A study in contrasts

10 Comments

1. sibnao says:

   27 June 2025 at 5:16 PM

   Regarding Fr. Reese’s article: Here’s a beautiful example of wishful thinking coupled with total ignorance as to how many decades this exact sentiment has been floating around, to no avail:

   “Ultimately, parishes must do a better job with their regular liturgies so people will want to go to them rather than the Traditional Latin Mass.”

   Dear, dear Father Reese: The reason I go to the TLM is that it is objectively fuller, richer, older, and more connected to the saints than any Novus Ordo Mass, even one reverently and carefully celebrated. I do not doubt the validity of the NO, but I can’t not see the difference. I want to be in continuity with the whole history of prayer of the Church, not just with the last 50 years. Doing a better job with the liturgy implies that it is up to people to make up a liturgy more to someone’s taste. That’s exactly what I DON’T want, even if the taste happens to be mine.
2. Loquitur says:

   27 June 2025 at 7:05 PM

   Fr Hunwicke, of happy memory (may God mercifully reward his good work), frequently debunked the myth that the Latin liturgy was created to put the Mass into the popular vernacular of the day in the fourth century. Far from it in fact, a specifically liturgical form of Latin was developed based on archaic sacral forms from the old Roman sacrificial rites ,but now purified and adapted for Christian use, often also coining neologism based on the deep theological nuances of Scriptural Greek, both New Testament koine and Old Testament Septuagint terminology. He cited the towering and still neglected work of Christine Mohrmann. She demonstrated with impeccable scholarship how this careful inculturation of the Church’s liturgy to the Roman milieu, which was providentially predisposed to conversion to Catholic Christian language and cult, was carried out by brilliant and saintly minds such as Leo The Great. The result was consciously a hieratic and sacred language reserved for liturgical use, like Old Church Slavonic or Coptic. Whatever modern liturgical ‘reformers’ think they are doing (and at least this guy is honest about his intentions), it is not at all the same as what the original crafters of the Latin Mass did.
3. maternalView says:

   27 June 2025 at 7:46 PM

   “Ultimately, parishes must do a better job with their regular liturgies so people will want to go to them…”
   Said no priest ever until the late 20th / early 21st century.

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5. Archlaic says:

   28 June 2025 at 7:53 AM

   “We must make the New Coke taste better so people will not buy “Coke Classic”!
6. EAW says:

   28 June 2025 at 11:57 AM

   The late, great Dr. Christine Mohrmann (mentioned above by Loquitur) also was responsible for the excellent translations of the liturgical prayers into Dutch used in the Missals of the Spectrum publishing house. They are treasured by many Dutch attendants of the TLM. I always urge people who don’t own one to obtain one when the opportunity presents itself.
7. Philmont237 says:

   28 June 2025 at 12:08 PM

   I speak Spanish, and I’ve been to dozens of Masses in Spanish in several countries. The responses aren’t even the same between countries that speak the same language. Some countries (even ones you wouldn’t expect) use “vosotros.” In Uruguay they use “sos.”
   When I go to a Spanish Mass, despite knowing the language, I don’t know the responses. I can’t “participate” the way the “reformers” intended. I just say the responses in Latin like I do here in the States.

   Meanwhile, I can go to a Latin Mass in a country where I don’t speak a word of the language, and I can say the responses exactly how they have been done since antiquity. It truly is a great unifier among Catholics.
8. Ionathas Gnosis ph. d. says:

   28 June 2025 at 8:34 PM

   In a recent article in “First Things”, Jaspreet Singh Boparai explained why Latin is indeed a sacred language: “Christians, at least, used to know why they studied the classical languages. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew are sacred languages—and not in some vague, sentimental sense. They were used to proclaim who Jesus Christ is on the sign that Pontius Pilate affixed to the cross (John 19:19–20). For Christians, the cross is the focal point of history. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew are right there, with Hebrew as the language of the Old Testament, Greek as that of the New Testament and earliest Fathers, and Latin as that of the magisterium.” (A Classical Insurgency, April 25, 2025)
9. Andrew says:

   28 June 2025 at 9:27 PM

   Giuseppe Card. Siri in a 1958 letter to his clergy:
   The concept that Latin must be abolished so that all people may understand, even if it be harmful to the Church’s unity, to the defense of truth, and to liturgical decorum, is false.
   .
   The liturgy is far more extensive than what is open to participation by the people and therefore it must agree first of all with the Breviary of the Clergy who know Latin.
   .
   The substratum of human culture differentiates degrees of civilization. The Latin language has registered man as no other tongue has ever done in his calm potent and majestic mastery over things. It is the language of man as Lord of creation. (Source: Latin Liturgy Association Newsletter: Fall 2004)
10. Patrick-K says:

    30 June 2025 at 6:21 PM

    Along the same lines as Philmont237’s comment, it seems like almost all American parishes have Spanish Masses, many have Polish ones and you’ll occasionally see some other languages as well. If the goal is unity, then wouldn’t it be better to just have one language?