The BBC – if you can believe it – has an interesting audio story about
Trying to save the Latin Mass in France
This is worth listening to. Description:
Communities that celebrate with the Latin Mass have prospered. Now, Pope Francis has ruled that Catholics may only use the Latin Mass if their bishops agree to let them. Instead of a rule of tolerance for the Old Rite, wherever Catholics want it, there will be tolerance on a case-by-case basis. Many traditionally-minded Catholics believe that what is at stake here is the soul of the Catholic church with a liberal old guard with Francis at their head hoping to snuff out a rising generation of conservatives before they take over. In France, the more old-fashioned Catholics still often have very large families and, proportionately, many more of their sons become priests. In this edition of Heart and Soul, France-based correspondent John Laurenson, takes us into the extraordinary world of traditional Catholicism in France. We go to Versailles, the former seat of the ardently-Catholic monarchy, that is today the unofficial capital of the ‘tradi’ movement. John meets young Catholics to find out what attracts so many young believers to the Old Rite.
Give it a listen.
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UPDATE:
In that audio report there is, toward the end, a song by Georges Brassens called “Tempête dans un bénitier”. It is very French – as in “excuse my French” in its… expression of less than high regard for the liturgical changes and those who forced them.
Brassens was a writer for Le Figaro and a prodigious songwriter. He and countless others objected to the changes in the liturgy during the 60’s that were never asked for by the laity and were being shoved down everyone’s throats by their loving shepherds. This dates from 1976.
An interesting analysis of the biting song HERE.
Tempête dans un bénitier Le souverain pontife avecque Les évêques, les archevêques Nous font un satané chantier Ils ne savent pas ce qu’ils perdent Tous ces fichus calotins Sans le latin, sans le latin La messe nous emmerde A la fête liturgique Plus de grand’s pompes, soudain Sans le latin, sans le latin Plus de mystère magique Le rite qui nous envoûte S’avère alors anodin Sans le latin, sans le latin Et les fidèl’s s’en foutent O très Sainte Marie mèr’ de Dieu, dites à ces putains De moines qu’ils nous emmerdent Sans le latin Je ne suis pas le seul, morbleu Depuis que ces règles sévissent A ne plus me rendre à l’office Dominical que quand il pleut Il ne savent pas ce qu’ils perdent Tous ces fichus calotins Sans le latin, sans le latin La messe nous emmerde En renonçant à l’occulte Faudra qu’ils fassent tintin Sans le latin, sans le latin Pour le denier du culte A la saison printanière Suisse, bedeau, sacristain Sans le latin, sans le latin F’ront l’églis’ buissonnière O très Sainte Marie mèr’ de Dieu, dites à ces putains De moines qu’ils nous emmerdent Sans le latin. Ces oiseaux sont des enragés Ces corbeaux qui scient, rognent, tranchent La saine et bonne vieille branche De la croix où ils sont perchés Ils ne savent pas ce qu’ils perdent Tous ces fichus calotins Sans le latin, sans le latin La messe nous emmerde Le vin du sacré calice Se change en eau de boudin Sans le latin, sans le latin Et ses vertus faiblissent A Lourdes, Sète ou bien Parme Comme à Quimper Corentin Le presbytère sans le latin A perdu de son charme O très Sainte Marie mèr’ de Dieu, dites à ces putains De moines qu’ils nous emmerdent Sans le latin |
Storm in a holy water font The Sovereign Pontiff with that Bishops, archbishops Make us a damn construction site They don’t know what they’re losing All those damn hugs Without Latin, Without Latin Mass pisses us off At the liturgical feast No more big ceremonies, suddenly Without Latin, Without Latin No more magical mystery The rite that captivates us Then turns out to be harmless Without Latin, Without Latin And the faithful don’t care O most Holy Mary mother of God tell these whores Of monks that they piss us off Without latin I’m not the only one, morbleu Since these rules are rife Not to go to the office anymore Sunday only when it rains They don’t know what they’re losing All those damn hugs Without Latin, Without Latin Mass pisses us off By renouncing the occult They will have to do tintin Without Latin, Without Latin For the denarius of worship In the spring season Switzerland, verger, sacristan Without Latin, Without Latin The church will truant O most Holy Mary mother of God tell these whores Of monks that they piss us off Without Latin. These birds are rabid These crows that saw, trim, slice The healthy and good old branch From the cross where they are perched They don’t know what they’re losing All those damn hugs Without Latin, Without Latin Mass pisses us off The wine of the sacred chalice Changes into blood sausage Without Latin, Without Latin And its virtues are weakening In Lourdes, Sète or Parma As in Quimper Corentin The presbytery without Latin Has lost its charm O most Holy Mary mother of God tell these whores Of monks that they piss us off Without latin |
Other translations are somewhat less restrained.
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I did n o t expect Brassens on this blog : ) . My humble thanks for this, it is in fact excellent ammo for my thesis.
Over the years BBC Radio has generally been more evenhanded than the extreme-left dominated BBC TV.
Another story about the traditional movement in France: Palm Sunday at the parish church in Port Marly, 1987. The bishop went as far as to brick up the church because the people insisted on keeping the Mass of tradition. How does this differ from psychopathy? If every Mass that you hear with devotion adds to your consolation at the hour of death, what consolation can you expect at that hour for having bricked up a church to keep out the Mass for which it was built?
So on Palm Sunday, the people and their priest held Mass on the steps outside, then got to work with crowbars and a battering ram and took out the brick wall, singing Christus Vincit.
There’s a video of this on YouTube. The battering ram part starts about 22 minutes in, and at the end is an interview of the priest (in French). My French is very negligible, but I gather that the priest points out that these parishioners were being kept out of a church that was built by their ancestors, and the bishop is being a legalist and not a father. https://youtu.be/gIUrJp-IyUU
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Listened to it last night. Excellent broadcast. Good job BBC Radio!
Oh! What fun! I didn’t know this song by Brassens. Thank you! It does tell it like it is, doesn’t he?
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The BBC programme is a good illustration of a certain part of the French traditionalists, and the extremes here of some of the more radical traditionalism and the more radical anti-TLM ideology in some of the hierarchy.
The biggest problem on either extreme is the false notion that the Novus Ordo and TLM might somehow be “incompatible” with or “contrary” to each other, whereas regardless the Rite, as long as it is Catholic, the Mass is one.
I must say though, I dislike the tendency of the current “progressivism” where instead of promoting what they prefer, it seeks to denature and “cancel” what they dislike.
Great song. The irony is that musically it is very Novus Ordo sounding. If constrained to attend the new Mass, it’s the song that would be running through my mind while suffering through “Gather Us In.”
Jabba, whether the NO and TLM are incompatible is something for the experts down the track. My amateur opinion: they’re chalk and cheese. The fact is that the NO is dying on the vine. People mostly in their ’70s at my local N.O. parish church and in every parish I’ve been to over the past few years, with the caveat that there is occasionally an exceptionally charismatic priest (in either a good way, or bad) that drums up a slightly more healthy demographic. Whereas, you go to a TLM and the demographic is naturally, organically, more healthy.
Draw the dots! How can anyone stand “And I will raise him up on eagles’ wings” every frigging Sunday blasting from a cassette recorder, no-one singing, just listening (but the sacred overhead’s there!). I think the people who heroically put up with this and still come despite it after all these years, are saints. But they’re a dying breed. That’s why every couple of years there’s another round of parish amalgamation.
Tomorrow is the Feast of Christ the King in my Fraternity of St Peter Parish across town. I’m the choir director. We’ll sing “Nunc Sancte Nobis Spiritus”, the hymn for Terce, when the ministers enter, before the Asperges. O.K., the congregation won’t know the tune, since for this Feast it’ll be different from the regular Sunday Nunc Sancte. But normally they’d sing it with gusto. (No cassette tape within a mile.) Then after the Introit, Mass XII and then Credo IV. They boom these out even without music sheets. Along with the responses. After Mass there will be Exposition and Benediction, finishing with “Hail Redeemer” in four parts. They’ll come out all hyped up and share a lunch they’ve all brought something to. (I’m just about to make a delicious “telesnack” pie my mum taught me decades ago. Always goes down well.)
The energy/grace is palpable.
None of this is meant as a syllogistic argument. More like Newman’s “illative sense”.
Love in the time of Covid.
Hugh :
The fact is that the NO is dying on the vine. People mostly in their ’70s at my local N.O. parish church and in every parish I’ve been to over the past few years, with the caveat that there is occasionally an exceptionally charismatic priest (in either a good way, or bad) that drums up a slightly more healthy demographic. Whereas, you go to a TLM and the demographic is naturally, organically, more healthy.
Your local experiences are not the life of the Church everywhere.
I’ve attended both NO and TLM with congregations mostly in their 70s etc. ; and I’ve attended both with Family congregations from young to old.
What I’ve found is that more (genuinely) Catholic a local population is, the more reverent will its Novus Ordo Masses be. And the local TLMs will be Diocesan, rather than SSPX, FSSP, or whatever.
I certainly do “get” that some TLM parishes come into being as safe havens in Dioceses where the NO has become formally and theologically defective through various types of abuses ; but these abuses do not take place everywhere systematically. AND they are abuses of the Novus Ordo as well, not just of the Catholicity.
The Mass is the Mass is the Mass.
BTW your FSSP parish sounds somewhat like our own Diocesan Parish under its previous two PPs ; both were Jesuits, but both also givers of the TLM not just NO.
Indeed, for a period before he left, our last PP gave the Sunday and Feast Day Masses in the NO, but the weekday ones in the TLM.
Their NO Masses were Latinate and reverent, and they were a fine example of one of the things that Pope Benedict XVI hoped for in Summorum Pontificum, the TLM enriching the NO, and vice-versa — and a genuine enrichment, not a hodge-podge of abuses.
Our last PP used to say, “all I do is follow the Council teachings on the Liturgy”. You know, the ones about a preferential focus on Latin, Gregorian Chant, proper seriousness, reverence, and sacrifice, and all of those things that “spirit of the council” types abuse so often and so badly, whilst falsely claiming these abuses to be from Vatican II.
Hugh. Thanks. “After Mass there will be Exposition and Benediction”
In relation to Fr Z’s other post as to the Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, note on such Feast further Indulgence upon usual conditions if in addition recite the Litany of the Sacred Heart in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament solemnly exposed.
BTW LifeSite has a VERY interesting piece today.
A Vatican whistleblower has revealed that despite Bergoglio’s claim that in TC he’s following the consultation on the TLM, in fact “among the bishops who responded, more than half viewed the Traditional Mass favorably, and “more than 60 percent to two-thirds of bishops would have been on board with” keeping Summorum Pontificum, “perhaps with some slight modifications.”
Here : https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/hidden-story-behind-traditionis-custodes-more-bishops-responses-on-the-latin-mass-revealed/
A p.s. to my comment to Jabba.
My dear friend Fr John Parsons, a convert from Anglicanism and translator into English of the great “Iota Unum” by Romano Amerio, said to me once years ago: “I’ve decided that the Novus Ordo Mass is valid, licit, and thoroughly unreliable.”
Hugh, the English translation of the NO Ordo Missae can be hard to put up with.