I love the Latin Mass. And it’s better for the Roman Catholic Church that it goes away.
Coming from a non-Roman Catholic priest, this opinion does not really carry much weight, I get that. But after reading through Pope Francis’s Traditionis Custodes which limits the celebration of the Tridentine Mass in the Roman church and his reasoning for it, I thought I would share a few thoughts anyway.
As the blog title suggests, I LOVE the Latin Mass. I have only attended one in my life, but it simply knocked me down with the beauty and reverence. The profound recognition of what was being celebrated and why. The Latin, while I did not understand it, added a mystical quality to the celebration that one seldom finds during Mass in the vernacular. Receiving Communion on the tongue whilst kneeling at the altar rail, a paten under my chin “lest He strike His foot against a stone”, was nothing short of moving.
With all of that said; somehow, some way, the major advocates of the Latin Mass are some of the cruelest, most exclusionary people I have ever had the misfortune to meet, read, and listen to. When Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI liberalized the use of the Latin Mass in Ecclesia Dei and Summorum Pontificum respectively, the idea was to bring the Body of Christ closer together by “giving the people what they want”. Those preferring the vernacular would continue to do so, and those attached to the Latin Mass would have the opportunity to celebrate Mass in their preferred fashion as well.
That’s not what happened unfortunately. The Latin Mass advocates have sneered at the vast majority of the Church celebratingMass in the vernacular/Ordinary form as being nothing more than Protestant. Ironically they protest louder and louder about the invalidity of the Second Vatican Council, emboldened by their newfound freedom. They, lay and clergy alike, wall themselves off in rapidly multiplying Latin Mass societies and began/continued celebrating the old rite exclusively rather than in tandem with the Ordinary Form. Many who had been critical of the Vatican in the past are now louder and openly hostile to it, especially after the less liturgically/more pastorally minded Francis was elected Pope. The traditionalists find more common ground with schismatic groups like The Society of St. Pius X than with the Vatican.
It simply had the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of closing the gaps, they have widened into chasms.
The backlash from Traditionis Custodes has been harsh from those you’d expect (Cardinal Raymond Burke, Church Militant, Una Voce, etc.). The true fallout remains to be seen.
I will be sad to see the Latin Mass fade away; it is indeed beautiful liturgy. But beauty is not a good enough reason to sustain it. The Church is fractured enough without the Vatican giving further ammunition to those who prefer to isolate and treat others with arrogance and contempt. Instead of embracing others with love.
Don't fret. The Latin Mass will survive as a choral tradition. The Mass has been set to music by all the famous and not-so-famous composers, sometimes multiple times by a single composer. In fact, you should come and hear my choir sing a Mass. -- Anais
ReplyDelete