Whatever Pope Francis may or may not do with TC (and I don't foresee anything more than glosses or clarifications at this stage) a new Pope could do something entirely different, as the close of the article says. One Pope cannot bind another.
Yes, a new Pope can do something entirely different. It is not possible to remove the information needed to re-implement the Tridentine Rite at this point, even if there were no one alive who remembers it, there's all the liturgical books and tons of videos. Most of the diocesan priests that want to say the Tridentine Rite now, did not grow up with it, some hadn't even heard of it until after their ordination.
I don't think even a total ban would work. Even if it were obeyed to the letter. Probably why SP went for a liturgical peace rather than a liturgical uniformity that the Latin Church has never had.
Except of course the argument has been that Pius V bound all future popes with Quod Primum which of course, is not true.
The "Traditional" movement, more and more, is looking and acting Protestant. Very worldly. Many of them want their own church to decide what and how they want to worship and how others should act as well. There is a lot of pride.
I think that's a rather broad brush. Most people who attend the Traditional Mass and consider themselves Traditionalist Catholics are not actively engaging in spats online. They're simply going to Mass and living the faith. Saying they are looking and acting Protestant is taking a small number of people you see online and assigning those attitudes and activities to those who are just trying to live the faith the same way their ancestors did.
I suspect it's actually rather hard to tell what proportion of TLM-attenders are rebellious, and also hard to tell *how* rebellious--e.g., bad attitudes only, or actually problematic views. It probably varies from place to place, even from congregation to congregation. And most of us are mostly just generalizing on the basis of the people we ourselves know.
I always wonder what this sort of statement means.
If it means wanting to participate in the sacrifice of the mass and receive graces thereby, excellent.
If it means wanting to go to the TLM rather than, let's say, "the goofball Vatican 2 mass of clown-faced heretics with guitars," then not so excellent.
Preferring the TLM to the NO for such a reason would be like the following, only in reverse: "I want to go to the NO rather than the reactionary TLM mass of judgmental people mumbling in a language they don't understand."
I’ll bet at your parish, you like one Mass more than others. Might be the music or the time of day. You probably also prefer the Novus Ordo over the Melkites.
I like the TLM because of the test of time, the reliability, and I think the texts are more straightforwardly Catholic to hear.
They are certainly legitimate reasons for *liking* the TLM over the NO. But I was asking about what someone might mean by saying that he goes the TLM, and not the NO, *because he wants something holy.* That's not the same thing.
To say that one goes to the TLM, rather than the NO, *because one wants something holy* seems, at least at first glance, to suggest pretty strongly that the NO isn't holy. Maybe that's not what's meant, but it's what those words suggest.
you go to a statistically random Sunday Novus Ordo in America.
you go to a statistically random Sunday TLM in America.
one of those isn't a holier experience than the other, 99/100 times?
i'm not talking about mere validity, which is what Novus Ordo people seem to obsess over. I'm talking about the fittingness of worship. i happen to think the TLM hits it out of the park. you might disagree.
good, then we can take the gun off the table. that's good enough for me in these times. as for showing you what i mean, only the TLM can really do that. i'd invite you to go to a Missa Cantata if you get the chance. then compare that to whatever Gift of Finest Wheat altar girl Boomer mass they have at your parish. the holiness gap should be self-evident after that.
There's a term called "precedent," which once established is very hard to just reverse.
The Pope doesn't have to wear white, and in fact used to wear red as "his color."
Plessy v. Ferguson and Roe v. Wade set precedents that each took 1/4 of America's entire existence to overturn.
We should not rely on "well the next guy can just reverse all the stuff his predecessor did" as the ordinary MO of... the office of the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ.
I don't think that Roche & Co. are playing much of a long game, especially given the fact that they might not even be around for whatever changes happen in the next pontificate. I imagine their thinking boils down to "Out of the three popes in recent memory, Pope Francis seems like he'd be the most likely to allow these kinds of restrictions. Let's try and make whatever changes we can now given that he's getting older and we don't know what his successor will be like."
It's been described as "the violent death throws of the Spirit of Vatican II"
This is the last shot of their generation to finally make complete all the changes they wanted back in 1975 and spent their entire careers working towards implementing. They know if they can't get it now, it own't happen and it'll all be for nothing. Hence, the gas pedal is bolted to the floor and the hammer is coming down heavier than ever.
I strongly disagree. It's the attempt by the powers that be to overthrow Vatican II by destroying the power the Council gave to the local bishop. They are trying to reinstate Vatican I without its successor.
Yes, there definitely is a destruction of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council throughout this pontificate. The documents of the Council, the additional writings of the Council Fathers themselves, and the definitive interpretation of the Council built up by the past 5 popes (John XXIII-B16, three of whom have been canonzied) in their magesterium... are all being torn down and directly contradicted by this pontificate.
Is this re-instating Vatican I? I don't know if I'd say that, but yeah there's certainly a point to be made there.
What I do know for certain is that the "Spirit of V2" is not in line with the Council, and this pontificate is destroying the definitive interpetation/hermeneutic that the Church has handed down, to replace it with the "Spirit of V2" formalized via the Synod on Synodality (which at this point is undeniably functioning as a council, a "Vatican III")
Because my bishop is one of those going to the synod for the USCCB I am considerably more confident of its results being orthodox than many other people. That plus the Africans who stand up for the faith.
Instead of a church that thinks in terms of centuries, we seem to have a Vatican that thinks in hours, if that. What would this achieve? Dioceses would be deprived of some very faithful members who actually fight to go to Church. Those members would be INCREDIBLY resentful (rightfully, I think) that they’re treated so shabbily by the “pastoral” Vatican. The Bishops can already ban the TLM if they want, and now they’re losing more people to the ICKSP or FSSP (or SSPX) at a time of financial distress and getting superseded by some functionary in Rome on a fundamentally pastoral issue. It all seems a bit ridiculous.
It is, from a human perspective. The only explanation I can think of: this is a chastisement of humiliation. God doesn't "need" to be worshipped, in a strict sense. It adds nothing to His perfection. If every TLM stopped tomorrow, and all that remained were "Boomer altar girl guitar masses" in the words of some TLM advocates, God would go on being God in all His glory and majesty. But what *we* need, now more than ever, is humility. We didn't ask for the collapse of Christendom, the beige-ification of the Mass, or this era of post-conciliar confusion, no. But this is what we have been handed -- it is what God in His wisdom has permitted for us. If we choose to spit in His face out of pride and say "I'd rather die than accept this cross, this humiliation", then death is exactly what we will receive.
I say all this only because it's a huge struggle for me, too.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
If I find enough spare change in the sofa cushions, I am going to take out a Pillar ad that encourages everyone to read Abandonment to Divine Providence. (But then I would also have to reread it, and I am in the middle of four other books already, the foremost being Quo Vadis (and Rome is currently ON FIRE.))
And my copy is so bedraggled that I would probably have to go buy another one.
Among early historians only Tacitus connects the fire to the persecution of Christians, and he did that to remove credit for that act from Nero, since most pagans of the time approved of it. Well yes, he did something good but for a really bad reason, to cover up his own crimes. Unlikely.
There was an attempt on Nero's life in 66 and he started having large numbers of people killed due to paranoia. All his relatives, many friends, Seneca for saying hello to the mastermind because the normal Latin greeting was, "If you are well I am well," and Seneca said that to the attempted murderer. People who wouldn't worship him as the emperor were not likely to live long.
Go the peripheries and smell like the sheep...unless the sheep smell like incense, apparently.
Rather than look at why the vast majority of people who attend the TLM do so (reverence, solid preaching and teaching, solemnity, beauty) and--I don't know--bring those universally to Novus Ordo Masses and thus solve the problem except for the tiniest minority of people truly veering on schism through "rejection of Vatican II," we have these (I'm including TC and subsequent clarifications) machinations designed to push people over the edge.
I'm not so sure about the solid preaching. I've heard more than a few sermons that have me wondering where the priest studied. A lot of piety but little solid theology. I know others would differ strongly but it is what I heard when I attend the TLM.
I don't think you're wrong about intellectual rigor in TLM circles vis-a-vis preaching. There is a reason Ressourcement folks (Ratzinger, von Balthasar, et al) thought there was a problem with the rigorist and Neo Scholastic approach--which seems to be the theological waters in which the FSSP and especially the ICKSP swim. (Not to mention, again to pick on ICKSP, a strange cultural ossification somewhere in near 18th century France).
I guess what I meant by "solid" was not teaching anything contrary to the faith. It is impossible to conceive being in attendance at an FSSP TLM and having two "married" men give the homily on Father's Day about the blessings of being gay dads as the parishioners of Old St. Pat's in Chicago got to enjoy. Had me longing for the days of "God is love. You are loved just as you are. Amen" which has been the theologically dense content of most of the sermons of my youth. Happily, things have begun to improve. In any event, your pointing out that you want good preaching only drives home my point that bishops demanding reverent, solemn, beautiful liturgies with good music and solid preaching would make much of this go away.
As someone who attends the TLM, I think you are actually on to something here. However I would add this: while some of the preaching can become overly fire and brimstone and neo scholastic at times, I've never had to worry about heresy in a TLM homily. I've heard my fair share of things that skirted the line or went over it in "edgy" NO homilies. So in that regard at least, the TLM can be a bit of a safe haven even if it isn't perfect.
Do you suppose that has any connection at all to 70% of Catholics not believing in the Real Presence? Probably not...
Meanwhile, the bishop where my parents live felt the need to address the pressing threat to Eucharistic theology of the faithful kneeling to receive the Eucharist by banning the practice.
70% of Catholics reject the church's teaching on the Eucharist (to say nothing of cohabitation, fornication, contraception), but it's this small band of Traditional Catholics trying, in my experience, very hard to live as the Church calls them to who "reject Church teaching." And bishops are, apparently, concerned about what may be overweening reverence which also just happens to be the way that my great grandfather and his father before him received the Eucharist. Someone, somehwere has to be joking.
My sense is that most humans think and say and do whatever gets them safely through the day. Religion, for most, I imagine, is primarily a social thing and some insurance against the slight chance that there may be life after death. The world in which they swim is materialist and utilitarian, and they're at ease there.
In my diocese a parish had to stop using a kneeler for those who wished to kneel to receive, but it is my understanding this decision was not one against kneeling, as that is not prohibited, but a pastoral one in favor of the faithful who choose not to kneel yet felt pressured to by the presence of the kneeler. Or perhaps it posed a trip hazard. I liked using it when I visited that parish, as it made it easier for me, a tall woman usually in heels and with shaky knees, to receive kneeling, but mostly to receive on the tongue, which I’m not otherwise inherently comfortable with the mechanics of doing. These are all things I can work on without a kneeler. Maybe in your diocese the decision was also really not against kneeling but instead more in favor of other brothers and sisters and their needs.
So the physical needs of those who wish to kneel before their Lord are subordinated to the emotional desires of those who do not wish to feel pressured to kneel? If a person is so unsteady of foot as to be unable to not trip over a sizable object, I daresay the world is a dangerous place and in the context of Mass, an usher can be notified to have the Eucharist brought to said person. Just because stairs are a tripping hazard for some, we don't force everyone to use the elevator. What is the pastoral thing of which you speak?
As it is, my parents' church doesn't have kneelers set up for communion (or, alas, a communion rail) so the prohibition against kneeling (relayed by the priest who is quite sympathetic to tradition) is not just a prohibition of kneelers.
I think the point is that it seemed unfair to make the faithful question whether they were truly faithful if they chose not to kneel. Plenty of people who wish to kneel still do so without a kneeler. I’m the fussy one who doesn’t. I’m fine with trusting that my bishop made a charitable decision not a punitive one. Your diocese may be different.
I guess I'm just not following the logic of it. Should churches remove stained glass windows and artwork that show saints receiving the Eucharist kneeling (and on the tongue for that matter) because it might make people feel bad?
In terms of the extension of charity, wouldn't not forcing people (who receive according to their conscience or whatever) to kneel on the floor be the greater concession to charity than making sure some unknown number of people aren't made to feel bad (why should they feel bad?) about doing something the church permits?
(Full disclosure: This is theoretical to me. I regularly attend and am a member of a run-of-the-mill diocesan parish where there are neither kneelers nor any significant contingent of people who choose to kneel (I don't because I'd be self-conscious about potentially drawing attention to myself, which is probably a lame excuse.) I am just genuinely baffled that with all the problems--including 2/3 of Catholics not believing that they are receiving into themselves the King of the Universe--that making and outward pious act to our Eucharistic Lord more difficult is something Bishops are worried about.)
I think I don’t feel compelled to sort the logic of this particular decision because I know my bishop to be a man who genuinely loves the Lord and the Church and whose decisions seem grounded in real care for his flock. If this is his choice, it is his to make.
At daily Mass about half the people at my NO parish kneel to receive Communion. A much smaller percentage do so on the days when the school children attend or on Sundays.
I personally am perfectly capable of kneeling on the floor, and don't mind it. But I also personally know people who cannot do that because they wouldn't be able to stand up without a kneeler, and who would like to.
It's the normative method of receiving Holy Communion in the Latin Church, which the Vatican has repeatedly specified cannot be forbidden by local bishops or priests, but most parishes effectively ban the elderly from doing so.
I think that could easily be solved with about 60 seconds of catechesis before Mass. Except for people who are scrupulous, and there's really no way to prevent them questioning regardless of what you do.
I prefer to kneel to receive personally. Having a kneeler there makes it easier to stand up. Not having a nail or means that I either will slow the line down because my husband to help me out occasionally or I cannot kneel. Now keep in mind most of the time I’m perfectly fine and able to stand up with myself but when I’m pregnant, I do reach a point where I physically cannot get down or get up by myself.
We typically go to a TLM parish. But because of military, we are moving this summer and will not have regular access to the TLM because of distance.
I also like kneeling and would do it with a kneeler. I haven’t done it without one because I don’t trust that I’d be able to get up easily and without inconvenience to the people behind me. So I stand. I’d love to have access to a kneeler and would use it if I did. I also don’t feel that not having access is any effort to suppress my desire so much as it is an effort to help other people. I’m fine with that. If I was truly committed to keeling, I’d find a way to do it.
That has got to be one of the dumbest arguments I’ve heard for removing a kneeler. Can you tell that to whoever made the decision?
None of that makes sense when held up to even the slightest scrutiny. Not only does it throw the devotion of kneeling (which is still, officially, the ordinary way to receive communion) thrown under the bus to accommodate something that is the exception to the rule… it also betrays a belief that liturgical worship is simply a matter of taste: “some people like BBQ chips, but others like salt and vinegar chips” but in reality it’s more like “I know you like fresh fruits and veggies for your diet, but some people prefer BBQ chips as their diet.” It’s not a matter of personal taste, it’s a matter of what is objectively better for one’s self.
And someone “feeling pressured?” God forbid someone be slightly influenced by social conformity to properly reverence and receive Our Lord and King in the Eucharist, to do the right and proper thing! What a shame that would be!
Is this really where we’re still at with liturgical discussion? Do people still honestly think this way?
Am I? Pew did a representative sampling of people who self-identify as Catholic, and the 2/3 not believing in the Real Presence came from them. Recently Vinea Research found that 69% of "regular Mass-attending Catholics" (I can't find what that means) believe in the Real Presence. Those are not the same samplings. Only 20% of Catholics attend Mass weekly. I have never stated anything other than the fact that 2/3 of Catholics (which includes people who don't attend Mass) don't have a grasp on the basics of Catholic Eucharistic Theology.
If you consider people who don't believe what the Church teaches on most subjects and never attend Mass Catholic because they say so, then certainly most "Catholics" don't believe that. But saying you are Catholic because your grandmother was one doesn't make you one. If you were baptized as a baby and never darkened a church door again that doesn't make you Catholic.
Why does everyone bring these crazy anomalies up? I don't know where you live but the NO in my area is offered "by the book" with reverence and beauty.
And even if that stuff is happening that does not COME from the Mass itself. It is an abuse happening alongside it. That nonsense was happening in the 70s and 80s in some places definitely. It's what led my family to the TLM.
Back in the 70s when we attended the TLM offered by priests who always said it, it was not anything to "brag" about. The mass was often rushed and sloppily done. IF there was singing it was terrible. I remember a place in Boston where the organ was played the ENTIRE Mass in the background. How it is offered now is not anywhere near what it was like back then. So, even the TLM has been "reformed".
Indeed it has. To my reading, very much in line with what is asked in Sacrosanctum Concilium. The people say responses and follow along with the liturgy in their missal, the readings are given in the vernacular, chant and Latin are given "pride of place," the priest faces the way he has for centuries (an orientation left very much in place by SC). Far from rejecting Vatican II, I think the Traddies are doing it!
Also, to your point about anomalies, if you aren't treated to weekly EXTRAORDINARY ministers of holy communion (appropriately dressed or otherwise) then you definitively have an experience that is outside the norm.
No one in this thread has argued that any of this comes from the Mass of Paul VI. (Though to argue that just because the priest does what he does well that none of the other stuff matters is, I think, wrong.) In fact, quite the opposite. The thread was about how much of the seeking out and strong adherence to the TLM would die down if the typical NO were universally offered with as much care, reverence, and beauty as the typical TLM.
To your pointing to the 70s and 80s for silly things, the gay dads reflection I mentioned above was given at St. Patricks in 2022. Nonsense is alive and well.
I think it’s correct that so-called “clown masses” are anomalies today, compared to decades past. However, I do think that it’s a stretch to say that the NO is regularly offered with “reverence and beauty”. In my experience, you have to really seek out a reverent and beautiful NO mass. Most of what you find in most places is ho-hum, Gather hymnal, uninspiring homilies, banal liturgy.
Never seen either of those at a NO Mass, but I did drop out of the Church from 1970 to 1980, and I've been told if I had to drop out I chose the perfect time to do it.
I don't quite understand how limiting the TLM to FSSP and ICKSP is supposed to quarantine those people from the rest of the diocese. Those parishes are under the authority of the local bishop, the priests get their faculties from him, the bishop or his representative do Confirmations there, they do all the regular diocesan collections and church taxes, their charities are eligible for diocesan grants, they have events in cooperation with other parishes, host national and international lay religious organizations, some work with campus ministries, some do door-to-door evangelization... what are they going to do, issue an ecclesiastical restraining order and forbid traditionalists from speaking to mainstream Catholics? Who are often friends and relatives?
I also don't understand, if the main trouble is the rejection of Vatican 2 and the Pope, why they don't just put together an oath/affirmation of acceptance as the Church has done many times in the past. TLM priests and attendees at diocesan Masses would be highly unlikely to refuse a reasonably worded oath/affirmation.
I would not find it much of a challenge to go to most Eastern liturgies on a weekly or monthly basis. Not my culture, but it is my fallback plan (and also the fallback plan of many other TLM devotees; their numbers jumped after TC).
Most people in the TLM do not reject the NO as invalid or inherently defective. Probably a fair number who consider it inherently and/or practically inferior, but still valid and (if celebrated according to the rubrics, GIRM, and Instrumentum Redeptionem Sacramentis) also licit. I don't see how anyone could possibly consider this to be a problem. Presumably the argument for approving the Novus Ordo and attempting to suppress the TLM in the first place was that the Novus Ordo was superior to the TLM in some way. It's kinda cruel to make enormous changes and force them on hundreds of millions of people for the sake of something that is no better than what they already had. There are extremely outspoken TLM devotees who I think hold to this view, and I rather suspect their vehemence causes people to categorize them incorrectly.
If you think it's such a huge problem, I don't object to adding a clause to the oath/affirmation regarding the NO being valid and licit when celebrated according to the approved liturgical books.
I suspect that if the NO we got after V2 for the most part resembled what the NO was actually stated in the documents to be, the TLM movement would be a lot smaller. I think also that the more restrictions put on it, the more people who love it feel compelled to defend it.
I prefer the TLM and I am willing to state it's a preference only - I don't think the NO is invalid (I usually attend it). I also don't pretend that pre-V2 everything was perfect in the Church because it wasn't. But what I think is a real shame is that due to how events have shaken out there is very little chance, at least at present, that the forms can achieve any kind of reconciliation. I'm not a liturgist, but I do think in some ways that the traditional calendar is superior to the new, but with how things stand now I don't know how it would be possible to re-incorporate some of those elements that are missing to the new calendar and there isn't really a way to add new canonized saints to the traditional calendar except by private home observance. The TLM as it is now is frozen in time and that is artificially imposed, not by design. And I think it's to everyone's detriment because the loudest people or the people in charge are so determined to be right about everything.
I didn't know that! That is hopeful, but I would also imagine it isn't exactly anyone's priority at present.
I thought about it because a previous comment seemed to suggest (maybe I misread) that TLMers refuse to acknowledge people canonized after 1962 and that didn't sit right with me. There just isn't a way at present to have a Mass said for them according to TLM rubrics, but I know in homes many of these saints are recognized and celebrated.
Yes! St. Joan of Arc isn't in the calendar, and she's one of my favorites. I've heard a traditionalist priest exorcist say he finds St. John Paul II to be very helpful in some sessions. But TLM priests aren't allowed to incorporate elements of the NO on their own authority, so until the Vatican does something, we're stuck.
I'm copying this from Mike Gannon below, because he said it very well. There are 4 senses for inferior/superior:
"To be sure, on one level, a guitar Mass in a basement can be of greater worth than a TLM in a beautiful chapel, if the former is celebrated with genuine devotion and the latter with coldness and indifference. In another sense, the same two Masses might see the TLM as having greater value, if the form and aspects of worship is more fitting to God's dignity and grandeur. And both are of equal dignity and value insofar as they participate in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Finally, one can be subjectively better in the sense of "better for me", insofar as it draws me closer to God and causes me to grow in holiness, virtue, and devotion. That is something that only the individual, and maybe their spouse or confessor, can judge, which is why liberty of worship is a pastoral good. When TLM Catholics assert, "The TLM is better", they generally say so in the second and fourth senses described here, without prejudice to the other two."
It might be good to recall that changing from the Tridentine Rite to the NO, was either due, at least in part, to the belief that the NO was in some very significant and important way(s) superior to the TLM - or it was an act of utter cruelty, ripping away something that was known and loved for the sake of internal politics alone.
There's another, practical aspect, that comes into play for a lot of people. I.e., if all the NO Masses in your area aren't actually following the rubrics, you can get a Mass that is downright bad and should not be attended. The closest NO parish to me is one I will not attend unless it is absolutely the only one available for my obligation, because the priest has a tendency to ad lib parts of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. I would call that "downright bad", and I've seen worse, and heard of worse than I've seen.
Frankly, most people who go to the TLM probably do not know how to make these distinctions. If you want to convict anyone of a defect of ecclesial communion, you'll have to make the distinctions for them and ask which they're talking about. This is part of why the Dominican-run Spanish Inquisition had a prison rather than concluding each person's fate in a single hearing.
My point is not that all TLMers are innocent in every way. It's more that in normal speech, the problem is sufficiently difficult to confidently detect that charity requires either presumption of innocence or the Inquisition, not an assumption of guilt.
Oh, I thought it had happened more than once (I agree I don't go out of my way for that. If it happens repeatedly and I don't know who it is, like a daily Mass at a parish on my commute, I write a gentle letter to the pastor and it probably gets round-filed and I tell myself I have done my job and can let it go )
I've been to places where it happened repeatedly, and I could never sort out who the priest was then either. The situations muddle together a bit, and I settle for running away.
Generally speaking, I figure the priest either knows perfectly well what he's doing and that it's wrong and will ignore anything I send. Or it's accidental and saying something will make a good priest feel he's under a microscope. Maybe that's overly binary, but I've never heard a priest say he was grateful for a complaint about his practices.
Thank you. There are priests who I occasionally hear Mass with at the Basilica where you never know ahead of time who will be saying Mass. I would never have thought to say something if they do that. Instead I just avoid them. But the next time that happens I will say something.
I don't think there is necessarily a defect in ecclesial communion. Full communion exists between Catholics of numerous rites. Even apart from the Eastern Catholic churches, the Latin Rite of the Mass has the Anglican Use for those Catholics who wish to stay connected to that spiritual and liturgical patrimony and feel most and home and closest to God in that tradition and praxis. It is such for the vast majority of TLMers who, it must be said, largely attended both NO and TLM before TC came down.
I disagree. Theological disagreements do not necessitate a breakdown in communion. Ecclesial communion does not require being in intellectual or spiritual lockstep. I am fairly suspicious of Ignatian spirituality (for example) and wouldn't recommend it to others, but I don't feel like that somehow impedes communion with those who draw grace through it. And I don't think a defect in communion exists between me and Andrea Grillo, despite the fact that he believes that my love of the old Mass makes me theologically backwards. I just think he's a jerk!
I would recognize it as a defect in good sense. The Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgies derive from a different liturgical tradition. They do not stem from the Latin Rite.
Discussions of which Rite is better are as old as the Church is. Discussions about which religious order is better are as old as religious orders are. It's generally indistinguishable from supporting your baseball or football team. I think that there are plenty who would say the Benedictines have the watered-down version of Benedictine life, the Carthusians have the real deal (since they kinda did go back to the sort of life St. Benedict envisioned after many of the mortifications had eased up). But I haven't heard of anyone trying to shut down the Carthusians over it, or force them to join Benedictine monasteries.
Do they say you are doing something bad, or do they simply react with negative emotions and you assume their opinion? I know people who react with negative emotions to the TLM, not from any objections to it, but simply because they are thoroughly confused and disoriented at it because they don't know Latin and can't figure out the missal and spend the entire Mass being flustered and lost rather than praying, which is a somewhat unpleasant association to have. But If I didn't know the reasons, I could certainly misjudge.
I react with distaste to the idea of going to the NO. I've seen people get refused Holy Communion for kneeling (and absolutely nothing else), after researching thoroughly to determine that the parish was pretty good, and now I'm often shaking if I go up for Communion. At the NO, I've repeatedly encountered priests ad libbing the Mass, or adults talking over the Mass, and it always disturbs me. If I want enrichment I'll go to the Eastern Church.
If a person doesn't say that they think the TLM is bad, I assume they do not believe that it is, regardless of their reaction to the idea of going. I think the same should apply for the NO. Lack of charity and intolerance for minor faults and foibles can be very bad for Church unity.
I've heard it said that the Carthusians are the only older religious order that has never needed to be reformed. St. Thomas More was closely associated with them. Henry VIII had most of them and the Franciscans starved to death in the Tower of London. Not so the others.
Does that apply to repeated Vatican directives which stated liturgical abuse was so widespread there was doubt whether in fact Catholics were worshipping in an acceptable way?
Most trads just take the position that there's a reason Rome has to continue issuing all these reforms and admonishments: the process of the Novus Ordo itself encourages all these problematic things. It got better markedly under Benedict, but trads also stopped a lot of the criticisms because they were pretty superfelous: we had our vehicle for liturgical reform, so we set about actually reforming the liturgy. Given most TLM's were celebrated in a "dual use" environment of both the novus ordo and TLM, Benedict's much hoped for "Mutual enrichment" was actually happening.
By severing that mutual enrichment, the only thing you'll do is just reignite these debates, and those favoring the status quo are on far less favorable ground now, considering the institutional decay in the Church that upholds said status quo.
The right response is to give them a vehicle to carry out their own reform in the Church. Which is what happened under Benedict, and you almost never heard any liturigcal debates. Its why as prefect of the CDW, Cardinal Sarah could talk about the dangers of the liturgical wars in a mostly academic sense, rather than the trench warfare debate it was pre 2006.
And while I am glad you agree, I guess I have to ask again:
The vatican had repeatedly said that the way a not insignificant minority of Catholics experienced the Novus Ordo was not acceptable, on numerous occasions. Even Pope Francis felt the need to issue a perfunctory (and immediately ignored by himself) statement about the dismal state of the novus ordo, in 2021.
Why is it beyond the pale for trads to say "you know, maybe the problem goes beyond mere abuse, and into something intrinsic to the reform itself?"
If you mean those who think its invalid outright, that's such a small minority I don't see the point of discussion. If we mean "valid but problematic" rome has agreed with that assessment roughly every 10 years. Is it tone policing? Is it because people don't like the conclusions trads draw from these facts?
Yet why is that a problem with unity in diversity? Since there were multiple choices, people could make that decision, and if they wanted nothing to do with it, Rome gave them that decision for over a decade, and as you mentioned, it mostly worked.
Its a problem for those who insist the liturgical reform was a smashing success, but it doesn't really seem to threaten the unity of the Church. Unless you try to force people to adopt something they clearly don't want to, for reasons nobody is really able to articulate.
I understand what you are saying, I just question if what you are asserting regarding the threat is actually real, or potential. Francis believed/believes it was real and imminent. When he asked the local bishops for their opinion, they mostly told him the threat was not an issue in their dioceses, and obviously not imminent. (The French bishops going so far as to explicitly reject what was then being proposed by TC in a list of options.)
Well, at some point, I think it limits the number of people who can realistically access a TLM, and when I'm cynical about it I think that might be the point. There are two TLMs available in our diocese - one is by ICKSP and one is SSPX (I suppose if you live by one border there is a FSSP parish within driving distance in a neighboring diocese). I have never been to the SSPX chapel but the ICKSP parish is stuffed to the rafters for every Sunday Mass. I suppose the order could, if they had enough priests, add another priest to the parish to expand the schedule. And I don't think the local bishop gets to be in charge of that, but it's also not like the ICKSP is huge. There's two priests, compared to many many more diocesan priests (for now, heh.)
But if you give a diocesan priest a cookie/TLM, pretty soon his friends are going to want one too...my diocese seems so afraid of this they are regulating cookie ingredients lest they show up in the NO. My metaphor is falling apart now so I think I'll stop there!
With the age of the internet and digital content, it's a game the diocese is destined to fail.
"Hey Father, did you see that youtube video of that parish Mass in [insert city here] that I sent you? Why can't we do [chant/incense/AO/Latin NO/altar boys only/insert other traditional element of liturgy] at our parish?" How many young people, both laity and clergy, have to see "traditional" elements on social media and be totally mesmerized by its attractiveness before it can't be ignored anymore?
// How many young people, both laity and clergy, have to see "traditional" elements on social media and be totally mesmerized by its attractiveness before it can't be ignored anymore? //
You might be surprised how unimportant what used to be called beauty has become.
I agree that it's not a successful strategy. It seems incredibly short sighted and while I think jokes about Pope Francis or various bishops dying are crude, there is an element of truth there - they won't be in charge when they are gone. I really don't understand why this seems to be the hill they're willing to die on (I have theories but I can't read hearts or minds).
Trads, whether TLM folks or "can we just do the NO the way the V2 documents actually said, please", are people who actually believe the teachings of the Church, including things like generously giving to the Church and obedience to the local ordinary. I think documents like TC ended up causing a lot of radicalization that very well may have never happened otherwise. A lot of TLM or TLM-friendly people really didn't think pre-TC that anyone was out to get them (there were some very loud, very online agitators, I don't think anybody would deny this) but that Church officials just didn't get it, which was unfortunate but fine, as long as they could still have their Mass.
I do think there's an element of "we can keep these people down and they'll at least listen." I don't think you can depend on that forever - see my prior point about radicalization - but if you want obedience by and large the trad crowd is still going to give it to you because they think it's important, even if the authority is wrong. The "clown Mass" people aren't going to listen to "no," but these folks will. I suppose that's me speculating about hearts and minds after all, but this is one of the only reasonable theories that makes sense to me - the power trip. It's very human.
The trad crowd will tend to be obedient, but we will also tend to rules-wizard, and we can rules-wizard faster than a hundred cardinals can write new rules. They can't forbid dry Masses, altar server training (or even priest training), scholas and polyphony choirs, processions, streaming TLM, the old Divine Office, or teaching children with the old catechisms. They can't stop us going to the Eastern Churches or the Anglican Use without shutting those down for no reason whatsoever as well.
It's the typical response of obedient people to unreasonable commands. Obey the letter, and do your best to make the letter look as ridiculous as it is while you're obeying it.
My cynical thoughts have been underestimating reality for years now, and I assumed the point was to limit who could realistically access a TLM, along with driving a wedge between TLM folks and NO folks.
For a while, the FSSP/ICKSP can get by with just adding priests to existing parishes. But it's going to spill over at some point, and the SSPX isn't limited to where the Vatican says they may go, and I agree on the diocesan priests. There's only so many small rural parishes you can move priests too when they start acquiring cookie ingredients.
If you demanded an oath of affirmation regarding the second Vatican council you had to define what parts of the council are actually binding, which is the last thing a lot of people championing "the council" want.
Yes! That would be a large part of the point. To put a stop to the (divisive) accusations of disobedience, schism, and heresy that have no basis beyond an emotional reaction to those with a different, perfectly legitimate, opinion. Clarity does tend to help with unity.
So far, every champion of the Council that I've asked for such a list (even a partial one) has... mysteriously disappeared from the internet discussion. I assume this means that they don't actually know what they're championing, but I wouldn't assume that they actively and consciously support ambiguity. There are a lot of people with cheerleader type personalities that just want to get everyone excited about the same thing they're excited about, even if they don't exactly know what that is. Figuring out what parts of the Council are actually binding would be a whole lot of work, that requires a lot of specialized knowledge, and probably a fair amount of Vatican input and possibly Dubia rulings.
This is the main problem of fighting over whether V2 is accepted by some person or group or not. Unless they announce that they believe the Papal confirmation of V2 was invalid or that Paul VI was invalidly elected, there's no solid evidence either way. A person can like the Council and reject it, or dislike the Council and accept it, without contradiction.
I think that we could resolve a lot of liturgical problems with a truce of liberty. In the early Church, there was no one rite dictated throughout the known world. Likewise, in the Middle Ages, there were different styles, such as the Roman Rite, the Gallican rite in France, the Serum Mass in England, the Mazorabic Rite in Spain, and numerous less common rites even in the West, as well as other rites in the East. It would seem that we could once again allow a variety of ways of celebrating Mass, whether the standard Novus Ordo (in Latin or vernacular, versus populum or ad orientum), the Traditional Latin Mass, the Anglican Use Mass, the Zaire Mass (currently authorized for Congo), or more charismatic styles commonly associated with the neo-Catechumenal Way. Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Vatican II Council constitution on the liturgy in fact encouraged national adaptations to the liturgy, proposed by episcopal conferences and approved by the Vatican. We could also end the translation wars by authorizing different translations with more formal equivalence, more dynamic equivalence, and perhaps a translation in between. Bishops and pastors in their local areas are best able to determine what will work for their people. And people have different spiritualities, and thus would benefit from different styles. Authorizing a wide variety in the liturgy would enable the Church to minister to people of God in whatever way works, rather than in only one fixed manner determined by a central authority.
Okay, but that makes too much sense. Why would the Church do something intelligent and that would be well received by most of the faithful when we could do the opposite. /s
This is true except that many people attending the TLM think the the TLM is superior and every other form of the Mass is inferior. They keep calling it the Mass of the Saints (true) but won't face that we have new saints who have attended the NO.
Guilty as charged. We think the TLM is better. Don’t you think the Novus Ordo is better? Why can you prefer your form of the Mass, but I cannot prefer mine?
It’s not yours. You are not the actor in the mass, Christ is, so to talk about “better” or “inferior” is pathetic. I agree that the extraordinary form teaches us more clearly about the sacrificial character of the mass, which is why suppressing it would be an evil act, but stop talking about my mass and your mass.
These are all approved forms of the Mass. People are allowed to have favorites. You have your favorite. I have mine. Why is it ok for you but not for me?
You seem to assume everyone else is out to get you. Some are, maybe, but not me. I agree with Pope Benedict that what is holy remains holy forever, and that the extraordinary form should have a special place in the Church. I just object to the term "better" as it is a category error, that is all.
I understand where you are coming from Aiden, but it isn't an awful thing to say, "This form of the Mass could be better," or "While this Mass is holy, there are certain things lacking." After all, the ability to make these observations is what underpins the logic behind
Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Liturgical Movement in general (which began with priests, monks, and laity trying to do what they could to improve the liturgy). And that this point, TLM Catholics aren't even asking NO Catholics to make major changes to the NO. We simply want to be left alone and be given liberty of worship.
"Liberty of worship" is completely the wrong way of thinking about this, it is almost a consumerist mindset where you want the best product. The liturgy doesn't need improving, we do. So you must absolutely without reservation accept that a guitar-and-tambourine NO mass in a grotty hall is no "better" or no "worse" than the most exquisite TLM in a beautiful chapel, because the actor in the mass is Christ, not us. We just assist at the mass.
Now, there are different charisms in the Church and some people are granted blessings in one format, some in another so I want the TLM to flourish with zero restrictions. The eye cannot say to the hand "I don't need you." May God bless you, I hope you can experience holiness in the way God intends for you.
If "the liturgy doesn't need improving, we do" is an absolute truth as you say, then Sacrosantum concilium was unnecessary and the Fathers of the Second Council were seriously misguided. Is that what you are asserting?
To be sure, on one level, a guitar Mass in a basement can be of greater worth than a TLM in a beautiful chapel, if the former is celebrated with genuine devotion and the latter with coldness and indifference. In another sense, the same two Masses might see the TLM as having greater value, if the form and aspects of worship is more fitting to God's dignity and grandeur. And both are of equal dignity and value insofar as they participate in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Finally, one can be subjectively better in the sense of "better for me", insofar as it draws me closer to God and causes me to grow in holiness, virtue, and devotion. That is something that only the individual, and maybe their spouse or confessor, can judge, which is why liberty of worship is a pastoral good. When TLM Catholics assert, "The TLM is better", they generally say so in the second and fourth senses described here, without prejudice to the other two.
Excellent explanation. Those specific two senses are something most TLM devotees tend to assume, whenever discussing the superiority or inferiority of different Rites, as it seems rather obvious that the first sense is unpredictable for any Rite, and the third sense is always irrelevant to such a discussion, as something that is equal for all Masses cannot make one Mass better or worse than another.
Who am I to judge the Fathers of the Second Council? That was a pastoral council of its time, before I was born, whatever was necessary or not necessary at that time is not really a concern of mine, and doesn't really seem to be very relevant to the life of the Church today.
All your points seem to boil down to what you mean by "worth?" I find it very odd to say that the "worth" of the mass is a function of the devotion of the people assisting at it. Or that the subjective experience of the mass (which includes your idea of what is fitting to God's dignity) is really all that important in itself. Of course, the didactic effect on us, and the lex orandi of the Church are extremely important in our lives, and for our salvation. So I agree with point 4, but it also opens up a whole can of worms about how our personal vanities, insecurities, slothfulness or pride can impede our judgement of what is "better for me".
"So I agree with point 4, but it also opens up a whole can of worms about how our personal vanities, insecurities, slothfulness or pride can impede our judgement of what is 'better for me'." Sure it can, and we should always be humble and mindful of our own hidden faults. However, it is still a matter that the individual can best judge and this must be given significant pastoral weight.
Suppose a traditionalist husband is married to a woman who feels most nourished by a contemporary, praise and worship Mass. Even if the husband believes that the TLM is theologically superior, would it be loving act to force his wife to completely abandon her P&W Mass to attend a TLM where she feels disconnected and spiritually unsatisfied? I don't think that would be just. I think a loving husband in this case should be honest about his opinions, explain them, pray that his wife is open to them, but ultimately ensure that she is free and unpressured to attend the sort of liturgy where she feels closest to God. And I think wise and prudent pastors should do likewise and leave the rest in God's hands.
If one form of a valid Mass is in fact “better” than another, none of us actually has an efficacious sacrifice but an empty ritual. Some forms of the Mass might be more theologically rich. Some might be more pleasing on any given number of factors. That doesn’t make any one or another “better” in the sense they are more valuable, i.e. more efficacious,. Claiming one is “better” entails a pretty dangerous locgicsl conclusion.
Of course. My response assumed that by “better” Ryan meant more efficacious. Maybe he doesn’t mean that and therefore my response isn’t to his actual position.
How we participate in and respond to the Sacrifice does in fact make it more or less efficacious. Think about it. If what we do doesn't matter, as long as the Sacrament is valid, then why on earth is particpatio actuosa so important? Everyone ought to become Saints merely by existing in the same room as the Mass and receiving Holy Communion.
Neither our disposition nor the priest's affects whether or not the Eucharist is validly confected. But they certainly do affect the graces we receive from it, not to mention all the Sacramentals included in the Mass.
When it comes to Sacramentals, you have to actually use the Sacramental for it to be efficacious, not just have the right disposition, yes?
So if one Rite has a Sacramental included, then those properly disposed will receive those graces, while the same properly disposed people at a Rite without that Sacramental will not receive those graces.
If you have a Rite with a lot more Sacramentals included than another, you can conclude that, all else being equal, a properly disposed person will receive more graces in that Rite, than in the other.
no one mentioned validity except you. the Novus Ordo crowd is obsessed with this as the sole metric because it's the only boast the Novus Ordo usually has.
I don’t know what you mean by “Novus Ordo crowd”. For me, that is my entire diocese since its founding aside from a faithful TLM community that is quite new in comparison to the age of the diocese itself. Your comments seem to insist on an “us vs them” tenor and I don’t understand why. We are all one Church. When we insist we aren’t, we will have become Protestant and denied the reality of the Body of Christ. Peace to you. Truly.
how could i have possibly adopted a bunker mentality when it comes to the TLM? heavens to betsies, how could that have possibly happened? hint--read the article above. then ask how you might act if they were taking away your regular experience of Catholicism, aka the mass you love.
I don’t doubt you are genuinely hurt and frustrated by the situation. I’m sorry. While I don’t have the same experience, I can appreciate that it must be difficult for you and I hope it improves.
I don't understand this mentality of "how dare those TLM people think their mass is better"? In every other area of human existence where a choice among two or more options exists, some people will prefer one thing while others will prefer an alternative. There's nothing inherently bad about this. Different strokes for different folks. I'm sure that many if not most people who drink Diet Coke think it's better than Diet Pepsi. Many people who use iPhones think such devices superior to Android phones. I've been attending TLM nearly exclusively for a dozen or so years. I've never heard a single priest nor any fellow attendee ever declare that the Novus Ordo is invalid or heretical. Yes, many if not most of TLM attendees think the TLM is superior, and that's why they're there. But so what? A lot of people at the opera think Mozart and Verdi are superior to Jay Z and Beyonce. Is it not okay for people to prefer what they prefer?
I've heard plenty of people say that the TLM being in Latin is sufficient for them to never attend it. I've heard some others say that they had been to a TLM and would never go back because they didn't like the people there. Is either attitude also a serious problem that makes it much harder to keep everyone together in the Church? Personally, I wouldn't say the first one is, but I definitely would on the second.
Diocesan parishes that provide both NO and TLM are, in my opinion, the best means of drawing people from both sides together.
And that's what my brother the priest does. He says both. I don't understand why the Vatican can think what he is doing is fomenting some kind of rebellion when he says each Mass as best he can whether NO or TLM.
But don't you understand that there's no surer way to make TLM devotees take on the attitude that "NO is downright bad and I will never celebrate/attend it" than to bully and harass TLM devotees by canceling their masses, belittling and shunning them? Suppression and harassment *promote* disunity rather than reducing it. Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum was the perfect truce: "let's all try to act like both of these are fine, and you can take your pick." And it worked. I'll use myself as an example, I've attended the TLM almost exclusively for a dozen or so years, but it's "almost" because if I were, say, traveling and a convenient TLM couldn't be found, I'd got to a Novus Ordo. But, now in the era Traditionis Custodes, I resent being bullied. The harder they try to suppress the TLM, the *more* devoted I've become to it. So, now, when on vacation, rather than going to convenient Novus Ordo, I'll go to an incovenient TLM or I will plan my vacation itinerary around TLM availability.
This is the mentality of the minor stepchildren of an abusive alcoholic "Sure, his behavior is inexcusable, but you make things worse for all of us with your insolence and defiance toward him. Just keep your head down, take your beatings and pray he goes away someday." Sorry, but I can't live like that.
It's either disingenuous or obtuse to suggest by "abuse" I meant "attending the new Mass once in a while." I am talking about the callousness and cruelty with which Latin Mass parishioners have been treated the last couple years. Take the example of the Latin Mass community at Old St Mary's in Washington D.C. There was a vibrant TLM community there for 30 or 40 years. There had been regular TLM attendees who had been part of that parish for decades. These are people who loved the church, loved the priests, loved their fellow parishioners. And then one day... it's basically "Get the hell out of here." For no good reason. It's not that the parishioners there didn't put enough money in the collection basket. It's not that the parishioners there attacked the Pope.
No, it's for no other reason than a handful of Vatican bureaucrats 4400 miles away who'd never been to the parish, never met the priests nor the parishioners, put down that it was so ordered. That's putting ideology above charity. And it's cruelty. It's malice. And it's abuse.
Some of the language can be triumphalistic, to be sure, but it boils down to an assertion that there are rational, intelligible reasons for our devotion to the TLM and belief that it does a number of things better than the NO. Our devotion does not stem from familiarity or pious nostalgia for a mythical golden age, as is often alleged.
Actually, as noted above there were a substantial number of liturgies, usually due to geographic area, so there were plenty of saints before Trent who did not attend TLM.
I really believe this is the way. The idea that Latin Rite Catholics only have one missal to choose from is really not accurate and never has been. Apart from the rites of the Religious Orders, there still exists many of the regional rites that Father lists. There really is no rational reason to suppress this one missal.
All of this is such a joke. Papal reach has gone far beyond what it should be. Local bishops should be the ones to determine the actions and disciplines in their own dioceses. The Bishop of Rome should focus on being THE BISHOP OF ROME and let's get back to the Catholic teaching of subsidiarity when it comes to Church hierarchy. The Bishop of Rome ought to only step in situations when their is a disagreement on doctrine.
The Bishop of Rome is also the Metropolitan of the Latin Church, and as such has authority concerning (not over) the liturgy of the Latin Church. I agree that he has overstepped, an example might be micromanaging parish bulletins, but he does have some responsibilities beyond doctrinal disagreements.
According to Vatican II, the local bishop is the one to decide how best to do things in his diocese for pastoral reasons. He knows his parishioners or at least should and can act best for them.
That does not mean there is no call for the Metropolitan to do anything whatsoever. Just that the bishops should be doing a lot more than they were. Or are.
"whatever enhanced canonical measures could be imposed on the extraordinary form of the liturgy, it would seem highly unlikely they would effect a sudden change of mind by those individuals — rather, it could push many into a harder and more formal distancing from the Church. "
I'm highly sceptical of this line of reasoning because it applied to the original TC every bit as much as a new potential offensive. TC was NEVER likely to significantly reduce attachment to the TLM because it turned it into a martyr. Of all the institutions in the world the Catholic Church should understand the power of the martyr!
No the reality is the Vatican is not acting rationally - it is acting ideologically. An ideology that sees the wholesale changes made to the liturgy by the Consilium as being part and parcel of Vatican II itself and thus representing a complete break with liturgical tradition. Look no further than Andrea Grillo who is the intellectual driver of this whole movement. When you compare his "theology" to that of the Benedict XVI/Ratzinger you see just how driven he is by this ideology. He literally said “Tradition is not the past, but the future.”
My favorite irony in all this TLM business is that this sort of lay participation is very much called for by Vatican II. From the formation of Ecclesia Dei societies throughout the land to scouring the chancery rosters for sympathetic priests to say a Mass here and there at this time and that, to educating curious onlookers, to learning the chants, to teaching sympathetic but unfamiliar priests how the Mass is to be said to training altar boys to petitioning bishops for space, this has largely been an initiative of the laity, and as such, very much that which was desired by Vatican II.
Laity wanting heresy? Let us listen and accompany.
Laity wanting wanting to pray the Mass as their great grandfathers did? Let them be anathema. Put them in the gymnasium. Shut them down.
Yes, the laity at "TLM parishes" are on average far more active in participating in both the liturgy and the spiritual/communal life of the parish than the average "Saint Suburbia" "Beige Catholicism" parish. The TLMers are the models of active lay participation in every sense.
Matthew, when you use those terms about parishes in the suburbs, you lose fellow Catholics’ empathy. There are many people in our very strong liturgically, beautiful suburban parish who support those who find beauty in the TLM and are also dumbfounded about this. It doesn’t seem prudent to mock fellow sojourners, even if they seem to be hanging out at the beer stands, or even wandering somewhere else.
Where did Matthew mock the Mass? I don't even see that he talks about the Mass. He talks about parish life. "Beige Catholicism" is a term that has been employed both by Larry Chapp in his essays on his blog Guadium et Spes 22 and writings for the NC Register and and Catholic World Report, and I've heard Bishop Barron use the term, and I'm sure that others have besides.
That there are happy exceptions doesn't disprove a real phenomenon of a bourgeois, suburban, beige Catholicism concerned with relative comfort (physical and spiritual) and a sort of Moral Therapeutic Deism.
I stand corrected, Paul, and I removed/changed my last sentences. (I shouldn’t be taking time out from my daily tasks around the house so God’s letting me know that.) One way to face such a “bland”phenomenon is to stay and permit the Holy Spirit to work through us as salt. And there are some holy people planting seeds everywhere, just as there can be hypocrisy and overly-comfortableness in both Mass settings. May the wisdom of the past two Holy Fathers prevail regarding this. Peace out!
I think you're absolutely right about being salt in a community! This fact is, I think, one of the negative things about the (self) herding of many people who are very serious about their faith (and the trappings thereof) into TLM sites. Painting with broad brushstrokes here and acknowledging that there are wonderful people at excellent regular parishes (I strive to be one of them!), droves of people who would be scattered salt throughout a diocese in their parishes for a more...robust...parish presentation of the Transcendentals are concentrated in small (as a share of diocesean life) and often diocesan-adjacent communities. This is an impoverishment.
I tell you what, Paul- for the past 2.5 decades, our family has not moved out of our home parish boundaries to regularly attend Mass and participate in parish life elsewhere. (We homeschooled so we did get involved in many efforts- but never switched parishes). We’ve been blessed with faithful pastors, mostly great associates, too, but there always comes a time when there are/will be differences and I know that some- maybe many- suffer under pastors who are not faithful or are bland. That is a true suffering, and in past locations I suffered through that. In our archdiocese we are so blessed to be able to travel easily to many good parishes, including a great FSSP city parish. It has been painful to watch some young faithful families leave our parish, with reverent beautiful liturgies and real movement towards mission discipleship, to be up there- but just as God called us to homeschool (rather- similarly), they are called to go there. I do think that decision has to be made carefully, though. If your parish home is “nomad” (and not saying this situation is, please!), it’s hard to expect your children to settle down as adults- to ride out the good and the bad, the rain and the heat.
What? Clearly the phrase “Saint Suburbia” is describing a kind of parish, one obviously not limited to a zone of urban-planning (though inspired, nonetheless, by an undeniable past connection from which it derives its name).
We can describe any person as “being provincial” to describe their simpleness, naïveté, and lack of broad worldly knowledge… but they don’t have to be from rural area.
It doesn’t negate the trend. Good for you. Same with my NO parish. I may be pretty stupid, but I’m not dumb: I know my parish is an absolute statistical outlier by every metric.
Around here I don't think my parish is that much of an outlier. For one thing, a lot of African priests attend Notre Dame studying all sorts of things (the Church in Uganda, for example, has a national bank and need priests trained in finances). Parishes often have a student auxiliary priest living in the rectory and saying some of the Masses. Since my Dad's Trinidadian accent is similar to the Nigerian, I can usually understand them even if they have a bit of an accent but most of them have excellent American English pronunciation. I suspect their presence helps keep the local NO parish Masses by the book
Can anyone explain why “how” the liturgy is being celebrated in India and the TLM dust up have become such an issue? Sincerely I am very curious why this is such an issue.
Because Rome has championed a more aggressive centralization, in line with Pope Francis' authoritarian tendencies. (Tendencies he himself acknowledged as leading to him being exiled as a leader of the Jesuits in Argentina in the past!)
More polemically, Pope Francis views himself the source and summit of Christianity, the Catholic Church's personal spiritual director, and he must mold the Church in his image. He tries to do this through existing Church law, and when that fails, he makes new law. Hence with the liturgical celebration in india, he directed the Synod to stop dragging their feet on slowly implementing a compromise they have cultivated for years, and instead force it through yesterday. (We are now seeing why the Synod acted so cautiously!)
The worry that some TLM fans are schismatic, or schismatic-adjacent, is not crazy, as far as I can tell. But it's also easily exaggerated.
If we grant that *not all* TLM fans are problematic in this way, wouldn't it be much more fair to try to treat different cases differently? As suggested earlier, maybe the Holy Father should find some way--e.g., by asking people to take an oath (the details of which would be hard to work out), or in some other way--to sort out who is a faithful Catholic from who is a renegade. And then use disciplinary measures only against the latter.
By using the expression "casus belli," the main article brought up warfare as a metaphor. Well, a really important part of just warfare is discrimination. Just treating everyone the same is like carpet-bombing.
While we're at it, lets make every Latin priest say each of the Eastern Rites monthly to prove that they aren't schismatic against the Eastern Catholics.
The Mass has not organically developed to be a single enclosed unit without affect on the previous or subsequent Mass such that you can just pop another Divine Liturgy in without disruption. It intertwines with the Divine Office, with the liturgical season and calendar, the feasts and fasts, etc. There are dual-rite priests, and priests who voluntarily do more than one Latin Rite, and I don't have a problem with that, but it should not be a requirement.
With the TLM communities like FSSP, ICKSP, and the Missionaries of Divine Mercy, you are talking about groups whose charism is devotion to this entire body of tradition. It would be like telling the Franciscans that they must act like a Dominican once a month or once a year, habit and all, or like telling the Carthusians that they are required to be Jesuits occasionally and leave their cloister to give a lecture in university in Jesuit dress and under the Jesuit Rule, to avoid being schismatics. It does nothing for them spiritually to temporarily and routinely take from them the legitimate thing they have chosen for life.
And the whole purpose is to prove that they aren't schismatic? What happened to the presumption of innocence?
Tell me more about how the Novus Ordo celebrates Ember Days. They have specific Masses in the TLM, which are treated as normal days in the NO. Lots of feasts and fasts are the same between the Eastern Catholics and the Latin Rite as well. That doesn't make the individual Masses interchangeable.
I am saying the same thing regarding Carthusians and Jesuits applies to Societies like the FSSP, ICKSP, and Missionaries of Divine Mercy, whose society specifically revolves around shared formation and liturgical practices. Except for the fact that they haven't taken vows, it's the same thing as Carthusians and Jesuits, and it's not a problem, it's how current canon law sets up such societies. If you still think that's a problem, take it up with the Supreme Legislator.
I think requiring an oath/affirmation regarding the validity of the current Pope, Vatican 2, and the Novus Ordo would be reasonable, provided there is something similar for all the heresies common in other liturgical Rites. Since heresy puts you outside the Church even if you claim to be under the authority of the Pope, and there seems to be major problems with belief in such things as the Eucharist and life from conception, including with priests. That isn't an hour/month proof of loyalty, it makes no presumption of guilt, and imposes no punishment of being forced into regularly doing something that is outside your tradition. I would not require the Dominicans to celebrate the Carthusian Rite if they had a problem with breakaway orders, I would require them to solidify their standing in the Church and with the part of their order that had not broken away. Similarly, when Eastern Orthodox Churches reunited they were not required to say the Filioque and celebrate the Tridentine Rite once a month to prove their loyalty never wavered. They were just received back. And that was people who very clearly had been in schism, not merely people who had suspicions fall on them via guilt by association, and despite the fact that they objected specifically to something in the Tridentine Rite that was not in theirs. Your suggestion is draconian.
Willingness to celebrate other Catholic Rites than your own is not the standard of unity and never has been. Insofar as there is a traditional action to prove unity, it's praying for the current Pope, by name, in the Mass or Divine Liturgy. Which diocesan, FSSP, ICKSP, SSPX, and Missionaries parishes already do.
I agree that something should be done to address this problem. Start by stopping the mistreatment, since that is itself an impairment of the unity of the Church, and preach repentance and forgiveness, which are the only things that can fix problems caused by maltreatment. Then make extremely clear to everyone in the Church that the TLM is not a signal of schism or schismatic tendencies, that you must do X, Y, and Z to have problematic behavior/beliefs, since the ambiguity and false accusations are an impairment of the unity of the Church. Give that a decade or two to percolate through, but continue to prosecute individuals and groups that violate that in the meantime. If the problem is still significant (which I very much doubt) impose a carefully worded oath/affirmation.
I don't think I'm qualified to have an opinion on how the NO could best be altered. I don't have the flow of it. Really didn't have it even during the decades that I attended it exclusively.
I've been wishing for some time that Ecclesia Dei would do as Pope Benedict suggested, and write Mass Propers for the new Saints in the Tridentine Rite. I think it's absolute madness to have TLM priests say the NO on some Saints' feast days.
I expect they do so voluntarily, and not as a way of proving that they have not suddenly turned into schismatics in the last month. And yes, the Eastern Churches had a process to return, to straighten out questions of bishops and whether any more recent practices contradict Catholic doctrine, and such. But they were not required to celebrate the Tridentine Rite to prove they were not schismatics, much less to celebrate it every month indefinitely. Nor were they required to change what their pre-schism practices to match changes in the Latin Church.
I see no trouble with explaining that one's Sunday Mass obligation is fulfilled at any Catholic Mass, which includes (list all the Latin and Eastern Rites). Laypeople can go where they please. Priests who have a charism attached to a particular Rite may not, and cannot be required to. Since they are part of the one Roman Rite regardless of which Mass they celebrate.
Their charisms do not revolve around their liturgy. The FSSP, Missionaries, etc. do. There's a lot of different charisms out there, and many have nothing to do with a particular liturgy at all, and some only a little. Others are entirely wrapped up in it. For similar reasons, you can't look at an active-contemplative order that has a lot of variety in their balance of life, and tell all the cloisters that they should be able to work outside regularly without violating their charism, since clearly charisms don't require such strictness. Some do. Others don't.
There are different East-West schisms, with different causes. At least one was driven by the Filioque clause in the creed, said at Divine Liturgy. And a great many objections they raised were on the basis that changing the Liturgy as they had received was wrong. When they came back, they were not required to alter their liturgy by even a few words, to include the exact phrase over which all the fuss occurred.
As I understand it, the SSPX is not canonically irregular due to the Tridentine Rite, but due to problems with a few points in Vatican 2. If it was strictly the Tridentine Rite, they'd all have come back with Ecclesia Dei, as the priests who started the FSSP did.
The question of whether or not the Creed should include "and the Son" in reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit was an important element in the original schism.
Yet their order was founded to celebrate the TLM. Why should priests in good standing with no direct chage of wrongdoing be automatically suspected of wrongdoing, unless they prove their innocence?
Have you ever stopped to consider what that does to the nature of communion? If you are demanding a loyalty oath you are implying that there is reason for such oath. To both those being forced to take it, and the outside world. Once you start saying conspiracies exist, you tend to create conspiracies. See any political intrigue ever.
That is why such loyalty oaths are seldom if ever used unless they exist from the beginning.
I've never been a TLM-goer but the "there's clearly something off-base happening in some TLM communities" --> "therefore let's proxy-ban the TLM" line of logic has never made much sense to me. I've never liked the implication that a form of the Mass itself could cause schism - or any evil (instead of being co-opted by whatever in the human heart causes schism). Asking for an oath of fidelity, prosecute bishops or priests who use preach disobedience at the TLM, etc would make a lot more sense
Yes, that oft-repeated logical chasm-jump is terribly damaging. It automatically assumes that the average Joe-and-Jane are secretly sedes at heart just waiting for an opportunity to diss the Church and jump ship, which is horrendously offensive.
At the same time, it is an unsurprising self-fulfilling prophecy when it does happen:
"You're terrible, you probably don't even care about me." "What are you talking about, honey? I don't hate you at all." "No, I know deep down you actually don't care about me!" "That's not true, that really hurts you to accuse me of that." Repeat for several years... "You're secretly terrible!" "Okay, I can't do this anymore, it's been years, and I've tried so hard, but this isn't working between us." "AHA, SEE! I TOLD YOU SO! I KNEW IT ALL ALONG!"
I think this is a good point. Any effort to try to sort things out would have to be done very carefully, by people who were very sharp theologically and very sharp legally. And it should be aimed only at weeding out things that are clearly very bad, leaving things that are merely iffy alone. Do the people at the top have the requisite skills? One could be forgiven for wondering.
I agree that it would have to be done very carefully, and I don't doubt that there would be problems finding people with the requisite skills.
It's not a novel idea though. Oaths of fidelity have been used throughout Church history, I think most recently in the latter half of the 20th century. Going back to the reason we have multiple creeds in the Church is that many were adapted or written to respond to various heresies (like the Nicaean and Athanasian). Generally speaking, if there was a particular side they were targeted at, the details were hammered out beforehand alongside representatives of that particular side.
True. I think in this situation, imposition of an oath on some portion of the church feels arbitrary and like a solution in search of a problem. I think this entire comments section shows no clear expression of what a particular set of the faithful do or do not hold to and thus no concrete and uniformly held position to act against. Maybe past situations were equally hazy and still prompted adaptations to creeds or prompted other actions. I’m not a thorough enough student of history to have a confident position there.
I've heard of some of them being hazy enough, at least in retrospect. At least condemnations of a few heresies that we're not entirely sure anymore whether anyone actually held.
Not that I think that was necessarily a good thing. I just think imposing an oath is a better solution than blanket punishment and general suspicion and false accusations.
It’s a repugnant use of language and it was the first thing I noticed, as well. Nobody should apply that verbiage to anything but how the Nazis used it.
I think a *strong* clue that a ban is imminent, is the Vatican's completely unwarranted, out-of-the-blue, indefinite summary blockade of the ordinations of the French Missionaries of Divine Mercy, SOLELY on the basis of "well the new priests might say the TLM" even though that's kinda the charism of their order.
It's like the Vatican is thinking ahead here, because it might otherwise create a PR thorn: "Hey, we just got ordained with the understanding that we were cool to celebrate the TLM; you pulled the rug out from under us like 8 weeks later! What gives?!"
And the Missionaries of Divine Mercy are easier test subjects for this because they aren't as big or wide-reaching as the FSSP or the ICKSP. These Frenchies are smaller fish to fry (...french fry, even?). Remember: the highest levels of ecclesial governance in the Vatican are micromanaging what Mass times Fr. Joe Schmo can put in his po-dunk parish bulletin. Don't put anything past Rome.
Thank you, Mr. Condon, for a fair-minded, thoughtful piece on this topic. This past Sunday, I was a visitor at a diocesan TLM at a parish in the southwestern United States. The church was absolutely packed, with another 150+ parishioners overflowing outside in tents while braving 96 deg. F temperatures. The congregation was beautifully diverse, mostly Latino but people of all ages, social strata and ethnicities... a true Joycean "here comes everybody" crowd. As Mexican-American kids in their Sunday best shuffled up to the communion rail next to elderly Caucasian ladies in veils and tattooed hipsters dressed in all=black, the choir sang "Panis Angelicus" and I couldn't help but think, "What sort of ecclesiastical Grinches in Rome could look at this and think it needs to be crushed?"
The more that traditionalists learn about the liturgy, the more they recognize that the modern Roman liturgy is not really an implementation of what Vatican II called for. It has some good qualities, and it fulfills the requirements of sacramental validity, but it isn't really an authentic development and continuation of the existing liturgy that belongs to Roman-rite Catholics as their heritage.
Pope Benedict rightly termed the new liturgy "fabricated", not in the sense of falsity, but in the sense that it was "put together", assembled, composed of some elements of the existing Roman liturgical tradition, but ignoring many others, and making innovations through decisions that were based on flawed scholarship, pastoral inexperience, excessive haste, and even some manipulation and deception, if the autobiographies of some participants in the process are to be believed.
Vatican II taught that Eastern Catholics should "know and be convinced that they can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life, and that these may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic improvement." [Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 6] This calling, this duty, this right belongs also to Roman-rite Catholics, and to obstruct it is an injustice, an ongoing blow to the charity which lies at the heart of the Church.
// Whether that is something Pope Francis would want, or consider worth whatever perceived benefits new restrictions could achieve, is an open question — and given the reports from curial staffers, one not yet resolved, or even formally posed. //
It's unfortunate that all this comes down to the unclear intentions of an anti-traditionalist priest chosen ten years ago, God knows why, to pretty much rule the Catholic Church, which is now the last major bastion of traditional morality in a world increasingly given over to debauchery and materialism.
Whatever Pope Francis may or may not do with TC (and I don't foresee anything more than glosses or clarifications at this stage) a new Pope could do something entirely different, as the close of the article says. One Pope cannot bind another.
Yes, a new Pope can do something entirely different. It is not possible to remove the information needed to re-implement the Tridentine Rite at this point, even if there were no one alive who remembers it, there's all the liturgical books and tons of videos. Most of the diocesan priests that want to say the Tridentine Rite now, did not grow up with it, some hadn't even heard of it until after their ordination.
I don't think even a total ban would work. Even if it were obeyed to the letter. Probably why SP went for a liturgical peace rather than a liturgical uniformity that the Latin Church has never had.
Except of course the argument has been that Pius V bound all future popes with Quod Primum which of course, is not true.
The "Traditional" movement, more and more, is looking and acting Protestant. Very worldly. Many of them want their own church to decide what and how they want to worship and how others should act as well. There is a lot of pride.
I'm very saddened by this.
I think that's a rather broad brush. Most people who attend the Traditional Mass and consider themselves Traditionalist Catholics are not actively engaging in spats online. They're simply going to Mass and living the faith. Saying they are looking and acting Protestant is taking a small number of people you see online and assigning those attitudes and activities to those who are just trying to live the faith the same way their ancestors did.
I suspect it's actually rather hard to tell what proportion of TLM-attenders are rebellious, and also hard to tell *how* rebellious--e.g., bad attitudes only, or actually problematic views. It probably varies from place to place, even from congregation to congregation. And most of us are mostly just generalizing on the basis of the people we ourselves know.
We just want to go to a holy mass, dude.
I always wonder what this sort of statement means.
If it means wanting to participate in the sacrifice of the mass and receive graces thereby, excellent.
If it means wanting to go to the TLM rather than, let's say, "the goofball Vatican 2 mass of clown-faced heretics with guitars," then not so excellent.
Preferring the TLM to the NO for such a reason would be like the following, only in reverse: "I want to go to the NO rather than the reactionary TLM mass of judgmental people mumbling in a language they don't understand."
I don’t know why this is so difficult for people.
I’ll bet at your parish, you like one Mass more than others. Might be the music or the time of day. You probably also prefer the Novus Ordo over the Melkites.
I like the TLM because of the test of time, the reliability, and I think the texts are more straightforwardly Catholic to hear.
Those are all legit reasons.
They are certainly legitimate reasons for *liking* the TLM over the NO. But I was asking about what someone might mean by saying that he goes the TLM, and not the NO, *because he wants something holy.* That's not the same thing.
To say that one goes to the TLM, rather than the NO, *because one wants something holy* seems, at least at first glance, to suggest pretty strongly that the NO isn't holy. Maybe that's not what's meant, but it's what those words suggest.
can we get real here?
you go to a statistically random Sunday Novus Ordo in America.
you go to a statistically random Sunday TLM in America.
one of those isn't a holier experience than the other, 99/100 times?
i'm not talking about mere validity, which is what Novus Ordo people seem to obsess over. I'm talking about the fittingness of worship. i happen to think the TLM hits it out of the park. you might disagree.
so why can't you have your mass and I have mine?
I never said you can't have "your mass." I never hinted it. I never thought it.
I was only trying to figure out just what you mean. It's still not very clear. There are important distinctions that aren't getting made.
Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm giving you the impression that I would like to suppress the form of worship you find most fruitful.
good, then we can take the gun off the table. that's good enough for me in these times. as for showing you what i mean, only the TLM can really do that. i'd invite you to go to a Missa Cantata if you get the chance. then compare that to whatever Gift of Finest Wheat altar girl Boomer mass they have at your parish. the holiness gap should be self-evident after that.
There's a term called "precedent," which once established is very hard to just reverse.
The Pope doesn't have to wear white, and in fact used to wear red as "his color."
Plessy v. Ferguson and Roe v. Wade set precedents that each took 1/4 of America's entire existence to overturn.
We should not rely on "well the next guy can just reverse all the stuff his predecessor did" as the ordinary MO of... the office of the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ.
Anyone with maximum power can do enormous damage before he leaves the throne.
Miserere.mei: This ignores the fact that Francis has stocked the cardinalate with his toadies.
I don't think that Roche & Co. are playing much of a long game, especially given the fact that they might not even be around for whatever changes happen in the next pontificate. I imagine their thinking boils down to "Out of the three popes in recent memory, Pope Francis seems like he'd be the most likely to allow these kinds of restrictions. Let's try and make whatever changes we can now given that he's getting older and we don't know what his successor will be like."
It's been described as "the violent death throws of the Spirit of Vatican II"
This is the last shot of their generation to finally make complete all the changes they wanted back in 1975 and spent their entire careers working towards implementing. They know if they can't get it now, it own't happen and it'll all be for nothing. Hence, the gas pedal is bolted to the floor and the hammer is coming down heavier than ever.
I strongly disagree. It's the attempt by the powers that be to overthrow Vatican II by destroying the power the Council gave to the local bishop. They are trying to reinstate Vatican I without its successor.
Yes, there definitely is a destruction of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council throughout this pontificate. The documents of the Council, the additional writings of the Council Fathers themselves, and the definitive interpretation of the Council built up by the past 5 popes (John XXIII-B16, three of whom have been canonzied) in their magesterium... are all being torn down and directly contradicted by this pontificate.
Is this re-instating Vatican I? I don't know if I'd say that, but yeah there's certainly a point to be made there.
What I do know for certain is that the "Spirit of V2" is not in line with the Council, and this pontificate is destroying the definitive interpetation/hermeneutic that the Church has handed down, to replace it with the "Spirit of V2" formalized via the Synod on Synodality (which at this point is undeniably functioning as a council, a "Vatican III")
Because my bishop is one of those going to the synod for the USCCB I am considerably more confident of its results being orthodox than many other people. That plus the Africans who stand up for the faith.
Instead of a church that thinks in terms of centuries, we seem to have a Vatican that thinks in hours, if that. What would this achieve? Dioceses would be deprived of some very faithful members who actually fight to go to Church. Those members would be INCREDIBLY resentful (rightfully, I think) that they’re treated so shabbily by the “pastoral” Vatican. The Bishops can already ban the TLM if they want, and now they’re losing more people to the ICKSP or FSSP (or SSPX) at a time of financial distress and getting superseded by some functionary in Rome on a fundamentally pastoral issue. It all seems a bit ridiculous.
> It all seems a bit ridiculous.
It is, from a human perspective. The only explanation I can think of: this is a chastisement of humiliation. God doesn't "need" to be worshipped, in a strict sense. It adds nothing to His perfection. If every TLM stopped tomorrow, and all that remained were "Boomer altar girl guitar masses" in the words of some TLM advocates, God would go on being God in all His glory and majesty. But what *we* need, now more than ever, is humility. We didn't ask for the collapse of Christendom, the beige-ification of the Mass, or this era of post-conciliar confusion, no. But this is what we have been handed -- it is what God in His wisdom has permitted for us. If we choose to spit in His face out of pride and say "I'd rather die than accept this cross, this humiliation", then death is exactly what we will receive.
I say all this only because it's a huge struggle for me, too.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Chastisement, humiliation, opportunity for reparation, call to forgiveness.
I think you've hit the nail on the head.
If I find enough spare change in the sofa cushions, I am going to take out a Pillar ad that encourages everyone to read Abandonment to Divine Providence. (But then I would also have to reread it, and I am in the middle of four other books already, the foremost being Quo Vadis (and Rome is currently ON FIRE.))
And my copy is so bedraggled that I would probably have to go buy another one.
Among early historians only Tacitus connects the fire to the persecution of Christians, and he did that to remove credit for that act from Nero, since most pagans of the time approved of it. Well yes, he did something good but for a really bad reason, to cover up his own crimes. Unlikely.
There was an attempt on Nero's life in 66 and he started having large numbers of people killed due to paranoia. All his relatives, many friends, Seneca for saying hello to the mastermind because the normal Latin greeting was, "If you are well I am well," and Seneca said that to the attempted murderer. People who wouldn't worship him as the emperor were not likely to live long.
Go the peripheries and smell like the sheep...unless the sheep smell like incense, apparently.
Rather than look at why the vast majority of people who attend the TLM do so (reverence, solid preaching and teaching, solemnity, beauty) and--I don't know--bring those universally to Novus Ordo Masses and thus solve the problem except for the tiniest minority of people truly veering on schism through "rejection of Vatican II," we have these (I'm including TC and subsequent clarifications) machinations designed to push people over the edge.
I'm not so sure about the solid preaching. I've heard more than a few sermons that have me wondering where the priest studied. A lot of piety but little solid theology. I know others would differ strongly but it is what I heard when I attend the TLM.
I don't think you're wrong about intellectual rigor in TLM circles vis-a-vis preaching. There is a reason Ressourcement folks (Ratzinger, von Balthasar, et al) thought there was a problem with the rigorist and Neo Scholastic approach--which seems to be the theological waters in which the FSSP and especially the ICKSP swim. (Not to mention, again to pick on ICKSP, a strange cultural ossification somewhere in near 18th century France).
I guess what I meant by "solid" was not teaching anything contrary to the faith. It is impossible to conceive being in attendance at an FSSP TLM and having two "married" men give the homily on Father's Day about the blessings of being gay dads as the parishioners of Old St. Pat's in Chicago got to enjoy. Had me longing for the days of "God is love. You are loved just as you are. Amen" which has been the theologically dense content of most of the sermons of my youth. Happily, things have begun to improve. In any event, your pointing out that you want good preaching only drives home my point that bishops demanding reverent, solemn, beautiful liturgies with good music and solid preaching would make much of this go away.
As someone who attends the TLM, I think you are actually on to something here. However I would add this: while some of the preaching can become overly fire and brimstone and neo scholastic at times, I've never had to worry about heresy in a TLM homily. I've heard my fair share of things that skirted the line or went over it in "edgy" NO homilies. So in that regard at least, the TLM can be a bit of a safe haven even if it isn't perfect.
Well, you for sure won't have a light saber battle or a puppet show at a TLM.
Or kids in shorts handing out the Eucharist.
Do you suppose that has any connection at all to 70% of Catholics not believing in the Real Presence? Probably not...
Meanwhile, the bishop where my parents live felt the need to address the pressing threat to Eucharistic theology of the faithful kneeling to receive the Eucharist by banning the practice.
70% of Catholics reject the church's teaching on the Eucharist (to say nothing of cohabitation, fornication, contraception), but it's this small band of Traditional Catholics trying, in my experience, very hard to live as the Church calls them to who "reject Church teaching." And bishops are, apparently, concerned about what may be overweening reverence which also just happens to be the way that my great grandfather and his father before him received the Eucharist. Someone, somehwere has to be joking.
My sense is that most humans think and say and do whatever gets them safely through the day. Religion, for most, I imagine, is primarily a social thing and some insurance against the slight chance that there may be life after death. The world in which they swim is materialist and utilitarian, and they're at ease there.
In my diocese a parish had to stop using a kneeler for those who wished to kneel to receive, but it is my understanding this decision was not one against kneeling, as that is not prohibited, but a pastoral one in favor of the faithful who choose not to kneel yet felt pressured to by the presence of the kneeler. Or perhaps it posed a trip hazard. I liked using it when I visited that parish, as it made it easier for me, a tall woman usually in heels and with shaky knees, to receive kneeling, but mostly to receive on the tongue, which I’m not otherwise inherently comfortable with the mechanics of doing. These are all things I can work on without a kneeler. Maybe in your diocese the decision was also really not against kneeling but instead more in favor of other brothers and sisters and their needs.
So the physical needs of those who wish to kneel before their Lord are subordinated to the emotional desires of those who do not wish to feel pressured to kneel? If a person is so unsteady of foot as to be unable to not trip over a sizable object, I daresay the world is a dangerous place and in the context of Mass, an usher can be notified to have the Eucharist brought to said person. Just because stairs are a tripping hazard for some, we don't force everyone to use the elevator. What is the pastoral thing of which you speak?
As it is, my parents' church doesn't have kneelers set up for communion (or, alas, a communion rail) so the prohibition against kneeling (relayed by the priest who is quite sympathetic to tradition) is not just a prohibition of kneelers.
I think the point is that it seemed unfair to make the faithful question whether they were truly faithful if they chose not to kneel. Plenty of people who wish to kneel still do so without a kneeler. I’m the fussy one who doesn’t. I’m fine with trusting that my bishop made a charitable decision not a punitive one. Your diocese may be different.
I guess I'm just not following the logic of it. Should churches remove stained glass windows and artwork that show saints receiving the Eucharist kneeling (and on the tongue for that matter) because it might make people feel bad?
In terms of the extension of charity, wouldn't not forcing people (who receive according to their conscience or whatever) to kneel on the floor be the greater concession to charity than making sure some unknown number of people aren't made to feel bad (why should they feel bad?) about doing something the church permits?
(Full disclosure: This is theoretical to me. I regularly attend and am a member of a run-of-the-mill diocesan parish where there are neither kneelers nor any significant contingent of people who choose to kneel (I don't because I'd be self-conscious about potentially drawing attention to myself, which is probably a lame excuse.) I am just genuinely baffled that with all the problems--including 2/3 of Catholics not believing that they are receiving into themselves the King of the Universe--that making and outward pious act to our Eucharistic Lord more difficult is something Bishops are worried about.)
I think I don’t feel compelled to sort the logic of this particular decision because I know my bishop to be a man who genuinely loves the Lord and the Church and whose decisions seem grounded in real care for his flock. If this is his choice, it is his to make.
At daily Mass about half the people at my NO parish kneel to receive Communion. A much smaller percentage do so on the days when the school children attend or on Sundays.
I personally am perfectly capable of kneeling on the floor, and don't mind it. But I also personally know people who cannot do that because they wouldn't be able to stand up without a kneeler, and who would like to.
It's the normative method of receiving Holy Communion in the Latin Church, which the Vatican has repeatedly specified cannot be forbidden by local bishops or priests, but most parishes effectively ban the elderly from doing so.
I think that could easily be solved with about 60 seconds of catechesis before Mass. Except for people who are scrupulous, and there's really no way to prevent them questioning regardless of what you do.
I prefer to kneel to receive personally. Having a kneeler there makes it easier to stand up. Not having a nail or means that I either will slow the line down because my husband to help me out occasionally or I cannot kneel. Now keep in mind most of the time I’m perfectly fine and able to stand up with myself but when I’m pregnant, I do reach a point where I physically cannot get down or get up by myself.
We typically go to a TLM parish. But because of military, we are moving this summer and will not have regular access to the TLM because of distance.
I also like kneeling and would do it with a kneeler. I haven’t done it without one because I don’t trust that I’d be able to get up easily and without inconvenience to the people behind me. So I stand. I’d love to have access to a kneeler and would use it if I did. I also don’t feel that not having access is any effort to suppress my desire so much as it is an effort to help other people. I’m fine with that. If I was truly committed to keeling, I’d find a way to do it.
That has got to be one of the dumbest arguments I’ve heard for removing a kneeler. Can you tell that to whoever made the decision?
None of that makes sense when held up to even the slightest scrutiny. Not only does it throw the devotion of kneeling (which is still, officially, the ordinary way to receive communion) thrown under the bus to accommodate something that is the exception to the rule… it also betrays a belief that liturgical worship is simply a matter of taste: “some people like BBQ chips, but others like salt and vinegar chips” but in reality it’s more like “I know you like fresh fruits and veggies for your diet, but some people prefer BBQ chips as their diet.” It’s not a matter of personal taste, it’s a matter of what is objectively better for one’s self.
And someone “feeling pressured?” God forbid someone be slightly influenced by social conformity to properly reverence and receive Our Lord and King in the Eucharist, to do the right and proper thing! What a shame that would be!
Is this really where we’re still at with liturgical discussion? Do people still honestly think this way?
No, I wouldn’t dream of telling that to the person who made the decision because your response lacks charity.
You are using dated statistics. Many more Catholics believe than you give credit for.
Am I? Pew did a representative sampling of people who self-identify as Catholic, and the 2/3 not believing in the Real Presence came from them. Recently Vinea Research found that 69% of "regular Mass-attending Catholics" (I can't find what that means) believe in the Real Presence. Those are not the same samplings. Only 20% of Catholics attend Mass weekly. I have never stated anything other than the fact that 2/3 of Catholics (which includes people who don't attend Mass) don't have a grasp on the basics of Catholic Eucharistic Theology.
If you consider people who don't believe what the Church teaches on most subjects and never attend Mass Catholic because they say so, then certainly most "Catholics" don't believe that. But saying you are Catholic because your grandmother was one doesn't make you one. If you were baptized as a baby and never darkened a church door again that doesn't make you Catholic.
Does it not? What is done in baptism cannot be undone.
True. But if it isn't followed up by anything other than a secular upbringing the reality is pretty grim.
Why does everyone bring these crazy anomalies up? I don't know where you live but the NO in my area is offered "by the book" with reverence and beauty.
And even if that stuff is happening that does not COME from the Mass itself. It is an abuse happening alongside it. That nonsense was happening in the 70s and 80s in some places definitely. It's what led my family to the TLM.
Back in the 70s when we attended the TLM offered by priests who always said it, it was not anything to "brag" about. The mass was often rushed and sloppily done. IF there was singing it was terrible. I remember a place in Boston where the organ was played the ENTIRE Mass in the background. How it is offered now is not anywhere near what it was like back then. So, even the TLM has been "reformed".
Indeed it has. To my reading, very much in line with what is asked in Sacrosanctum Concilium. The people say responses and follow along with the liturgy in their missal, the readings are given in the vernacular, chant and Latin are given "pride of place," the priest faces the way he has for centuries (an orientation left very much in place by SC). Far from rejecting Vatican II, I think the Traddies are doing it!
Also, to your point about anomalies, if you aren't treated to weekly EXTRAORDINARY ministers of holy communion (appropriately dressed or otherwise) then you definitively have an experience that is outside the norm.
No one in this thread has argued that any of this comes from the Mass of Paul VI. (Though to argue that just because the priest does what he does well that none of the other stuff matters is, I think, wrong.) In fact, quite the opposite. The thread was about how much of the seeking out and strong adherence to the TLM would die down if the typical NO were universally offered with as much care, reverence, and beauty as the typical TLM.
To your pointing to the 70s and 80s for silly things, the gay dads reflection I mentioned above was given at St. Patricks in 2022. Nonsense is alive and well.
I think it’s correct that so-called “clown masses” are anomalies today, compared to decades past. However, I do think that it’s a stretch to say that the NO is regularly offered with “reverence and beauty”. In my experience, you have to really seek out a reverent and beautiful NO mass. Most of what you find in most places is ho-hum, Gather hymnal, uninspiring homilies, banal liturgy.
Never seen either of those at a NO Mass, but I did drop out of the Church from 1970 to 1980, and I've been told if I had to drop out I chose the perfect time to do it.
I don't quite understand how limiting the TLM to FSSP and ICKSP is supposed to quarantine those people from the rest of the diocese. Those parishes are under the authority of the local bishop, the priests get their faculties from him, the bishop or his representative do Confirmations there, they do all the regular diocesan collections and church taxes, their charities are eligible for diocesan grants, they have events in cooperation with other parishes, host national and international lay religious organizations, some work with campus ministries, some do door-to-door evangelization... what are they going to do, issue an ecclesiastical restraining order and forbid traditionalists from speaking to mainstream Catholics? Who are often friends and relatives?
I also don't understand, if the main trouble is the rejection of Vatican 2 and the Pope, why they don't just put together an oath/affirmation of acceptance as the Church has done many times in the past. TLM priests and attendees at diocesan Masses would be highly unlikely to refuse a reasonably worded oath/affirmation.
You reject the TLM. What’s the difference?
// And that raises questions about how you can be one church where you can't agree on whether each other are worshipping in an acceptable way. //
Acceptable to whom?
Really unacceptable? You mean they reject it?
Unfortunately, yes. And the top of the hierarchy rejects TLM. So there are liturgical schismatics on both sides of the fence.
I would not find it much of a challenge to go to most Eastern liturgies on a weekly or monthly basis. Not my culture, but it is my fallback plan (and also the fallback plan of many other TLM devotees; their numbers jumped after TC).
Most people in the TLM do not reject the NO as invalid or inherently defective. Probably a fair number who consider it inherently and/or practically inferior, but still valid and (if celebrated according to the rubrics, GIRM, and Instrumentum Redeptionem Sacramentis) also licit. I don't see how anyone could possibly consider this to be a problem. Presumably the argument for approving the Novus Ordo and attempting to suppress the TLM in the first place was that the Novus Ordo was superior to the TLM in some way. It's kinda cruel to make enormous changes and force them on hundreds of millions of people for the sake of something that is no better than what they already had. There are extremely outspoken TLM devotees who I think hold to this view, and I rather suspect their vehemence causes people to categorize them incorrectly.
If you think it's such a huge problem, I don't object to adding a clause to the oath/affirmation regarding the NO being valid and licit when celebrated according to the approved liturgical books.
I suspect that if the NO we got after V2 for the most part resembled what the NO was actually stated in the documents to be, the TLM movement would be a lot smaller. I think also that the more restrictions put on it, the more people who love it feel compelled to defend it.
I prefer the TLM and I am willing to state it's a preference only - I don't think the NO is invalid (I usually attend it). I also don't pretend that pre-V2 everything was perfect in the Church because it wasn't. But what I think is a real shame is that due to how events have shaken out there is very little chance, at least at present, that the forms can achieve any kind of reconciliation. I'm not a liturgist, but I do think in some ways that the traditional calendar is superior to the new, but with how things stand now I don't know how it would be possible to re-incorporate some of those elements that are missing to the new calendar and there isn't really a way to add new canonized saints to the traditional calendar except by private home observance. The TLM as it is now is frozen in time and that is artificially imposed, not by design. And I think it's to everyone's detriment because the loudest people or the people in charge are so determined to be right about everything.
I think Pope Benedict assigned the job of adding new Saints to the Tridentine calendar to Ecclesia Dei. They just never did it (yet).
I didn't know that! That is hopeful, but I would also imagine it isn't exactly anyone's priority at present.
I thought about it because a previous comment seemed to suggest (maybe I misread) that TLMers refuse to acknowledge people canonized after 1962 and that didn't sit right with me. There just isn't a way at present to have a Mass said for them according to TLM rubrics, but I know in homes many of these saints are recognized and celebrated.
Yes! St. Joan of Arc isn't in the calendar, and she's one of my favorites. I've heard a traditionalist priest exorcist say he finds St. John Paul II to be very helpful in some sessions. But TLM priests aren't allowed to incorporate elements of the NO on their own authority, so until the Vatican does something, we're stuck.
I'm copying this from Mike Gannon below, because he said it very well. There are 4 senses for inferior/superior:
"To be sure, on one level, a guitar Mass in a basement can be of greater worth than a TLM in a beautiful chapel, if the former is celebrated with genuine devotion and the latter with coldness and indifference. In another sense, the same two Masses might see the TLM as having greater value, if the form and aspects of worship is more fitting to God's dignity and grandeur. And both are of equal dignity and value insofar as they participate in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Finally, one can be subjectively better in the sense of "better for me", insofar as it draws me closer to God and causes me to grow in holiness, virtue, and devotion. That is something that only the individual, and maybe their spouse or confessor, can judge, which is why liberty of worship is a pastoral good. When TLM Catholics assert, "The TLM is better", they generally say so in the second and fourth senses described here, without prejudice to the other two."
It might be good to recall that changing from the Tridentine Rite to the NO, was either due, at least in part, to the belief that the NO was in some very significant and important way(s) superior to the TLM - or it was an act of utter cruelty, ripping away something that was known and loved for the sake of internal politics alone.
There's another, practical aspect, that comes into play for a lot of people. I.e., if all the NO Masses in your area aren't actually following the rubrics, you can get a Mass that is downright bad and should not be attended. The closest NO parish to me is one I will not attend unless it is absolutely the only one available for my obligation, because the priest has a tendency to ad lib parts of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. I would call that "downright bad", and I've seen worse, and heard of worse than I've seen.
Frankly, most people who go to the TLM probably do not know how to make these distinctions. If you want to convict anyone of a defect of ecclesial communion, you'll have to make the distinctions for them and ask which they're talking about. This is part of why the Dominican-run Spanish Inquisition had a prison rather than concluding each person's fate in a single hearing.
My point is not that all TLMers are innocent in every way. It's more that in normal speech, the problem is sufficiently difficult to confidently detect that charity requires either presumption of innocence or the Inquisition, not an assumption of guilt.
Has anyone talked to the ad-lib priest, or written a letter to him, asking him to not ad lib?
Well, I didn't, because it was a funeral and I couldn't track down who he was. I'm not going back just to be liturgy police.
Oh, I thought it had happened more than once (I agree I don't go out of my way for that. If it happens repeatedly and I don't know who it is, like a daily Mass at a parish on my commute, I write a gentle letter to the pastor and it probably gets round-filed and I tell myself I have done my job and can let it go )
I've been to places where it happened repeatedly, and I could never sort out who the priest was then either. The situations muddle together a bit, and I settle for running away.
Generally speaking, I figure the priest either knows perfectly well what he's doing and that it's wrong and will ignore anything I send. Or it's accidental and saying something will make a good priest feel he's under a microscope. Maybe that's overly binary, but I've never heard a priest say he was grateful for a complaint about his practices.
Thank you. There are priests who I occasionally hear Mass with at the Basilica where you never know ahead of time who will be saying Mass. I would never have thought to say something if they do that. Instead I just avoid them. But the next time that happens I will say something.
I don't think there is necessarily a defect in ecclesial communion. Full communion exists between Catholics of numerous rites. Even apart from the Eastern Catholic churches, the Latin Rite of the Mass has the Anglican Use for those Catholics who wish to stay connected to that spiritual and liturgical patrimony and feel most and home and closest to God in that tradition and praxis. It is such for the vast majority of TLMers who, it must be said, largely attended both NO and TLM before TC came down.
I disagree. Theological disagreements do not necessitate a breakdown in communion. Ecclesial communion does not require being in intellectual or spiritual lockstep. I am fairly suspicious of Ignatian spirituality (for example) and wouldn't recommend it to others, but I don't feel like that somehow impedes communion with those who draw grace through it. And I don't think a defect in communion exists between me and Andrea Grillo, despite the fact that he believes that my love of the old Mass makes me theologically backwards. I just think he's a jerk!
I would recognize it as a defect in good sense. The Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgies derive from a different liturgical tradition. They do not stem from the Latin Rite.
Discussions of which Rite is better are as old as the Church is. Discussions about which religious order is better are as old as religious orders are. It's generally indistinguishable from supporting your baseball or football team. I think that there are plenty who would say the Benedictines have the watered-down version of Benedictine life, the Carthusians have the real deal (since they kinda did go back to the sort of life St. Benedict envisioned after many of the mortifications had eased up). But I haven't heard of anyone trying to shut down the Carthusians over it, or force them to join Benedictine monasteries.
Do they say you are doing something bad, or do they simply react with negative emotions and you assume their opinion? I know people who react with negative emotions to the TLM, not from any objections to it, but simply because they are thoroughly confused and disoriented at it because they don't know Latin and can't figure out the missal and spend the entire Mass being flustered and lost rather than praying, which is a somewhat unpleasant association to have. But If I didn't know the reasons, I could certainly misjudge.
I react with distaste to the idea of going to the NO. I've seen people get refused Holy Communion for kneeling (and absolutely nothing else), after researching thoroughly to determine that the parish was pretty good, and now I'm often shaking if I go up for Communion. At the NO, I've repeatedly encountered priests ad libbing the Mass, or adults talking over the Mass, and it always disturbs me. If I want enrichment I'll go to the Eastern Church.
If a person doesn't say that they think the TLM is bad, I assume they do not believe that it is, regardless of their reaction to the idea of going. I think the same should apply for the NO. Lack of charity and intolerance for minor faults and foibles can be very bad for Church unity.
I've heard it said that the Carthusians are the only older religious order that has never needed to be reformed. St. Thomas More was closely associated with them. Henry VIII had most of them and the Franciscans starved to death in the Tower of London. Not so the others.
Does that apply to repeated Vatican directives which stated liturgical abuse was so widespread there was doubt whether in fact Catholics were worshipping in an acceptable way?
Most trads just take the position that there's a reason Rome has to continue issuing all these reforms and admonishments: the process of the Novus Ordo itself encourages all these problematic things. It got better markedly under Benedict, but trads also stopped a lot of the criticisms because they were pretty superfelous: we had our vehicle for liturgical reform, so we set about actually reforming the liturgy. Given most TLM's were celebrated in a "dual use" environment of both the novus ordo and TLM, Benedict's much hoped for "Mutual enrichment" was actually happening.
By severing that mutual enrichment, the only thing you'll do is just reignite these debates, and those favoring the status quo are on far less favorable ground now, considering the institutional decay in the Church that upholds said status quo.
The right response is to give them a vehicle to carry out their own reform in the Church. Which is what happened under Benedict, and you almost never heard any liturigcal debates. Its why as prefect of the CDW, Cardinal Sarah could talk about the dangers of the liturgical wars in a mostly academic sense, rather than the trench warfare debate it was pre 2006.
And while I am glad you agree, I guess I have to ask again:
The vatican had repeatedly said that the way a not insignificant minority of Catholics experienced the Novus Ordo was not acceptable, on numerous occasions. Even Pope Francis felt the need to issue a perfunctory (and immediately ignored by himself) statement about the dismal state of the novus ordo, in 2021.
Why is it beyond the pale for trads to say "you know, maybe the problem goes beyond mere abuse, and into something intrinsic to the reform itself?"
If you mean those who think its invalid outright, that's such a small minority I don't see the point of discussion. If we mean "valid but problematic" rome has agreed with that assessment roughly every 10 years. Is it tone policing? Is it because people don't like the conclusions trads draw from these facts?
Yet why is that a problem with unity in diversity? Since there were multiple choices, people could make that decision, and if they wanted nothing to do with it, Rome gave them that decision for over a decade, and as you mentioned, it mostly worked.
Its a problem for those who insist the liturgical reform was a smashing success, but it doesn't really seem to threaten the unity of the Church. Unless you try to force people to adopt something they clearly don't want to, for reasons nobody is really able to articulate.
I understand what you are saying, I just question if what you are asserting regarding the threat is actually real, or potential. Francis believed/believes it was real and imminent. When he asked the local bishops for their opinion, they mostly told him the threat was not an issue in their dioceses, and obviously not imminent. (The French bishops going so far as to explicitly reject what was then being proposed by TC in a list of options.)
Not everyone having bad opinions is a problem for unity however. Sometimes bad opinions are just that.... bad opinions.
Well, at some point, I think it limits the number of people who can realistically access a TLM, and when I'm cynical about it I think that might be the point. There are two TLMs available in our diocese - one is by ICKSP and one is SSPX (I suppose if you live by one border there is a FSSP parish within driving distance in a neighboring diocese). I have never been to the SSPX chapel but the ICKSP parish is stuffed to the rafters for every Sunday Mass. I suppose the order could, if they had enough priests, add another priest to the parish to expand the schedule. And I don't think the local bishop gets to be in charge of that, but it's also not like the ICKSP is huge. There's two priests, compared to many many more diocesan priests (for now, heh.)
But if you give a diocesan priest a cookie/TLM, pretty soon his friends are going to want one too...my diocese seems so afraid of this they are regulating cookie ingredients lest they show up in the NO. My metaphor is falling apart now so I think I'll stop there!
With the age of the internet and digital content, it's a game the diocese is destined to fail.
"Hey Father, did you see that youtube video of that parish Mass in [insert city here] that I sent you? Why can't we do [chant/incense/AO/Latin NO/altar boys only/insert other traditional element of liturgy] at our parish?" How many young people, both laity and clergy, have to see "traditional" elements on social media and be totally mesmerized by its attractiveness before it can't be ignored anymore?
// How many young people, both laity and clergy, have to see "traditional" elements on social media and be totally mesmerized by its attractiveness before it can't be ignored anymore? //
You might be surprised how unimportant what used to be called beauty has become.
I agree that it's not a successful strategy. It seems incredibly short sighted and while I think jokes about Pope Francis or various bishops dying are crude, there is an element of truth there - they won't be in charge when they are gone. I really don't understand why this seems to be the hill they're willing to die on (I have theories but I can't read hearts or minds).
Trads, whether TLM folks or "can we just do the NO the way the V2 documents actually said, please", are people who actually believe the teachings of the Church, including things like generously giving to the Church and obedience to the local ordinary. I think documents like TC ended up causing a lot of radicalization that very well may have never happened otherwise. A lot of TLM or TLM-friendly people really didn't think pre-TC that anyone was out to get them (there were some very loud, very online agitators, I don't think anybody would deny this) but that Church officials just didn't get it, which was unfortunate but fine, as long as they could still have their Mass.
I do think there's an element of "we can keep these people down and they'll at least listen." I don't think you can depend on that forever - see my prior point about radicalization - but if you want obedience by and large the trad crowd is still going to give it to you because they think it's important, even if the authority is wrong. The "clown Mass" people aren't going to listen to "no," but these folks will. I suppose that's me speculating about hearts and minds after all, but this is one of the only reasonable theories that makes sense to me - the power trip. It's very human.
The trad crowd will tend to be obedient, but we will also tend to rules-wizard, and we can rules-wizard faster than a hundred cardinals can write new rules. They can't forbid dry Masses, altar server training (or even priest training), scholas and polyphony choirs, processions, streaming TLM, the old Divine Office, or teaching children with the old catechisms. They can't stop us going to the Eastern Churches or the Anglican Use without shutting those down for no reason whatsoever as well.
It's the typical response of obedient people to unreasonable commands. Obey the letter, and do your best to make the letter look as ridiculous as it is while you're obeying it.
My cynical thoughts have been underestimating reality for years now, and I assumed the point was to limit who could realistically access a TLM, along with driving a wedge between TLM folks and NO folks.
For a while, the FSSP/ICKSP can get by with just adding priests to existing parishes. But it's going to spill over at some point, and the SSPX isn't limited to where the Vatican says they may go, and I agree on the diocesan priests. There's only so many small rural parishes you can move priests too when they start acquiring cookie ingredients.
If you demanded an oath of affirmation regarding the second Vatican council you had to define what parts of the council are actually binding, which is the last thing a lot of people championing "the council" want.
Yes! That would be a large part of the point. To put a stop to the (divisive) accusations of disobedience, schism, and heresy that have no basis beyond an emotional reaction to those with a different, perfectly legitimate, opinion. Clarity does tend to help with unity.
So far, every champion of the Council that I've asked for such a list (even a partial one) has... mysteriously disappeared from the internet discussion. I assume this means that they don't actually know what they're championing, but I wouldn't assume that they actively and consciously support ambiguity. There are a lot of people with cheerleader type personalities that just want to get everyone excited about the same thing they're excited about, even if they don't exactly know what that is. Figuring out what parts of the Council are actually binding would be a whole lot of work, that requires a lot of specialized knowledge, and probably a fair amount of Vatican input and possibly Dubia rulings.
This is the main problem of fighting over whether V2 is accepted by some person or group or not. Unless they announce that they believe the Papal confirmation of V2 was invalid or that Paul VI was invalidly elected, there's no solid evidence either way. A person can like the Council and reject it, or dislike the Council and accept it, without contradiction.
I think that we could resolve a lot of liturgical problems with a truce of liberty. In the early Church, there was no one rite dictated throughout the known world. Likewise, in the Middle Ages, there were different styles, such as the Roman Rite, the Gallican rite in France, the Serum Mass in England, the Mazorabic Rite in Spain, and numerous less common rites even in the West, as well as other rites in the East. It would seem that we could once again allow a variety of ways of celebrating Mass, whether the standard Novus Ordo (in Latin or vernacular, versus populum or ad orientum), the Traditional Latin Mass, the Anglican Use Mass, the Zaire Mass (currently authorized for Congo), or more charismatic styles commonly associated with the neo-Catechumenal Way. Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Vatican II Council constitution on the liturgy in fact encouraged national adaptations to the liturgy, proposed by episcopal conferences and approved by the Vatican. We could also end the translation wars by authorizing different translations with more formal equivalence, more dynamic equivalence, and perhaps a translation in between. Bishops and pastors in their local areas are best able to determine what will work for their people. And people have different spiritualities, and thus would benefit from different styles. Authorizing a wide variety in the liturgy would enable the Church to minister to people of God in whatever way works, rather than in only one fixed manner determined by a central authority.
Okay, but that makes too much sense. Why would the Church do something intelligent and that would be well received by most of the faithful when we could do the opposite. /s
This is true except that many people attending the TLM think the the TLM is superior and every other form of the Mass is inferior. They keep calling it the Mass of the Saints (true) but won't face that we have new saints who have attended the NO.
Guilty as charged. We think the TLM is better. Don’t you think the Novus Ordo is better? Why can you prefer your form of the Mass, but I cannot prefer mine?
It’s not yours. You are not the actor in the mass, Christ is, so to talk about “better” or “inferior” is pathetic. I agree that the extraordinary form teaches us more clearly about the sacrificial character of the mass, which is why suppressing it would be an evil act, but stop talking about my mass and your mass.
These are all approved forms of the Mass. People are allowed to have favorites. You have your favorite. I have mine. Why is it ok for you but not for me?
You seem to assume everyone else is out to get you. Some are, maybe, but not me. I agree with Pope Benedict that what is holy remains holy forever, and that the extraordinary form should have a special place in the Church. I just object to the term "better" as it is a category error, that is all.
I understand where you are coming from Aiden, but it isn't an awful thing to say, "This form of the Mass could be better," or "While this Mass is holy, there are certain things lacking." After all, the ability to make these observations is what underpins the logic behind
Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Liturgical Movement in general (which began with priests, monks, and laity trying to do what they could to improve the liturgy). And that this point, TLM Catholics aren't even asking NO Catholics to make major changes to the NO. We simply want to be left alone and be given liberty of worship.
"Liberty of worship" is completely the wrong way of thinking about this, it is almost a consumerist mindset where you want the best product. The liturgy doesn't need improving, we do. So you must absolutely without reservation accept that a guitar-and-tambourine NO mass in a grotty hall is no "better" or no "worse" than the most exquisite TLM in a beautiful chapel, because the actor in the mass is Christ, not us. We just assist at the mass.
Now, there are different charisms in the Church and some people are granted blessings in one format, some in another so I want the TLM to flourish with zero restrictions. The eye cannot say to the hand "I don't need you." May God bless you, I hope you can experience holiness in the way God intends for you.
If "the liturgy doesn't need improving, we do" is an absolute truth as you say, then Sacrosantum concilium was unnecessary and the Fathers of the Second Council were seriously misguided. Is that what you are asserting?
To be sure, on one level, a guitar Mass in a basement can be of greater worth than a TLM in a beautiful chapel, if the former is celebrated with genuine devotion and the latter with coldness and indifference. In another sense, the same two Masses might see the TLM as having greater value, if the form and aspects of worship is more fitting to God's dignity and grandeur. And both are of equal dignity and value insofar as they participate in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Finally, one can be subjectively better in the sense of "better for me", insofar as it draws me closer to God and causes me to grow in holiness, virtue, and devotion. That is something that only the individual, and maybe their spouse or confessor, can judge, which is why liberty of worship is a pastoral good. When TLM Catholics assert, "The TLM is better", they generally say so in the second and fourth senses described here, without prejudice to the other two.
Excellent explanation. Those specific two senses are something most TLM devotees tend to assume, whenever discussing the superiority or inferiority of different Rites, as it seems rather obvious that the first sense is unpredictable for any Rite, and the third sense is always irrelevant to such a discussion, as something that is equal for all Masses cannot make one Mass better or worse than another.
Who am I to judge the Fathers of the Second Council? That was a pastoral council of its time, before I was born, whatever was necessary or not necessary at that time is not really a concern of mine, and doesn't really seem to be very relevant to the life of the Church today.
All your points seem to boil down to what you mean by "worth?" I find it very odd to say that the "worth" of the mass is a function of the devotion of the people assisting at it. Or that the subjective experience of the mass (which includes your idea of what is fitting to God's dignity) is really all that important in itself. Of course, the didactic effect on us, and the lex orandi of the Church are extremely important in our lives, and for our salvation. So I agree with point 4, but it also opens up a whole can of worms about how our personal vanities, insecurities, slothfulness or pride can impede our judgement of what is "better for me".
"So I agree with point 4, but it also opens up a whole can of worms about how our personal vanities, insecurities, slothfulness or pride can impede our judgement of what is 'better for me'." Sure it can, and we should always be humble and mindful of our own hidden faults. However, it is still a matter that the individual can best judge and this must be given significant pastoral weight.
Suppose a traditionalist husband is married to a woman who feels most nourished by a contemporary, praise and worship Mass. Even if the husband believes that the TLM is theologically superior, would it be loving act to force his wife to completely abandon her P&W Mass to attend a TLM where she feels disconnected and spiritually unsatisfied? I don't think that would be just. I think a loving husband in this case should be honest about his opinions, explain them, pray that his wife is open to them, but ultimately ensure that she is free and unpressured to attend the sort of liturgy where she feels closest to God. And I think wise and prudent pastors should do likewise and leave the rest in God's hands.
If one form of a valid Mass is in fact “better” than another, none of us actually has an efficacious sacrifice but an empty ritual. Some forms of the Mass might be more theologically rich. Some might be more pleasing on any given number of factors. That doesn’t make any one or another “better” in the sense they are more valuable, i.e. more efficacious,. Claiming one is “better” entails a pretty dangerous locgicsl conclusion.
Of course. My response assumed that by “better” Ryan meant more efficacious. Maybe he doesn’t mean that and therefore my response isn’t to his actual position.
How we participate in and respond to the Sacrifice does in fact make it more or less efficacious. Think about it. If what we do doesn't matter, as long as the Sacrament is valid, then why on earth is particpatio actuosa so important? Everyone ought to become Saints merely by existing in the same room as the Mass and receiving Holy Communion.
Neither our disposition nor the priest's affects whether or not the Eucharist is validly confected. But they certainly do affect the graces we receive from it, not to mention all the Sacramentals included in the Mass.
How we participate is important. I take that to mean the disposition of my heart, not what the missal has me saying/not saying.
When it comes to Sacramentals, you have to actually use the Sacramental for it to be efficacious, not just have the right disposition, yes?
So if one Rite has a Sacramental included, then those properly disposed will receive those graces, while the same properly disposed people at a Rite without that Sacramental will not receive those graces.
If you have a Rite with a lot more Sacramentals included than another, you can conclude that, all else being equal, a properly disposed person will receive more graces in that Rite, than in the other.
no one mentioned validity except you. the Novus Ordo crowd is obsessed with this as the sole metric because it's the only boast the Novus Ordo usually has.
I don’t know what you mean by “Novus Ordo crowd”. For me, that is my entire diocese since its founding aside from a faithful TLM community that is quite new in comparison to the age of the diocese itself. Your comments seem to insist on an “us vs them” tenor and I don’t understand why. We are all one Church. When we insist we aren’t, we will have become Protestant and denied the reality of the Body of Christ. Peace to you. Truly.
how could i have possibly adopted a bunker mentality when it comes to the TLM? heavens to betsies, how could that have possibly happened? hint--read the article above. then ask how you might act if they were taking away your regular experience of Catholicism, aka the mass you love.
I don’t doubt you are genuinely hurt and frustrated by the situation. I’m sorry. While I don’t have the same experience, I can appreciate that it must be difficult for you and I hope it improves.
> how you might act if they were taking away your regular experience of Catholicism
Everyone older than four years old already knows what it is like to have that taken away. It was not pleasant, I agree.
No, active participation of the laity is another.
I don't understand this mentality of "how dare those TLM people think their mass is better"? In every other area of human existence where a choice among two or more options exists, some people will prefer one thing while others will prefer an alternative. There's nothing inherently bad about this. Different strokes for different folks. I'm sure that many if not most people who drink Diet Coke think it's better than Diet Pepsi. Many people who use iPhones think such devices superior to Android phones. I've been attending TLM nearly exclusively for a dozen or so years. I've never heard a single priest nor any fellow attendee ever declare that the Novus Ordo is invalid or heretical. Yes, many if not most of TLM attendees think the TLM is superior, and that's why they're there. But so what? A lot of people at the opera think Mozart and Verdi are superior to Jay Z and Beyonce. Is it not okay for people to prefer what they prefer?
I've heard plenty of people say that the TLM being in Latin is sufficient for them to never attend it. I've heard some others say that they had been to a TLM and would never go back because they didn't like the people there. Is either attitude also a serious problem that makes it much harder to keep everyone together in the Church? Personally, I wouldn't say the first one is, but I definitely would on the second.
Diocesan parishes that provide both NO and TLM are, in my opinion, the best means of drawing people from both sides together.
So what's the solution to such a challenge to Church unity?
So... what many people outside the Curia are already doing?
And that's what my brother the priest does. He says both. I don't understand why the Vatican can think what he is doing is fomenting some kind of rebellion when he says each Mass as best he can whether NO or TLM.
But don't you understand that there's no surer way to make TLM devotees take on the attitude that "NO is downright bad and I will never celebrate/attend it" than to bully and harass TLM devotees by canceling their masses, belittling and shunning them? Suppression and harassment *promote* disunity rather than reducing it. Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum was the perfect truce: "let's all try to act like both of these are fine, and you can take your pick." And it worked. I'll use myself as an example, I've attended the TLM almost exclusively for a dozen or so years, but it's "almost" because if I were, say, traveling and a convenient TLM couldn't be found, I'd got to a Novus Ordo. But, now in the era Traditionis Custodes, I resent being bullied. The harder they try to suppress the TLM, the *more* devoted I've become to it. So, now, when on vacation, rather than going to convenient Novus Ordo, I'll go to an incovenient TLM or I will plan my vacation itinerary around TLM availability.
Got it. "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
This is the mentality of the minor stepchildren of an abusive alcoholic "Sure, his behavior is inexcusable, but you make things worse for all of us with your insolence and defiance toward him. Just keep your head down, take your beatings and pray he goes away someday." Sorry, but I can't live like that.
It's either disingenuous or obtuse to suggest by "abuse" I meant "attending the new Mass once in a while." I am talking about the callousness and cruelty with which Latin Mass parishioners have been treated the last couple years. Take the example of the Latin Mass community at Old St Mary's in Washington D.C. There was a vibrant TLM community there for 30 or 40 years. There had been regular TLM attendees who had been part of that parish for decades. These are people who loved the church, loved the priests, loved their fellow parishioners. And then one day... it's basically "Get the hell out of here." For no good reason. It's not that the parishioners there didn't put enough money in the collection basket. It's not that the parishioners there attacked the Pope.
No, it's for no other reason than a handful of Vatican bureaucrats 4400 miles away who'd never been to the parish, never met the priests nor the parishioners, put down that it was so ordered. That's putting ideology above charity. And it's cruelty. It's malice. And it's abuse.
Some of the language can be triumphalistic, to be sure, but it boils down to an assertion that there are rational, intelligible reasons for our devotion to the TLM and belief that it does a number of things better than the NO. Our devotion does not stem from familiarity or pious nostalgia for a mythical golden age, as is often alleged.
Actually, as noted above there were a substantial number of liturgies, usually due to geographic area, so there were plenty of saints before Trent who did not attend TLM.
I really believe this is the way. The idea that Latin Rite Catholics only have one missal to choose from is really not accurate and never has been. Apart from the rites of the Religious Orders, there still exists many of the regional rites that Father lists. There really is no rational reason to suppress this one missal.
If it's approved by the Church, you cannot say celebrating it according to the correct missal and rubrics is invalid or illicit.
Done.
All of this is such a joke. Papal reach has gone far beyond what it should be. Local bishops should be the ones to determine the actions and disciplines in their own dioceses. The Bishop of Rome should focus on being THE BISHOP OF ROME and let's get back to the Catholic teaching of subsidiarity when it comes to Church hierarchy. The Bishop of Rome ought to only step in situations when their is a disagreement on doctrine.
The Bishop of Rome is also the Metropolitan of the Latin Church, and as such has authority concerning (not over) the liturgy of the Latin Church. I agree that he has overstepped, an example might be micromanaging parish bulletins, but he does have some responsibilities beyond doctrinal disagreements.
According to Vatican II, the local bishop is the one to decide how best to do things in his diocese for pastoral reasons. He knows his parishioners or at least should and can act best for them.
That does not mean there is no call for the Metropolitan to do anything whatsoever. Just that the bishops should be doing a lot more than they were. Or are.
"whatever enhanced canonical measures could be imposed on the extraordinary form of the liturgy, it would seem highly unlikely they would effect a sudden change of mind by those individuals — rather, it could push many into a harder and more formal distancing from the Church. "
I'm highly sceptical of this line of reasoning because it applied to the original TC every bit as much as a new potential offensive. TC was NEVER likely to significantly reduce attachment to the TLM because it turned it into a martyr. Of all the institutions in the world the Catholic Church should understand the power of the martyr!
No the reality is the Vatican is not acting rationally - it is acting ideologically. An ideology that sees the wholesale changes made to the liturgy by the Consilium as being part and parcel of Vatican II itself and thus representing a complete break with liturgical tradition. Look no further than Andrea Grillo who is the intellectual driver of this whole movement. When you compare his "theology" to that of the Benedict XVI/Ratzinger you see just how driven he is by this ideology. He literally said “Tradition is not the past, but the future.”
My favorite irony in all this TLM business is that this sort of lay participation is very much called for by Vatican II. From the formation of Ecclesia Dei societies throughout the land to scouring the chancery rosters for sympathetic priests to say a Mass here and there at this time and that, to educating curious onlookers, to learning the chants, to teaching sympathetic but unfamiliar priests how the Mass is to be said to training altar boys to petitioning bishops for space, this has largely been an initiative of the laity, and as such, very much that which was desired by Vatican II.
Laity wanting heresy? Let us listen and accompany.
Laity wanting wanting to pray the Mass as their great grandfathers did? Let them be anathema. Put them in the gymnasium. Shut them down.
Much silliness.
Yes, the laity at "TLM parishes" are on average far more active in participating in both the liturgy and the spiritual/communal life of the parish than the average "Saint Suburbia" "Beige Catholicism" parish. The TLMers are the models of active lay participation in every sense.
Matthew, when you use those terms about parishes in the suburbs, you lose fellow Catholics’ empathy. There are many people in our very strong liturgically, beautiful suburban parish who support those who find beauty in the TLM and are also dumbfounded about this. It doesn’t seem prudent to mock fellow sojourners, even if they seem to be hanging out at the beer stands, or even wandering somewhere else.
Where did Matthew mock the Mass? I don't even see that he talks about the Mass. He talks about parish life. "Beige Catholicism" is a term that has been employed both by Larry Chapp in his essays on his blog Guadium et Spes 22 and writings for the NC Register and and Catholic World Report, and I've heard Bishop Barron use the term, and I'm sure that others have besides.
That there are happy exceptions doesn't disprove a real phenomenon of a bourgeois, suburban, beige Catholicism concerned with relative comfort (physical and spiritual) and a sort of Moral Therapeutic Deism.
To the extent that you're interested: https://gaudiumetspes22.com/blog/bourgeois-and-beige-christianity-the-prosperity-gospel-and-the-american-cult-of-mammon and many other excellent thought pieces besides.
I stand corrected, Paul, and I removed/changed my last sentences. (I shouldn’t be taking time out from my daily tasks around the house so God’s letting me know that.) One way to face such a “bland”phenomenon is to stay and permit the Holy Spirit to work through us as salt. And there are some holy people planting seeds everywhere, just as there can be hypocrisy and overly-comfortableness in both Mass settings. May the wisdom of the past two Holy Fathers prevail regarding this. Peace out!
I think you're absolutely right about being salt in a community! This fact is, I think, one of the negative things about the (self) herding of many people who are very serious about their faith (and the trappings thereof) into TLM sites. Painting with broad brushstrokes here and acknowledging that there are wonderful people at excellent regular parishes (I strive to be one of them!), droves of people who would be scattered salt throughout a diocese in their parishes for a more...robust...parish presentation of the Transcendentals are concentrated in small (as a share of diocesean life) and often diocesan-adjacent communities. This is an impoverishment.
Keep on keepin' on!
I tell you what, Paul- for the past 2.5 decades, our family has not moved out of our home parish boundaries to regularly attend Mass and participate in parish life elsewhere. (We homeschooled so we did get involved in many efforts- but never switched parishes). We’ve been blessed with faithful pastors, mostly great associates, too, but there always comes a time when there are/will be differences and I know that some- maybe many- suffer under pastors who are not faithful or are bland. That is a true suffering, and in past locations I suffered through that. In our archdiocese we are so blessed to be able to travel easily to many good parishes, including a great FSSP city parish. It has been painful to watch some young faithful families leave our parish, with reverent beautiful liturgies and real movement towards mission discipleship, to be up there- but just as God called us to homeschool (rather- similarly), they are called to go there. I do think that decision has to be made carefully, though. If your parish home is “nomad” (and not saying this situation is, please!), it’s hard to expect your children to settle down as adults- to ride out the good and the bad, the rain and the heat.
I think that's very well-said all around!
What? Clearly the phrase “Saint Suburbia” is describing a kind of parish, one obviously not limited to a zone of urban-planning (though inspired, nonetheless, by an undeniable past connection from which it derives its name).
We can describe any person as “being provincial” to describe their simpleness, naïveté, and lack of broad worldly knowledge… but they don’t have to be from rural area.
Well, yes, of course! So I imply the same broad term- although suburbs are literally where there is often that comfortable complacency.
You obviously don't attend my NO parish.
Yep, I don’t!
It doesn’t negate the trend. Good for you. Same with my NO parish. I may be pretty stupid, but I’m not dumb: I know my parish is an absolute statistical outlier by every metric.
Around here I don't think my parish is that much of an outlier. For one thing, a lot of African priests attend Notre Dame studying all sorts of things (the Church in Uganda, for example, has a national bank and need priests trained in finances). Parishes often have a student auxiliary priest living in the rectory and saying some of the Masses. Since my Dad's Trinidadian accent is similar to the Nigerian, I can usually understand them even if they have a bit of an accent but most of them have excellent American English pronunciation. I suspect their presence helps keep the local NO parish Masses by the book
// Much silliness. //
They want to control the environment. They can. With no other options, people will adapt to what they're given.
Can anyone explain why “how” the liturgy is being celebrated in India and the TLM dust up have become such an issue? Sincerely I am very curious why this is such an issue.
Because Rome has championed a more aggressive centralization, in line with Pope Francis' authoritarian tendencies. (Tendencies he himself acknowledged as leading to him being exiled as a leader of the Jesuits in Argentina in the past!)
More polemically, Pope Francis views himself the source and summit of Christianity, the Catholic Church's personal spiritual director, and he must mold the Church in his image. He tries to do this through existing Church law, and when that fails, he makes new law. Hence with the liturgical celebration in india, he directed the Synod to stop dragging their feet on slowly implementing a compromise they have cultivated for years, and instead force it through yesterday. (We are now seeing why the Synod acted so cautiously!)
The worry that some TLM fans are schismatic, or schismatic-adjacent, is not crazy, as far as I can tell. But it's also easily exaggerated.
If we grant that *not all* TLM fans are problematic in this way, wouldn't it be much more fair to try to treat different cases differently? As suggested earlier, maybe the Holy Father should find some way--e.g., by asking people to take an oath (the details of which would be hard to work out), or in some other way--to sort out who is a faithful Catholic from who is a renegade. And then use disciplinary measures only against the latter.
By using the expression "casus belli," the main article brought up warfare as a metaphor. Well, a really important part of just warfare is discrimination. Just treating everyone the same is like carpet-bombing.
While we're at it, lets make every Latin priest say each of the Eastern Rites monthly to prove that they aren't schismatic against the Eastern Catholics.
Yes. It is a bad idea.
The Mass has not organically developed to be a single enclosed unit without affect on the previous or subsequent Mass such that you can just pop another Divine Liturgy in without disruption. It intertwines with the Divine Office, with the liturgical season and calendar, the feasts and fasts, etc. There are dual-rite priests, and priests who voluntarily do more than one Latin Rite, and I don't have a problem with that, but it should not be a requirement.
With the TLM communities like FSSP, ICKSP, and the Missionaries of Divine Mercy, you are talking about groups whose charism is devotion to this entire body of tradition. It would be like telling the Franciscans that they must act like a Dominican once a month or once a year, habit and all, or like telling the Carthusians that they are required to be Jesuits occasionally and leave their cloister to give a lecture in university in Jesuit dress and under the Jesuit Rule, to avoid being schismatics. It does nothing for them spiritually to temporarily and routinely take from them the legitimate thing they have chosen for life.
And the whole purpose is to prove that they aren't schismatic? What happened to the presumption of innocence?
Tell me more about how the Novus Ordo celebrates Ember Days. They have specific Masses in the TLM, which are treated as normal days in the NO. Lots of feasts and fasts are the same between the Eastern Catholics and the Latin Rite as well. That doesn't make the individual Masses interchangeable.
I am saying the same thing regarding Carthusians and Jesuits applies to Societies like the FSSP, ICKSP, and Missionaries of Divine Mercy, whose society specifically revolves around shared formation and liturgical practices. Except for the fact that they haven't taken vows, it's the same thing as Carthusians and Jesuits, and it's not a problem, it's how current canon law sets up such societies. If you still think that's a problem, take it up with the Supreme Legislator.
I think requiring an oath/affirmation regarding the validity of the current Pope, Vatican 2, and the Novus Ordo would be reasonable, provided there is something similar for all the heresies common in other liturgical Rites. Since heresy puts you outside the Church even if you claim to be under the authority of the Pope, and there seems to be major problems with belief in such things as the Eucharist and life from conception, including with priests. That isn't an hour/month proof of loyalty, it makes no presumption of guilt, and imposes no punishment of being forced into regularly doing something that is outside your tradition. I would not require the Dominicans to celebrate the Carthusian Rite if they had a problem with breakaway orders, I would require them to solidify their standing in the Church and with the part of their order that had not broken away. Similarly, when Eastern Orthodox Churches reunited they were not required to say the Filioque and celebrate the Tridentine Rite once a month to prove their loyalty never wavered. They were just received back. And that was people who very clearly had been in schism, not merely people who had suspicions fall on them via guilt by association, and despite the fact that they objected specifically to something in the Tridentine Rite that was not in theirs. Your suggestion is draconian.
Willingness to celebrate other Catholic Rites than your own is not the standard of unity and never has been. Insofar as there is a traditional action to prove unity, it's praying for the current Pope, by name, in the Mass or Divine Liturgy. Which diocesan, FSSP, ICKSP, SSPX, and Missionaries parishes already do.
I agree that something should be done to address this problem. Start by stopping the mistreatment, since that is itself an impairment of the unity of the Church, and preach repentance and forgiveness, which are the only things that can fix problems caused by maltreatment. Then make extremely clear to everyone in the Church that the TLM is not a signal of schism or schismatic tendencies, that you must do X, Y, and Z to have problematic behavior/beliefs, since the ambiguity and false accusations are an impairment of the unity of the Church. Give that a decade or two to percolate through, but continue to prosecute individuals and groups that violate that in the meantime. If the problem is still significant (which I very much doubt) impose a carefully worded oath/affirmation.
I don't think I'm qualified to have an opinion on how the NO could best be altered. I don't have the flow of it. Really didn't have it even during the decades that I attended it exclusively.
I've been wishing for some time that Ecclesia Dei would do as Pope Benedict suggested, and write Mass Propers for the new Saints in the Tridentine Rite. I think it's absolute madness to have TLM priests say the NO on some Saints' feast days.
I expect they do so voluntarily, and not as a way of proving that they have not suddenly turned into schismatics in the last month. And yes, the Eastern Churches had a process to return, to straighten out questions of bishops and whether any more recent practices contradict Catholic doctrine, and such. But they were not required to celebrate the Tridentine Rite to prove they were not schismatics, much less to celebrate it every month indefinitely. Nor were they required to change what their pre-schism practices to match changes in the Latin Church.
I see no trouble with explaining that one's Sunday Mass obligation is fulfilled at any Catholic Mass, which includes (list all the Latin and Eastern Rites). Laypeople can go where they please. Priests who have a charism attached to a particular Rite may not, and cannot be required to. Since they are part of the one Roman Rite regardless of which Mass they celebrate.
Their charisms do not revolve around their liturgy. The FSSP, Missionaries, etc. do. There's a lot of different charisms out there, and many have nothing to do with a particular liturgy at all, and some only a little. Others are entirely wrapped up in it. For similar reasons, you can't look at an active-contemplative order that has a lot of variety in their balance of life, and tell all the cloisters that they should be able to work outside regularly without violating their charism, since clearly charisms don't require such strictness. Some do. Others don't.
There are different East-West schisms, with different causes. At least one was driven by the Filioque clause in the creed, said at Divine Liturgy. And a great many objections they raised were on the basis that changing the Liturgy as they had received was wrong. When they came back, they were not required to alter their liturgy by even a few words, to include the exact phrase over which all the fuss occurred.
As I understand it, the SSPX is not canonically irregular due to the Tridentine Rite, but due to problems with a few points in Vatican 2. If it was strictly the Tridentine Rite, they'd all have come back with Ecclesia Dei, as the priests who started the FSSP did.
The question of whether or not the Creed should include "and the Son" in reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit was an important element in the original schism.
Yet their order was founded to celebrate the TLM. Why should priests in good standing with no direct chage of wrongdoing be automatically suspected of wrongdoing, unless they prove their innocence?
Have you ever stopped to consider what that does to the nature of communion? If you are demanding a loyalty oath you are implying that there is reason for such oath. To both those being forced to take it, and the outside world. Once you start saying conspiracies exist, you tend to create conspiracies. See any political intrigue ever.
That is why such loyalty oaths are seldom if ever used unless they exist from the beginning.
I've never been a TLM-goer but the "there's clearly something off-base happening in some TLM communities" --> "therefore let's proxy-ban the TLM" line of logic has never made much sense to me. I've never liked the implication that a form of the Mass itself could cause schism - or any evil (instead of being co-opted by whatever in the human heart causes schism). Asking for an oath of fidelity, prosecute bishops or priests who use preach disobedience at the TLM, etc would make a lot more sense
Yes, that oft-repeated logical chasm-jump is terribly damaging. It automatically assumes that the average Joe-and-Jane are secretly sedes at heart just waiting for an opportunity to diss the Church and jump ship, which is horrendously offensive.
At the same time, it is an unsurprising self-fulfilling prophecy when it does happen:
"You're terrible, you probably don't even care about me." "What are you talking about, honey? I don't hate you at all." "No, I know deep down you actually don't care about me!" "That's not true, that really hurts you to accuse me of that." Repeat for several years... "You're secretly terrible!" "Okay, I can't do this anymore, it's been years, and I've tried so hard, but this isn't working between us." "AHA, SEE! I TOLD YOU SO! I KNEW IT ALL ALONG!"
The notion of a novel oath of fidelity is terrifying to me. We already have the only ones we need. The creed and the altar.
I think this is a good point. Any effort to try to sort things out would have to be done very carefully, by people who were very sharp theologically and very sharp legally. And it should be aimed only at weeding out things that are clearly very bad, leaving things that are merely iffy alone. Do the people at the top have the requisite skills? One could be forgiven for wondering.
I agree that it would have to be done very carefully, and I don't doubt that there would be problems finding people with the requisite skills.
It's not a novel idea though. Oaths of fidelity have been used throughout Church history, I think most recently in the latter half of the 20th century. Going back to the reason we have multiple creeds in the Church is that many were adapted or written to respond to various heresies (like the Nicaean and Athanasian). Generally speaking, if there was a particular side they were targeted at, the details were hammered out beforehand alongside representatives of that particular side.
True. I think in this situation, imposition of an oath on some portion of the church feels arbitrary and like a solution in search of a problem. I think this entire comments section shows no clear expression of what a particular set of the faithful do or do not hold to and thus no concrete and uniformly held position to act against. Maybe past situations were equally hazy and still prompted adaptations to creeds or prompted other actions. I’m not a thorough enough student of history to have a confident position there.
I've heard of some of them being hazy enough, at least in retrospect. At least condemnations of a few heresies that we're not entirely sure anymore whether anyone actually held.
Not that I think that was necessarily a good thing. I just think imposing an oath is a better solution than blanket punishment and general suspicion and false accusations.
Am I the only one raising an eyebrow over Rorate Caeli’s use of the phrase “final solution,” especially given certain tendencies amongst trads?
lmao schizo
It’s a repugnant use of language and it was the first thing I noticed, as well. Nobody should apply that verbiage to anything but how the Nazis used it.
I think a *strong* clue that a ban is imminent, is the Vatican's completely unwarranted, out-of-the-blue, indefinite summary blockade of the ordinations of the French Missionaries of Divine Mercy, SOLELY on the basis of "well the new priests might say the TLM" even though that's kinda the charism of their order.
It's like the Vatican is thinking ahead here, because it might otherwise create a PR thorn: "Hey, we just got ordained with the understanding that we were cool to celebrate the TLM; you pulled the rug out from under us like 8 weeks later! What gives?!"
And the Missionaries of Divine Mercy are easier test subjects for this because they aren't as big or wide-reaching as the FSSP or the ICKSP. These Frenchies are smaller fish to fry (...french fry, even?). Remember: the highest levels of ecclesial governance in the Vatican are micromanaging what Mass times Fr. Joe Schmo can put in his po-dunk parish bulletin. Don't put anything past Rome.
Yep, a dead sapling cannot not grow into a tree.
Thank you, Mr. Condon, for a fair-minded, thoughtful piece on this topic. This past Sunday, I was a visitor at a diocesan TLM at a parish in the southwestern United States. The church was absolutely packed, with another 150+ parishioners overflowing outside in tents while braving 96 deg. F temperatures. The congregation was beautifully diverse, mostly Latino but people of all ages, social strata and ethnicities... a true Joycean "here comes everybody" crowd. As Mexican-American kids in their Sunday best shuffled up to the communion rail next to elderly Caucasian ladies in veils and tattooed hipsters dressed in all=black, the choir sang "Panis Angelicus" and I couldn't help but think, "What sort of ecclesiastical Grinches in Rome could look at this and think it needs to be crushed?"
The more that traditionalists learn about the liturgy, the more they recognize that the modern Roman liturgy is not really an implementation of what Vatican II called for. It has some good qualities, and it fulfills the requirements of sacramental validity, but it isn't really an authentic development and continuation of the existing liturgy that belongs to Roman-rite Catholics as their heritage.
Pope Benedict rightly termed the new liturgy "fabricated", not in the sense of falsity, but in the sense that it was "put together", assembled, composed of some elements of the existing Roman liturgical tradition, but ignoring many others, and making innovations through decisions that were based on flawed scholarship, pastoral inexperience, excessive haste, and even some manipulation and deception, if the autobiographies of some participants in the process are to be believed.
Vatican II taught that Eastern Catholics should "know and be convinced that they can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life, and that these may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic improvement." [Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 6] This calling, this duty, this right belongs also to Roman-rite Catholics, and to obstruct it is an injustice, an ongoing blow to the charity which lies at the heart of the Church.
// Whether that is something Pope Francis would want, or consider worth whatever perceived benefits new restrictions could achieve, is an open question — and given the reports from curial staffers, one not yet resolved, or even formally posed. //
It's unfortunate that all this comes down to the unclear intentions of an anti-traditionalist priest chosen ten years ago, God knows why, to pretty much rule the Catholic Church, which is now the last major bastion of traditional morality in a world increasingly given over to debauchery and materialism.