sense it is already outdated. In a very real way, the EF is engineered towards the worship of God while the NO is susceptible to be more oriented toward the worship of man. The young who didn’t have a dog in the Vatican II fight, but had to grow up with the fallout of its’ reforms and the destruction of the sexual revolution, are more easily able to see the authenticity of the EF Mass.
-Beauty. There are aspects of beauty that transcend time and cultural differences, because they are based on characteristics of God. These universal characteristics are more frequently found in the EF.
-Challenge. The EF challenges Catholics to become better Catholics, better men, and it treats God in an honest manner. He is more than friend. He is all-just, all-merciful, terrifying and gorgeous, and nothing escapes His gaze or care. The NO tends to approach the Lord as more of a drinking buddy than savior and judge.
Based on the demographics of the typical NO parishes and EF parishes, and on the types of clerics Francis is promoting, it appears to me that we are approaching peak conflict in the Church between the generations malformed by the errors of modernism and the youth who are rediscovering the treasures of the faith.( I am not overlooking the boomers and gen x-ers who have made it out of the matrix, but they frequently have a more difficult time finding their way out) Things look like they are going to get much worse before they get better.
Father, totally with you on your frustrations. But all I see are silver linings for the TLM and future of Catholicism, and I don’t care how much that intimidates any liberal Catholics. I also think we should be as open and sharing about the TLM as possible and not fear any “You Trads” comments by those who fear fearing God.
We want to move to Fargo ND and I need to pray Rosary novena(s) in petition for a traditional Church there. Our current Church in Littleton is a gold mine and leaving our Church will be the hardest part about moving.
Louis Tofari over at Romanitas Press has lots of resources for learning the Latin of the Mass. He also can come to your parish and train you.
http://www.romanitaspress.com/latin-training-resources
When my son had to take a crash course to learn to serve for Low Mass in just two months, we were able to get an mp3 from him that had all the prayers pronounced. I can’t find it listed on his site, but anyone could contact him and ask what he’s got. Perhaps if there was enough demand, he could get something out there ASAP.
It is so helpful to be able to just listen to the prayers in Latin over and over on an iPod, etc. They start to sink in and become part of you…
The problem isn’t Latin. It is that learning any foreign language (except, maybe Spanish) has been discouraged in many secondary schools for a long while. It is not hard to learn Latin if one knows French, Spanish, Italian, or even German. Besides, all one really needs to do to say Mass in Latin is to learn to pronounce the words correctly. If one has a Latin-English translation, one can get the sense of the words, over time, by reading the English before saying Mass. Not perfect, but it will allow a priest to say the Latin Mass with some understanding that will get better, over time. Latin is not a hard language to read out loud. That is where things should start.
On the other hand, I smell a perfectly good opportunity for a YouTube channel :)
The Chicken
The traditional Mass is truly the actualization of the Faith. It is the whole Catholic Faith in action. I was in my late 30s the first time I attended one, and it felt uncomfortable in the beginning; but then it opened my eyes. For the first time, my Catholic faith made sense on a deeper level. I learned more about the Faith from one traditional Mass than I learned in 12 years of Catholic school. And of course after being exposed to the traditional Mass, I could not see the new Mass the same way anymore.
The new Mass is full of the spirit of the world. It is changeable. It is noisy. It is shorn of the transcendent. It lends itself too easily to the whims and egos of individual celebrants. If you have been taught what the Mass really is, and Whose act it is, then sitting in the pew at the new Mass is like trying to see a beautiful landscape through a grimy window, or trying to listen to a symphony through the racket of a teenaged garage band, or trying to watch a Shakespeare play while somebody gets between you and the stage and does a fourth-rate night-club comedy act. The disconnect between the outward manifestation and the inner supernatural reality is really painful. Yes, it’s valid: God did not allow His Church to be deprived of a valid Mass. But we shouldn’t be just shooting for mere validity. I have been hoping for years for the complete disappearance of the new Mass, and I still hope for it.
I;m a nothing and a nobody. I’m learning to say the Ave Maria in Latin. Learning very slowly as I try to make sure the Latin words become the same in meaning in English. Very slowly but I’ll get there in the end. And then the Pater Noster is next.
ok, here goes:
In general I am on the same page with Fr. Z and most readers of this blog. I deeply love Latin and the Extraordinary Form, and attend it frequently. I was already going to what was called the Tridentine Mass back in the 80s when I was a teenager…and not with my parents, who didn’t prefer it. However, these dayd I find I’m skeptical that simply going to 100% Extraordinary Form will be some magic recipe for restoration of the Church and the Liturgy. [Who has made that claim around here?] There were real, systemic problems before the Council, and the excesses and abuses of the post-conciliar reforms do not change that. The “low Mass” mentality is still with us in the Novus Ordo abuses…singing liturgically unrelated, emotional hymns instead of chanted propers, for instance. Doing as little music as possible. Not teaching the people to sing the Latin chants. Getting though Mass as quickly as possible. Not using incense, etc.
I find no credible justification for reading the epistle and Gospel silently at the altar and having people following along in a hand Missal, [Then you missed one of the explanations here on this blog, riffing from something Peter Kwasniewski wrote about it.] nor for giving a sermon demoralizing people for their sinfulness, [Why are you blaming that on the Extraordinary Form?] then plodding through a section of the Baltimore catechism or the number of ways to offend God by breaking the 10 commandments without relating it to the Gospel of that day. [Why are you blaming that on the Extraordinary Form? Why MUST the sermon concern the Gospel reading?](I am not saying this happens everywhere, and I am not arguing that reminding people of their sinfulness is wrong, just not in a demoralizing way. I have heard young, tradition-loving priests completely skip talking about the Gospel and berate the congregation instead more than once). [What does that have to do with the Extraordinary Form?] I find no justification for “holier than though” priestly attitude in the confessional… [What does that have to do with the Extraordinary Form?]I have personally experienced a priest ask me in the confessional with a tone of disdain, not loving inquiry for a more thorough confession: “you didn’t do xxx, did you?” These are the things that my parents’ generation are still worried about and hurt by. And they get in the way of authentic renewal. [Sheesh.]
Here’s how I see it: indeed, drink deeply from the wells of the Church’s great Tradition; chant the propers; use Latin to connect with the generations that have gone before and the universality of the Church; BUT…also use the vernacular, especially in the changeable parts of the Mass; proclaim the readings to the people in their own language (at least on most days–chanting the Gospel in Latin on Easter or Christmas or a Sunday solemn Mass could be wonderful); preach on the Gospel of the day and then work in larger catechetical issues into that beginning; restore ad orientem liturgy especially in the prayers addressed to God, but face the people when prayers or texts are addressed to them (the readings and the orate fratres, for example); priests and people should actually pray the prayers in the right posture rather than sitting down during a Gloria or Creed–I was at a church recently where the Gloria setting was the 2-minute Latin setting from the OF missal and the priest sat down only to get up 30 seconds later!; they should actually pray the prayers being sung rather than race ahead to get through the Eucharistic Prayer while the Sanctus is still being sung; priests might actually wait for the repsonse from the people instead of racing through a mumbled “orate fratres…murmur, murmur” and turning around before even finishing the invitation to pray.
I guess in summary, my thought is this: pre-conciliar abuses are not the answer to post-conciliar abuses. Nor are pre-conciliar abuses a reason not to use the EF. I think authentic rediscovery of the liturgy is often hindered by uncritical restorationism. None of these suggestions prevents a full, beautiful, deeply traditional celebration of the Sacred Liturgy in an authentic way in either the EF or the OF. And it seems they are also completely in line with a proper reading of Sacrosanctum Concilium.
@Gab – I am like you. I have taught myself the Ave Maria, Glory Be, Sign of Cross. I, too, am working on the Our Father. I find it harder to learn, retain to memory, but I am getting through it. I believe we will make it!
Father Z – not that the two are ANYWHERE near equal; but I think you may have also hit upon the root as to why the Morse Code remains so popular in Amateur Radio, despite the best efforts to get rid of it. It’s the authenticity.
Conjugate those Latin Verbs!!!
I have had the same feeling that the TLM will be the “last man standing” of the Mass forms. I would have considered myself to be a conservative Catholic who loves the Latin Mass on occasion. But something has changed — I really see the relationship between the shaky, unstable doctrine that some want to propose and the variable OF liturgy. Furthermore, the present situation is so grave that the Latin Mass has become my only solace. My family is blessed to have access to it.
Gab and PMK, similarly, my wife and I taught outselves the prayers in Latin. You can do it too! Persevere!! (The prayer to the Archangel Michael in Latin gallops! Our fine host here has a recording of it somewheres.) A suggestion from a friend of ours; for five and six syllable words such as, ‘consubstantialem’, or ‘conglorificatur’, she suggests reading the last syllable, then the last two, the last three and so on. She is spot on! Also I’ve read, “focus on pronouncing the vowels”. How long have the Fair Penelope and I been at this? I think two years or so. Now in my morning prayers, the “Domine Jesu Christi, qui dixisti: Petite, et accipeitis;…” “Ask, and ye shall receive” is in memory. Stepping out of English and into the Latin…oh my….as Father Hunwicke often quotes from Christine Mohrmann, “Latin is a sacral language”. Keep your powder dry and have lots of powder.
Miss BEE, greetings from South Dakota.
I definitely agree that the loss of Latin education is a catastrophe in many many ways. Also I have noticed that if Latin is not used daily or at least weekly it becomes rusty quickly. Conclusion : to be in the life of the Church at all it needs to be a meaningful part of the liturgy.
Though I take strong exception to your comments on the extraordinary form. Whatever is the liturgical form of the future will have to have passed through the reform demanded by Sacrosanctum Concilium. So the missal of 1962 is not the future. This is very important. I think if you lose sight of this, you are going to stop playing the very valuable role of a link between normal Catholics with the liturgical tradition (for which the devil hates you very very much for). I really hope you remain part of the Church driving towards the future. *Many* traditionalists have hardened their stances considerably and sometimes very harmfully because of the current confusion. I really hope you don’t join them.
That said it is entirely possible that the current missal is not the future either. The Communauté Saint Martin at Evron in France are the closest to what I would see the Church’s liturgical future looking like, though they are lacking a few things still…
Now is not the time to panic and veer off course! Let’s keep the rudder firmly in hand and drive straight through the storm. The clouds are not nearly as thick as they seem.
HEY! If I did it in 4th grade, they can do it. 4 years serving in Latin the 4 years in English. Learned the translations from my St. Joseph Missal. The nuns instructing us to serve did the rest. I am sure that priests are a lot more intelligent than I was (am).
@dear Robert_Caritas how can you tell that the future of the church is not built on the Mass of Ages? Those of us who have clung ‘dangerously’ to the rudder of tradition have seen the church of new and nice (and ugly) crumbling before our eyes. It’s encouraging as it is terrifying. ‘When Christ returns will He find Faith upon the earth?’ We have watched the moral relativists dance in our sacred sanctuaries long enough. When you realize you missed the rock and built your church upon the sand you return to your foundation. You do not go searching for a new foundation (if you do you will find that it’s not the Catholic Church). This Mass, this tradition, is an integral part of our Faith, and it has been denied to us, by God, for our chastisement. Patience attains all things.
The “New Springtime” in the church isn’t the banal, hippy, hootenanny Mass that is personified in all the illicitness of the Novous Ordo. That was a serious rupture, and at least Pope Benedict XVI recognized that fact, and he gave us back the real Mass. The “New Springtime” of the church is the realization of Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z that there is something very wrong with a Mass, created by a generation that rejected authority, and have thus turned the church into their vision for the world- a chaotic, utilitarian, hedonistic, and communistic vision- “here in this place” and “not in some heaven light years away”. There is no organic evolution or understanding of the ritual. It was a blunt force trauma of out with the old and in with the new, and it is going to take a looooooong time to recover from it. The remnant of the church are those of us that are trying desperately to pick up the pieces and return to what we know to be right- As Christendom has had to do before, and the Israelites before that.
Maybe more people should be asking how and why an Argentine in Rome is hamstringing the efforts of the American Church? Is there any grass roots level movement towards the nationalization of the American Church, to take the power away from the effete foreigners who have caused all of these problems?
Maybe more people should be asking how and why an Argentine in Rome is hamstringing the efforts of the American Church? Is there any grass roots level movement towards the nationalization of the American Church, to take the power away from the effete foreigners who have caused all of these problems?
@MrsMacD I’m not sure you understand my position. I don’t disagree with you on everything. That said the missal of 1962 is not « the Mass of the age », it is the missal of 1962. The true mass of the ages is any celebration of the mass in the Roman rite which is in harmony with liturgical tradition. I highly encourage you to google a bit the Communauté Saint Martin to see pictures of the Mass of the ages celebrated in the OF.
I’ll restate the simple reason why it is 100% sure that the missal of 1962 is *not* tommorrow’s missal. VII demanded a reform + VII is an ecumenical council = it is theologically certain that the mass of the future will be a reformed version of the Roman rite. To refuse this is to break with Church teaching. This is not an option for Catholics, at all.
Though have you read the constitution on the sacred liturgy? It demands the majority of the mass in Latin, Gregorian chant, and a very conservative and traditional attitude to all liturgical changes. Saint Martin are possibly the closest to a true implementation of the reform of VII. Though we have yet to see the mass of the third millenium. It will be both deeply ancient and new in surprising but deeply meaningful respects. That the fantasy of the EF becoming normative is spreading, even in highly educated minds, is worrying (especially that zero arguments are brought up for this deep theological change of heart, just « things are crazier », which seems like an entirely emotional reaction — human, but very wrong), and probably a sign of a future schism…
The Mass has to be in Latin. It’s a dead language so nobody can CHANGE meanings. Imagine that.
Look, we were not raised with Latin. We have been attending the EF for about four or five years. I knew no Latin at all. Now I can read a lengthy prayer with very little hesitation, because once you learn the pronunciations it’s as easy as any other language to learn. After awhile it flows.
I can’t stress this enough, whatever you need to do, do it! The laity respect and appreciate priests who say the Extraordinary Form.
I couldn’t guess about Extraordinary Form becoming ordinary again, but I’m saddened to admit I find the biological solution to liturgical abuse a likely means of resolution to abuses in the Ordinary Form.
I say “saddened to admit” because I think a lot of loosely attached Catholics will fall away in the process, because they were never well catechized, or even have been catechized to view tradition with suspicion. Maybe in the long run, though, a more authentic Church will ultimately gain more members than she loses.
For those trying to learn their Latin prayers at home, Pro Multis Media has a Latin Rosary DVD that taught my kids their prayers. You can put the subtitles in English or Latin.
https://www.shop.promultismedia.net/The-Traditional-Latin-Rosary-DVD-LR-DVD.htm
I know many with an acute allergy to Latin, people who get angry at the mention of the word (really). How to cure that?
[You don’t. You just keep moving forward.]
@Robert_Caritas if the second varican council was not meant to alter doctrine, as Pope Paul IV said, then she can be dispensed with without ‘rupture’. She was a pastoral council that failed to be pastoral. Jesus told us how to tell if something was from God or not. “By their fruits you shall know them.” Frankly the fruits are bad, namely mass apostacy and loss of Faith, whole convents and monasteries were emptied, broken statues, ugly art, bad fruit.
If you’re really motivated, I recommend Hans Orberg’s Lingua Latina books. He uses the “natural method”. Also, Dr John Pepino at the FSSP Seminary in Nebraska, holds an annual retreat for priests wishing to brush up on speaking latin. Great teacher. HERE
[Ørberg is what I started out with, lo those many years ago.]
MrsMacD says: 15 November 2018 at 6:10 PM @Robert_Caritas if the second varican council was not meant to alter doctrine, as Pope Paul IV said, then she can be dispensed with without ‘rupture’. She was a pastoral council that failed to be pastoral.
I would add that even if VII was once pastoral it now fails to be pastoral. Whatever problems VII tried to solve remain unsolved or worsened.
Analogously: if a new pasture turns out to be full of poison weeds, then the good pastor moves his flock back onto the old pasture until he figures out where to go. VII is as weedy as hell.
Does that mean the pre-VII pasture was perfect? Of course not, because the pre-VII pasture contained within it the seeds of VII! Still, moving back’s a good start. We’ll probably find that on returning to the pre-VII pasture a lot of those bad old weeds died out and no longer blight the green. As for cleaning up where we’re at? Impossible. If we pulled all the weeds out of the VII pasture there would be nothing left but scorched earth.
Whatever remains healthy in the Church today is a pre-VII relic, surviving despite VII. Whatever is unhealthy in the Church today was either germinated by VII or has been well-fertilized by VII.
Good bye VII, and good riddance. You were a disaster. The Church’s worst enemy couldn’t have done better. Don’t let the door hit your tambourine on the way out.
I am sure that American readers of this blog are familiar with the Consumer Products Safety Commission, which issues recalls of defective products. If there were a Liturgical Products Fruitfulness Commission, the Novus Ordo mass would be recalled as a defective consumer product. It “works”, but its numerous regrettable aspects do not contribute to the spiritual development of those who attend it.
The Latin that is used in the mass simply is not that difficult to learn. I have no particular facility for languages, and nothing bores me more than trying to memorize vocabulary. Latin grammar, on the other hand, I found fascinating, because it showed me that there was more than one good way to do something (a novel idea to a fourteen year old). Yet I did well in Latin in ninth grade at a public school, and in tenth grade at a Catholic school run by the Christian Brothers. (I had to leave the public school system to get away from the pervert teachers who gave boys $5 in the bathroom in the 1960s). When I served as an altar boy, I knew what every word of the Latin was doing.
Father Hunwicke, just today:
“Lovely! The Latin Mass Society has just sent me a copy of their ORDO for 2019. And, on the inside back cover, they show an advert for a book by one of those pre-Conciliar Papalist Anglicans.
In 1955, an Anglican Catholic priest, Hugh Ross Williamson, wrote a The Great Prayer about the Canon of the Mass, the First Eucharistic Prayer. Here is an extract from the Introduction.
“To know the prayer which accompanies the action is to know the Faith. And the Faith is the faith of the whole, undivided Church, before schisms had sundered it. The … ‘Canon of the Mass’ … has not varied since the end of the sixth century. Its final form was given to it by Gregory the Great, the Pope who sent Augustine to England. The Prayer as Augustine prayed it in that first Communion he celebrated in the ruined church of St Martin in Canterbury in 597 is, word for word, the same prayer as has been said this particular morning at every Catholic altar all over the world.
“Thus the Canon today is not only the prayer of unity within the Church itself. It is the potential point of unity for all those separated from the Church. The sects which have sprung up since the Reformation could all unite in saying the Canon … There is in the Canon only the teaching of the the primitive Church (for, of course, Gregory the Great only put the final touches to prayers which had slowly developed or hardened into particular forms from apostolic times) and nothing whatever of ‘late medieval accretions’ against which the Reformers inveighed. The Canon had already been in use, in its present form, for six hundred years before Transubstantiation ‘ was defined in 1215.
“In praying the Canon we unite ourselves with all fellow-christians ‘throughout all ages, world without end’. In knowing the Canon, we become grounded in the teaching of the primitive Church ….”
For anyone who wants to learn Latin, there are several resources that homeschoolers use that can be used by anyone. The First/Second/Third/Fourth Form series is very user friendly and can be purchased with instructional DVD’s. The Cambridge Latin series is a nice series based on reading ongoing storylines. There are also online classes and instructors available. These courses can all be done at home. One simply needs to do an online search, perhaps under homeschool curriculums, and many options will come up. At the very least, anyone can quickly learn how to pronounce Latin words, and thus, prayers.
I am bewildered that none of the groups interested in promoting the TLM have developed an online resource (website) that provides free self paced training in liturgical Latin. I also think the EF in English and the restoration of the older altars will be a major stepping stone. I wonder what would happen if compasses were placed on altars so that they might be aligned to face true East. The good thing about those smaller altars is that they are easily rotated.
GypsyMom – I completely agree. The lack of Latin in Catholic schools is one of the major reasons we pulled our kids to homeschool. We use the Memoria Press Forms series and are learning along side them. (Though the kids pick it up quite a bit easier.) Today, my not-so-great speller 10 year old figured out how to spell an English word because we had previously learned the Latin root! I only wish we lived close enough to an EF Mass that we could consistently attend and our boys could learn to serve.
Fr. Reader – in the medical world, if a patient is allergic to a medication, such as penicillin, but needs it to save their life, then we can often implement a desensitization protocol. That is, escalating doses of the drug over short, but well-planned intervals, in order to allow them to receive the full dose in fairly short order. Maybe this would work with Latin? The problem is that this process would have to be very strategic, intentional, and not stretched over too long of a time frame lest leadership change or we forget the end goa. Pastors and bishops could do this, I believe, easier than they think. They already know who the supportive parishioners would be in their parishes/dioceses. Encourage us to come out of hiding and help!
Robert Caritas, your logic and appeal to VII is fair enough; even 2018 is later than 1962. People who speak of the future as EF/1962 may rightly be thinking that the future (2050 “N”O) will look a lot more like 1962 than 1972. The ultimate fruits of VII in this regard are yet to ripen. I don’t believe that use of the TLM will cause the reformation (called for by Trent) that we long for, but I feel certain that the reformed Church will use Latin in all liturgy, much private devotion, all magisterial communications, and any serious academic discourse. Catholic society will also manifest through quasi-public devotions like Rosary, processions, etc. That’s what it will look like. But I do not know what will cause it.
Neither my husband nor myself grew up with the Latin Mass. We attended it several times about 8 years ago but we were not “ready.” Once in a while our young children would ask us to go to the TLM parish. It was thanks to your blog, Fr. Z, that through these last few years my husband and I started understanding a little of the great beauty of the Latin Mass and all the “picky” little “issues” we had with it had been cleared away. We have been attending TLM since July and have decided we will become parishoners. Prior to attending the TLM, I had tried to explain the Mass to our children as the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Calvary but somehow I just could not! After we started attending the TLM I realized the Mass had been so stripped away of its beauty by the Novus Ordo that it is really almost impossible to see the Sacrifice of Calvary.
We homeschool our children and we have been been teaching them Latin from Memoria Press. I had 4 years of Latin in college but I am learning it better from Memoria Press’ books now. Their Prima Latina and Latina Christiana are easy to use as well as their Latin CDs for pronunciation.
I will often play the Rosary in Chant during school hours and the children are picking it up by constantly hearing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gPan_INmjE
I would recommend to anyone the Cursus Linguae Latinae Vivae by the late Fr. Siedl of the Family of St. Jerome. http://www.hieronymus.us.com/Venalia/IndEngl.htm
attend Latin Masses and in time you will learn the Latin Mass. nuff said
I agree with you Father because I believe in our lifetime we will see the TLM be the dominant liturgy. One of the primary factors being demographics. In my section of New England the average Catholic in the pew at a NO Sunday Mass has got to be over 6o years old. Perhaps even higher. At my TLM in NH the average age is probably under 30. Our parish is staffed by the FSSP which just opened it’s second NE parish in Rhode Island. Both of these parishes are growing like crazy. Nothing better than to see new faces at Sunday Mass.
The Novus Ordo Church is dying and good riddance. Your analogy about being lied to about a wondrous treasure is right on target. Key point is that we were lied to and I believe the group that pushed that lie just so happen to be the Novus Ordo “innovators” under the guise of the “spirit of Vatican II”.
@MrsMacD and @pbnelson, the argument that the VII was mainly pastoral and so has no authority is completely fallacious. The parts of Trent which were pastoral – like setting up seminaries – most definitely had authority, and actually often contained the seeds of the solutions the Church needed to build up again after the Protestant reformation.
VII also does contain dogmatic portions, and dogmatic statements in a pastoral document are still dogmatic statements of the magisterium. For example, a Pope could very well make an infallible statement in a pastoral document if he so wished. Trying to dismiss the authority of VII is schismatic thinking. It’s not a solution Catholics can use (it struck me recently that the “Old Catholics” who dismissed VI could very well have called themselves the “Traditional Catholics”… it’s the same idea being driven at : we don’t want this new-fangled magisterium).
Maybe Father Z could write a post on all these things, seeing as more and more of his readers seem to be caught up in the errors of the SSPX and like? I definitely see signs of a future schism here, as many traditionalists are increasingly adopting a tribal mentality (a la SSPX), in which very weak arguments are somehow considered strong because they are in favour of the tribe’s position, and are ceasing to think in a fully Catholic way – in which we hold on with all our might even to those theological truths which are uncomfortable to us, because they are the truth and so are part of our path to salvation. Yes, John Paul II and Benedict are no longer Pope, but what was true under them remains true today.
@Robert_Caritas I predict that within 100 years V2 will be judged to have been one more in the list of Robber Councils which the Church has survived in spite of. There is plenty of evidence to support this, even just from the record of what took place during the V2 itself let alone the mountain of evidence which continues to grow higher at an ever-increasing rate day by day.
I don’t expect you to agree to this, but there are many Catholics who have already seen, and many more who are beginning to recognize, that Francis is nothing other than the logical conclusion of what V2 was intended to accomplish by the rebels who took over the Council proceedings and threw out the papal schema on the first day of V2. Those rebels were not acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, rather it was another spirit entirely which motivated them, and still motivates those who to this day lie to us about the “new springtime” which V2 supposedly brought.
Our Lady of Fatima herself had foretold, in the unpublished portion of the 3rd Secret that there would be a “bad council” and a “bad mass” – at least as reported by Card. Ratzinger to Fr. Dollinger. (see this link for the details: https://onepeterfive.com/cardinal-ratzinger-not-published-whole-third-secret-fatima/).
I don’t think it takes too much imagination to figure out to which council and which mass She was referring.
Good, thought provoking post Father Z. I do not remember the exact quote, but I think Cardinal Ranjith has previously – before Francis’ term – said he expects the novus ordo to disappear in the (relatively close) future .
I do not think the novus ordo has any future, but it could stagger on for a significant time yet. In my opinion, everyone has to vote with their feet to help things along.
I have been taking my young children to the TLM exclusively which has been working well. I find young children take to the TLM environment like ducks to water. But – as they will be of school age in the coming years – I will have to guard against them being exposed to the new mass at School functions etc. That might sound extreme, but based on my own experience, they will not glean anything from the new mass and it will only undermine the understanding and respect they gain from the traditional rite. (And likely the strict discipline and good behavioural habits, which are a strong feature of TLM kids).
The Church will undoubtedly flourish once it returns to its true mass and clear doctrine. Years ago, I read +Lefebvre’s “Open letter to confused Catholics”. At the time, a lot of it was probably over my head. I glanced at it again recently and was struck by his vision. He predicts the vocations crisis, caused in large part by the ambiguous nature of the new mass. The traditional mass is clearly a sacrifice and so a priest is needed to carry out this function. The new mass is ambiguous and so the need for a priest (or “presider” as they say) is less clear. “No more mass, no more priests” says +Lefebvre. “Everything is bound up together”.
When you think that so many Catholics round the world will still be going to mass, unaware of the crisis affecting the Church and unaware of their traditional patrimony, it is interesting to ponder how they might react to the TLM becoming more widespread. The internet is great blessing in terms of opening people’s eyes, especially if all they had before was the Diocesan newspaper.
I know the brutal imposition of the new mass was a stark and very upsetting event for the Catholics of the day, as Paul VI acknowledged at the time. Not least because then it began to change rapidly, with seemingly new versions every few years, until the last of the Latin was expunged etc. And so we would want to avoid causing widespread upset in a similar way, as the traditional liturgy becomes dominant again.
If the two forms are allowed to go “head to head” without any gerrymandering, there will only be one winner. The novus ordo will die out along with its mostly elderly congregations. This will, for a time, lead to the Church contracting in size, as Benedict XVI predicted (and I believe he was thinking along these lines when he said that). Good availability of the TLM will see younger and committed Catholic migrate gradually, but if we could get the traditional mass into Schools then that would be a major victory.
In the UK there are only 2 traditional Catholic schools – ICKSP in Preston and SSPX in Berkshire. Both too far away for my family, sadly, but what a blessing it would be to be able to send your kids to one of them.
@mercy2013
Thanks for the comment.
@abdiesus.
There is an update in that post about Fatima.
The following is an excerpt from a post on The Liturgy Guy. Author is Fr. Donald Kloster. Fr. Donald Kloster is the parochial vicar at St. Mary’s in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
This past year, I have been doing a National Study on the TLM only parishes in the USA. Currently, there are around 70 of these but they are exploding in numbers with each passing year because the TLM priestly vocations are outpacing Novus Ordo priestly vocations by more than 7 to 1. My preliminary numbers are exceeding my initial expectations.
There is a huge wave transforming the Catholic landscape and it is largely being ignored by the Catholic leadership. I can now say what I suspected last year. The Novus Ordo is dying and it will be replaced by the Vetus Ordo sooner than anyone had foreseen, but certainly by 2050 the TLM will be the dominant liturgical practice once again.
My instincts tell me that 30-50% of the current vocations coming from the Traditional Latin Mass were not raised in it. Next year, I’ll try to test that feeling with the aforementioned study. A great number of the young men and women entering the TLM orders discovered it themselves; it wasn’t their family upbringing. My belief is that the Ancient Mass is the vocations catalyst and not the family per se.
https://liturgyguy.com/2018/10/08/vocations-foundations/#comments
I would not be surprised.
While the NO may be far more approachable, all but the most reverently sang masses found in some monasteries approach the palpable sense of mystery found in the Extraordinary Form. Simply put, the traditional Mass is constructed that the priest may immerse himself in love with our Eucharistic Lord.
Latin is a hurdle, but it is not insurmountable. You may not be able to become fluent for some time, but connections with our numerous derivative English words eventually form. From these, the grammar eventually unfolds. Do not despair because you cannot read the histories of Sallust after the span of an 80’s movie montage.
@AlanLins Thank you for sharing that article.
This has been a very enlightening and a very frustrating topic for me. Since well before I came into the Church in July I have felt literally compelled to attend and be a part of a Latin mass. The closes one is 1.5 hours away. I also live in a parish that is dying, literally. In the last year it has consolidated from 3 parishes to one as have two of the surrounding parishes (that I’m aware of). The church in my town has been effectively closed for business except for a mass once a month to keep it from having to be sold. My priest, who is a wonderful holy man, is spread incredibly thin as he runs two parishes (a total of 6 or 7 churches, one is in the process of being sold in the other parish). For months (even before I was baptized) I have been unable to shake this feeling that we need to start a Latin Mass here. We have the churches, we have a monastery close by with monks that know the Latin Mass and fill in for the TLM priest 1.5 hours away at times. And funny enough, we have 3 monastery’s/convents within 45 minutes.
We are close to Quebec but stateside and the state of the Catholic faith in the towns we frequent is devastating. Towns where you see the evidence of a strong catholic faith being part of the culture (architecture and statues) and you can’t even find a parish to go to Mass at. A facility we frequent due to athletics for our kids has a shrine bordering it. It’s a small one. I finally went to look at it the other day after finding out that it’s on abandoned convent grounds. I didn’t know who the statues were so my priest was able to enlighten me, Our Lady of La Salette. Prophetic.
I’m compelled, my mind can’t be left in peace about the TLM here. Many times daily “if you build it they will come” runs through my head. But what’s to do? It’s becoming a burden, this compulsion. It’s like an idea that I just can’t let go of, I’ve tried. And there are many who are allergic to the idea of a Latin Mass, many who think tradition means the traditions of 30 or 40 years ago, the tradition of their childhood…(most of them have very few children who have continued with that tradition) but is it true? If you build it, will they come? It appears that maybe they (the allergic ones) won’t, at first, but others will…others who haven’t been to church in years, others who want something authentic, something more…or others that have been looking, just like I have, for YEARS. It’s a small area, it probably wouldn’t work and yet my mind can not be at easy. And on the sites I read, I’m seeing more and more articles like Fr. Z’s… youtube has more “my first TLM” testimonials. And they all echo my experience… my husband and I are right between Gen X and Millennial’s, but to quote Augustine “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” I truly feel this…I apologize for the oversharing, this is a very present topic to my mind and heart and I have so much frustration and unease about it currently. But am also plagued by it.
Legisperitus:
I would recommend to anyone the Cursus Linguae Latinae Vivae by the late Fr. Siedl of the Family of St. Jerome. http://www.hieronymus.us.com/Venalia/IndEngl.htm
I second your recommendation. Also, allow me to mention that Fr. Siedl (author of the Course of the Latin Language) was once the Latin teacher of another well known latinist by the name of Reginald Foster.
Fr. Siedl, O.C.D. spoke fluent Latin, Greek, Hebrew and some twenty vernacular languages. His Latin Course is uniquely suited for teaching the fundamentals of Latin to anyone willing to make the effort.
As Father used to say: “The biggest obstacle to the study of Latin is “pigritia” (laziness)
@Robert_Caritas even if we concede your point that VII and Sacrosanctum Concilium dictate certain reforms of the Mass, I maintain that the Mass according to the 1962 Missal meets those requirements if the readings are said in the vernacular as they are at almost every EF Mass I have attended.
One can make an argument that 1962 may not be an ideal gold standard for the Mass of the Ages given that it already had some Bugnini-ization such as the changes for Holy Week. But that is a discussion for another day far in the future, after the Mass of the Ages becomes the ordinary form again.
Mr. Robert_Caritas. What is a “pastoral document”? What Dogmas were defined by what/which of the Vatican II docments? What are the levels of magisterial authority regarding infallible pronouncements? Which document from V2 proscribed the use of Latin? Versus populum? Reception of the Most Blessed Sacrement standing, and in the hand?
Like the Platte river, I think your assertions are a mile wide and an inch deep.
Chester Frank, good morning. Regarding the EF, do you mean the Usus Antiquor, and the Roman Canon, as I presume? The High Mass, as you know, is sung, sung in Latin. Are you aware that the tones and emphases in the chant emerge from the Latin language itself? (St. Jerome’s last name was not Kern.)
For instance the Sanctus. Most commonly it is sung, ‘Sahng-tooooo-us’, and so on. (I hope it is in your ear.) In English it becomes the dreadful ‘Hoe-leeeeeeeeeeee, hoe-leeeeeeeeeeee’. Under an excellent choir director, the Fair Penelope was instructed, when singing, to pronounce a long ‘e’, with an ‘a’ sound. Mary became ‘Mair-eeh. The reason he explained, in English a sung long ‘eeeee’ has dreadful tonal qualities. (Proven by any Led Zepplin). It simply is not possible to keep the tones the same with a transliteration into late Anglo-Saxon, ‘merican English. One last instance, the Veni Creator Spiritus, sung on Pentecost. Go here to listen, women first, then men’s voices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDhYGdK0KQg One simply cannot elongate any tones from the English words ‘come’ and ‘spirit’. (For Holy, see above). Pax Christi. Stay Latinae my friend.
The earlier comment by roma247 prompts me to suggest this:
An iPad app, intended for young men striving memorize the server’s Latin responses, is available in the App Store. It’s named “Introibo”, it’s free, and was favorably reviewed by, among others, Dr. Joseph Shaw of the LMS, Fr. James Fryar FSSP, and Gregory DiPippo of New Liturgical Movement. This study aid has actually been around in several forms since 1995, when it was sold by mail order as a cassette tape and pamphlet. Back then, it was also reviewed favorably by Michael Davies, who admittedly thought it was too expensive at $5.00.
Recognizing that not everyone has an iPad, there’s also a downloadable ZIP file of the study aids which comprise the “Introibo” app, and which is available at the website of Una Voce Pittsburgh. There are four parts in the Zip: two audio files, a pamphlet containing the Latin prayers, and a webpage of the Latin prayers with phoneticized pronunciation.
What most people are trying to explain is that they want God’s House to return to being a House of Prayer rather than a local Democrat-party headquarters or a fundraising opportunity for the local heretical Lavender Bishop.
They also want reverence for the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to be restored.
Latin is not a condition necessary for reverence or making God’s House a House of Prayer. Prayer requires knowledge of the meanings of the words used. If one is not fluent in Latin, one will have a difficult time praying in Latin.
Ad orientum [-tem]worship is required for reverence, though. In many cases, homilies should be altogether removed for there to be reverence during the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, too.
The day the Church abandons her universal tongue [Latin] is the day before she returns to the catacombs. – Pope Pius XII
I am grateful that I took Latin in high school. It also helped that I spoke French fluently as a child, and my mother having been a classics major immersed herself reading Latin and Greek. So my home environment definitely helped. We can blame schools and seminaries, but home life plays a big role.
And to think that at one time, all educated men read and conversed in Latin – lawyers and doctors took their courses in Latin! How interesting that the trajectory reveals itself in destroying the role of Latin in so many realms. The objective for this destruction we now see was always the Catholic Church.
Being old enough, I remember the old Mass and the old Office, psalms in English – this has been a huge help to me in understanding all of that. Echoing Gaetano above, there is a possibility that an approved English version of our 1962 TLM would help enormously. I do wish there was a way to get around this. If we have to go ‘backwards’ maybe restoring some of these steps towards English can be reversed as steps back towards Latin? Restore Latin in certain disciplines with small steps at home and in prayer, and schooling too.
Catholic prophecies point to the restoration of the Faith and the Monarchy. In the future, the Great Monarch [with military efforts] is supposed to support a holy Pope who will restore all disciplines in the Church, and the Faith will be re-taught. [Yves Dupont, Catholic Prophecy].
Another tidbit: Our Lady of Good Success, of Quito, pleads: “Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring your Celestial Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His of Precious Blood shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death, He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those Ominous times, sending to this Church the Prelate who will restore the spirit of its priests.”
@JonPatrick I can grant that the EF is closer to what VII asked for than many celebrations of the OF. Nevertheless, the council fathers prescribed the reform *with* the 1962 missal in mind. They were all using it every single day. Unless we shun the council and so enter in a kind of schism, the 1962 missal can never be the ordinary form.
The EF/OF situation that we have today is because the reform under Saint Paul VI was in large part butchered. What we need, as Ratzinger and Sarah both put it, is a reform of the reform. We need a new OF which is much more traditional. Father Z’s blog used to promote this idea strongly, and again, it is not because things are crazy right now that that is no longer true. Let’s keep marching in that direction, that is what the Holy Spirit is asking of us. This hunkering down on the EF is, deep down (and as at least one comment on this thread has sadly exemplified…), a temptation to reject VII and so enter in schism.
@Kerry, please read the document Sacrosanctum Concilium, or at least do keyword searches on it for “Latin”, “Gregorian” etc. In less than 5 minutes you will see that the council is in fact deeply traditional. It *ordered* that latin be the language of the roman rite and that Gregorian chant be its proper music. The council is not the problem as the devil is trying to convince so many people through borderline schismatics like Steve Skojec and the SSPX. The problem is the neo-modernist crisis which hijacked the reform that was supposed to come afterwards.
Robert Caritas:
Sacrosanctum Concilium was a prescriptive/directive document insofar as it ordered a reform of the liturgy. You are, incorrectly, assuming that its commands to reform the liturgy are unchangeable, eternal liturgical dogmas. This is simply not the case. It was a directive intended to remedy perceived problems but the very fact that the liturgy has existed and developed for 2000 years both East and West according to different principles is proof that SC’s principles cannot be held as some type of universal dogmatic truths.
It could be undone with the stroke of a pen by the proper authority.
Furthermore, a careful reading of SC shows that its “prescription” for liturgical reform was based on psychological theories that were popular in its day but have now been largely abandoned. One example is the insistence on explicitness and understandability. Most now agree that the language of symbolism and mystery works in a different way than verbal and cognitive understanding. Yet SC is all about simplifying, explaining, and making everything immediately understandable in a “left brain” way.
Without wanting to sound Gmostic, I ought to mention that of all the people to whom I give spiritual direction, those in the purgative stage have a harder time appreciating the EF Mass, but eventually do. Those who are in the illuminative or union always prefer the EF Mass. And as they advance spiritually, it just gets harder to go back to the OF Mass and all the noise.
Can I suggest that any of your readers who know Latin offer free classes to any parishioners who are interested?
Ive been doing this for a year and it is extremely rewarding.
Argh… “Gnostic”, not gmostic. Of course, I wouldn’t want to sound like either of those.
Hard working priests have little opportunity to attend other priests’ Masses in Latin (or be altar servers) and so the most natural ways that boys of earlier generations learned to pronounce the words are unavailable. A younger priest in my area who is learning the TLM and also sometimes says a Latin Novus Ordo Mass clearly struggles with pronunciation, chant, and other things that I know myself from years of having attended Masses by other priests who pronounce Latin well. He will fudge things and most people don’t know the difference. He will say the words rapidly seeming to try to make it sound smooth, but not too carefully. It doesn’t bother me much except that it is sad he hasn’t had the opportunities in seminary etc that would have helped him be able to do this perfectly. Obviously he wants to. I think he will get better gradually as long as he doesn’t let his mistakes become entrenched habits in his way of saying Mass–or become discouraged.
Veterum Sapientia is a week-long Latin program for Catholic priests, seminarians, and those men and women belonging to religious orders. This program seeks to respond to the call of Saint John XXIII’s Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia to revitalize the Latin language in the Catholic Church.
https://veterumsapientia.com
One of the single greatest things I’ve ever done for my priesthood was to learn TLM. After actually offering TLM for the first time I was like, “Oh, so that’s how a priest is supposed to pray!” Ordained in 1999 I never knew the Latin Mass though I grew up attending the Maronite Rite on occasion. Now it is obvious to me the use of the NO in the Latin Rite is out of step with worship in the Oriental Rites of the Church. Let’s remedy that! I started training servers recently so I hope to be able to offer it in the parish beginning next month.
PS. Fr. Z, can you post that link for the portable altars you mentioned some time ago?
[St. Joseph’s Apprentice. Tell him Fr. Z sent you!]
@PMK I find it a little easier to learn the prayers in Latin by singing them. There are loads of youtube videos with prayers sung in Latin with the words in Latin on screen.
I am also starting to say, even if only mentally, Jesus Christus domus Dominus. I announce it out loud when I get home. Sadly, I even feel the need to say it, mentally, in a certain church before Mass on Sunday.
Robert_Caritas says: 16 November 2018 at 12:44 AM …The parts of Trent which were pastoral – like setting up seminaries – most definitely had authority, and actually often contained the seeds of the solutions the Church needed to build up again after the Protestant reformation.
Ever consider that the council of Trent was clearly flawed since it contained within it the seeds of the flawed second Vatican council? Kidding!
Anyway, as a “young person”, here’s my position, and it’s by no means an outlier either in the blogosphere or in the real world. The only people who care anymore about VII are academics and nostalgics and schismatics. The academics because they need to toe the liberal line to keep their professorships, the nostalgics because VII was cool when they were kids, and the schismatics because they think VII opened the door to any innovation, naturally including their heresy du jour.
Changing tack, according to America Magazine the Holy Father has forbidden all talk of “reform of the reform.” If that’s true, who’s schismatically disobeying the pope here?
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2016/12/06/pope-francis-there-will-be-no-reform-reform-liturgy
Joking aside, please take that as some gentle ribbing, no offense!
Look, we young Catholics remaining in the pews, the ones with energy and devotion and children, just don’t give a hoot about VII. Pontificate all you want about VII this and VII that but it’s just so much boring noise to us. Been there, done that, heard it all our lives, and just don’t care anymore. Frankly, all the “study your VII and comply with VII” talk sounds Pharisaical to us, that overused aspersion.
Bottom line, there’s only so many times we’re gonna go sniff the manure pile ’cause big brother promised it grew roses. The manure pile is composting on its own now, and we’ve moved on to greener pastures.
Fr. Z,
Could you explain the last comment you made in your original post? I deeply want to understand how lay people have strong influence. I can’t wrap my head around it. Without Church leadership how are we to organize and what would our objectives be? And how do we accomplish it in a top-down type of Christ-instituted structure? I want to help build the Church back up, but I have no idea where to begin…
Marse Robert, you wrote: “VII also does contain dogmatic portions, and dogmatic statements in a pastoral document are still dogmatic statements of the magisterium. For example, a Pope could very well make an infallible statement in a pastoral document if he so wished. Trying to dismiss the authority of VII is schismatic thinking.”
From your assertions that (unspecified documents) in “VII…contain dogmatic portions”, followed on fast by asserting (one presumes from word usage and word order) that said “portions” are to be inferred from the words “dogmatic statements in a pastoral document are still dogmatic statements”, I asked my questions ‘What dogmas’? (Whew!) And I’d suggest using the phrase “…if he so wished” weakens your assertions of dogmatic infallibility; “…so wished” reads like an impulsive afterthought. Yet to suggest all will be made clear in a word search for “Latin” and “Gregorian” begs the question. Do you mean to suggest, go here and you will agree with what I am asserting?
Surely you don’t think that “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”, is a statement of defined dogma? S.C. 116
And these passages: 36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.
2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended.
One notes the method “preserved in the Latin rites” is not specified. Perhaps freeze dried, “Deeply traditional” freeze dried.
And please, these sentences, “Trying to dismiss the authority of VII is schismatic thinking”, and “The council is not the problem…. reform that was supposed to come afterwards.” Do not beat at the air with invective; it is beneath your arguments.
P.S. “Marse Robert” is meant as a gentle gibe, but also an honorific greeting.
Just a brief throw-in:
Let’s not mix up the word “dogmatic” referring to a rank of certaintly (viz., absolute certainty)with the word “dogmatic” referring to a description of content.
They are separate and not even very much related concepts; the Church can be dogmatic (first-sense) in non-dogmatic (second sense) areas (which was the big issue in the Jansenism battle), and she can speak non-dogmatically (first sense) in dogmatic (that is, directly faith-related) topics. Noone would suppose Mediator Dei contained any dogma, but the topic it treats is a dogmatic topic. Now this is what we mean when we say that Vatican II spoke on dogmatic issues, and when some of its documents are called “dogmatic constitution”.
Simplifying a bit, these are just two entirely separate words that happen to be homophonous.
Yesss!!!! This link is what I have been looking for. Thank goodness someone finally posted this. !!!!
I have friends and family who call themselves “citizens of the world”. As our world grows smaller, having a common language such as Latin just seems inevitable. Esperanto (Clingon, Elfin, etc) was contrived, but Latin is a solid organically developed language already in existence. Why reinvent the wheel? Just use it.
This would be my argument to an old foggy who would argue that the language of the Mass needs to be accessible for young people. How xenophobic to insist upon the Mass being said in THEIR language! For milenials, Latin IS more accessible and makes more sense. Latin is “multicultural” and “inclusive” it is “a bridge between people” like the Holy Mother Church herself, she brings all our brothers and sisters together in Christ across languages and continents…then sit back with some popcorn and enjoy the show.