I’ve been waylaid by recent events (like the trip to Europe) that have kept me from blogging about the forthcoming motu proprio on the liturgy in a timely manner (by my standards, at least).
We’ve had confirmation from more than one source that it is, indeed, coming.
MOST RECENTLY BY (#2 THE VATICAN MAN) SECRETARY OF STATE CARDINARL BERTONE.
Who says it’ll be coming "soon" (which in Vatican-speak could mean weeks or months, but means it’s coming).
A couple of thoughts:
1) Cardinal Bertone indicates that the motu proprio will be accompanied by a letter from B16 explaining the reasons for the change and hoping for a "serene reception" from the Church on the issue.
This is unusual.
I can’t remember the last time a motu proprio was accompanied by a letter from the pope himself. There may have been one, but I can’t remember it. In any event, it’s significant that the pope would write a letter to cushion the force of a motu proprio.
This signifies the sensitivity of the issue.
Why is it so sensitive?
Because the use of the Tridentine Rite of Mass is an identity marker.
Apart from the identity issue, nobody would get greatlly overworked about the fact that a certain (and relatively small) group of Christians are being allowed to celebrate the Mass according to their preferred rite. "Big deal," some might say. But when the preferred rite happens to be the majority rite of the by-far-the-largest ritual church, different stakes are in play.
People will look at this as if it is a symbol of approval or disapproval not just of the rite of Mass but of the whole set of changes that have affected the Latin Church in the last forty years, which is a much greater matter.
2) I’ve also read reports that the motu proprio will establish rights for Catholics who want to celebrate the other sacraments–not just the Eucharist–according to the old rites.
Normally the rites that govern the ways the sacraments are celebrated are handled through the Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, but I’m picking up vibes that the Ecclesical Commission Ecclesia Dei will have an expanded portfolio in the wake of the motu proprio, meaning that we may have two dicasteries that deal with liturgy–the CDW and the ECED.
Time will tell.
If there are any problems, they can fix it with duct tape.
Real Soon Now.
Will the motu proprio change anything in the NO mass? Namely, will I still be forced to receive Holy Communion from extraordinary ministers?
Jimmy, the PCED already has clarified, in response to a query from Archbishop Burke, that those who receive the Ecclesia Dei indult from their local ordinary have also the ability to celebrate all of the sacraments according to the 1962 books. I can’t put my finger on the link, but I know your crack team can. I think I first read about in on the renew america site, Brian Mershon.
here it is: http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/mershon/060511
I wonder whether the accompanying “letter” will be an encyclical?
Good points, Jimmy.
It’s not just the identity marker factor that gives rise to the need to cushion the effect of the motu proprio. There is rabid hostility out there to the Tridentine Mass, to Latin, to Gregorian chant, or anything that has a whiff of pre-Vatican II about it — even though Vatican II teaches that the Tridentine Mass is to be preserved, Latin is still the language of the liturgy, and Gregorian chant is still to have pride of place in the liturgy.
Literally LOL at Monica. 🙂
Mr Akin,
Our Holy Father is expending his life for the Catholic Church.
He is releasing this Motu Proprio because it is the imperative thing to do anD it has been to long in coming,but it seems that the uncalled for resistance to it, especially within the Curia and the Church itself, is extremely taxing on His Holiness.
Let us renew, with great vigor and sacrifice the prayer for the Supreme Pontiff, that God doth give might and health to him during this most arduous of times, when even his own servants are diabolically attempting to undermine and sabotage His Holiness salutary measures to sanctify and save souls.
God bless Pope Benedict XVI!
The decision by the Council Fathers to abandon the centuries old TML altogether instead of reforming it was unfortunate. It is clear that after centuries of accretions, the TLM was in need of reform. Instead we have a novel liturgy, the NO, which the Cardinal Ratzinger describes as the Mass of the “experts”.
Now that the Holy Father has chosen to broaden the indult for the TLM, it seems we are back to square one. Instead of a reformed TLM we are back to the 1962 Missal and the Mass which the Council Fathers elected to “chuck”. Is this progress?
In all reality, I think all of the frenzied foaming at the mouth reactions against the issuance of the motu proprio, are just plain ridiculous! For 99% of Catholics, liturgical life will go on as usual–with no changes. If anything, this motu proprio, will just help a very small group of folks, in which ever diocese, get a Tridentine Mass–PERIOD!! The excessive whining, complaining, and hand-wringing, coming from those that would begrudge a few people something so harmless, is absolutely sickening! To the various media folks and clergy who are trying to whip this motu proprio into taking on a life of it’s own–I say give it a break, and get a life!!
Well, Mark, I think it’s more progress than if the Vatican came out with a reformed Tridentine rite. That would neither please nor help anyone–people attached to the old rite would loathe it as yet another sabotage, while people attached to the Novus Ordo would probably see it as just the old rite in different clothing.
Personally, I think that the Motu Proprio, accompanied by a strong push for revent celebration of the Novus Ordo (with Gregorian Chant and Latin!) is the best way to go. The people who like the Tridentine rite get to celebrate it without jumping through hoops, while the people who like the Novus Ordo will see an example of tradition that could hopefully inspire them to a more reverent celebration of their own rite.
I look forward to the Motu Propio, but would be even happier if songs that required hand clapping were eternally forbidden from any Catholic liturgy. And I’m not even advocating Gregorian Chant…but just normal, truly loving and devout songs. Someone needs to weed out ALL of the liberal or wacky songs ..including Kum-bay-ya, Morning has broken and On Eagles wings.
But will the Motu Propio in anyway affect this?? When music is reformed, it will be real and substantial liturgical reform! I pray for the day when the Lord will be honored at the N.O. liturgy with truly holy music!
I look forward to the Motu Proprio too.
But remember, in Vatican language: “Real soon” means something different than what its ordinary use is.
Remember, after Vatican I, didn’t they say they’d get back to the council “real soon now” 🙂 (only until just before V2 did they officially close out V1)
Now, I’m not saying that it will take almost a century for the MP to take place.
I’m an optimist. I think it will take place sometime in the pontificate of the next Pope 🙂
A. Williams,
“I pray for the day when the Lord will be honored at the N.O. liturgy with truly holy music!”
I also hope for the same. There is some movement in that direction.
The USCCB has to put together a Music Directory per Liturgiam authenticam which states:
Within five years from the publication of this Instruction, the Conferences of Bishops, necessarily in collaboration with the national and diocesan Commissions and with other experts, shall provide for the publication of a directory or repertory of texts intended for liturgical singing. This document shall be transmitted for the necessary recognitio to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
It is interesting only because of the signal it sends. Delaying the document does not change that. Much of the church wants to keep making the liturgy more liberal. Much of it wants to move the other direction thinking the NO reform went to far. This just lets people know where the Pope stands. He sees the Tridentine as a gift to be cherished rather than a annoyance or even an evil.
Is there even any hope that anybody would actually heed the Pope’s Motu Proprio???
You have the liberals on the one end who already doesn’t give a darn about what the ‘ultra-conservative’ Pope has to say and will continue with their litany of liturgical abuses while on the other hand, the Rad Trads continue to proclaim that the Pope (like his predecessor) is nothing but an Apostate who shouldn’t be obeyed either.
The only hope genuine Catholics have at this point is Our Lord, who will hopefully help drive back the darkness that envelopes His Church from not only the secular forces of the world but those that exist from within.
“Identy marker” hits the sore spot.
Let’s grow up and not use this as an identity marker – ‘Traditionalists’ should not be triumphalist nor ‘Progressives’ despondent – it should be liturgical diversity.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a peaceful diocese where this ‘minor administrative change’ brings relief to a minority and ocassional variety to the majority.
Any discomfort with the ‘perfides’ words of the Good Friday prayers for the Jews
http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/topics/1962_missal.htm
could perhaps be resolved by substituting the Latin NO wording.
But not all dioceses are relatively calm regarding this matter. I am told that a possible reason for the delay is that some French bishops have had a few church buildings taken over by unreconciled Lefebrvists supported by the racist Front National (prayer wording and translation?).
Those bishops are concerned that universally allowing the use of the Tridentine rite would not have the intended effect of reconciliation but of undermning the authority of the local bishops.
Rose said,
” … I think it’s more progress than if the Vatican came out with a reformed Tridentine rite. That would neither please nor help anyone …”
Rose,
The TLM should be reformed because it’s the right thing to do, not to please one side or the other. The TLM, as Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out, is the result of centuries of organic development. The TLM should be supject to the same “aggiornamento” as other facets of Catholic life were at the Council.
I guess “please” was not the word I should have used. My point was that I think such a move would be pastorally unhelpful. Honestly, I think that at this point we really need to move *away* from the idea of the liturgy as something we can continually tinker with. I think that coming out with a third rite would simply encourage liturgical experimenters to keep playing around, because they would feel that “everybody’s doing it.”
Such a move would also fail to accomplish the secondary aim of the Motu Proprio, which would be to give better treatment to Traditionalist Catholics and start to simmer down the tensions between them and the rest of the Church.
Mark and Rose:
Actually, you both have a point in your above comments.
For one, Mark’s comment:
The TLM, as Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out, is the result of centuries of organic development. The TLM should be supject to the same “aggiornamento” as other facets of Catholic life were at the Council.
…begs the question, wasn’t that the whole point of the Novus Ordo Missae?
Yet, one cannot help but wonder if the Novus Ordo Missae can actually be described as an organic development.
Yet, Rose has a point her comments as well:
Honestly, I think that at this point we really need to move *away* from the idea of the liturgy as something we can continually tinker with.
At this point, to complicate matters even further with a third missae which those of the Novus Ordo Missae and the Tridentine may both come to despise, thus, creating even greater divisions in the Church would merely exacerbate the crisis already in the Church.
Sir,
In the Novus Ordo Mass, no one rubric, each priest has his own style of celebrating the Mass. No two priests celebrate the Mass in the same manner, so much so, the general comment of the faithful is always that “Fr.’X’s Mass is much better than Fr.’Y’s Mass or is not as good as the other”.
It is rightly pointed out by the Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on October 24, 1998 as, “the differences in the liturgy according to the new rite, as it is actually practised in many places, are often greater than the difference between the new and the old liturgy, when both are celebrated according to the prescribed liturgical books”.
Therefore we want the TLM is to come.
Esau says,
“Yet, one cannot help but wonder if the Novus Ordo Missae can actually be described as an organic development.”
Bulls-eye Esau! The Novus Ordo is NOT an organic development of the TLM. It is a complete innovation academic and liturgical “experts” in the wake of the Council: liturgical “flubber”. Their expressed intention was to go back to the Biblical and Patristic roots of the liturgy. So, by intention, it is closer to the 1st century Didache then to the 1962 Missal.
The problem is that the TLM was locked in the attic like a crazed relative and not subjected to the pastoral and theological reforms of the Council. For example, the Good Friday liturgy according to the Tridentine missal, contains this gem: “Let us pray also for the Jews, that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.”
There’s a church nearby where I live that does traditional Latin Masses once a week and I’ve been trying to go. I listen to Gregorian chant and Palestrina while doing my homework. I’m seriously considering taking Latin next year at college. It’s all beautiful stuff.
But remember that the TLM is not a panacea. We know our church well enough to know that she doesn’t make drastic changes without good reason. The NO isn’t perfect either, but it isn’t worthless.
As my pastor’s Irish mother used to say, “I’ve known many a jack— priest, but he could give me Christ on the altar.”
And isn’t that really what it’s about?
The problem is that the TLM was locked in the attic like a crazed relative and not subjected to the pastoral and theological reforms of the Council.
Mark,
As mentioned, I can see your point.
However, just as I said, we will only exacerbate the situation if we were to subject people in the Church to yet another missae.
There, you would have potential disdain not only from Liberals and the Rad Trads, but also perhaps others in the Church as well.
You would essentially be creating further disaster and division rather than allaying the one that’s already been brewing in the Church for quite some time now since the Novus Ordo came into being.
In other words, you don’t complicate matters by making yet another liturgical change when the chaos that had resulted after (notice I chose after rather than due to) the previous liturgical change (i.e., the Novus Ordo Missae) is yet to be resolved.
That would simply be just a recipe for disaster.
Esau,
You need to take the long view on this. If there are unnecessary accretions in the TLM they need to be removed – just as the NO is being “tweaked” by Cardinal Arinze’s Congregation.
The TLM is the ORGANIC Roman Rite. It should continue to be ORGANIC and not frozen in time because some traditionalist curmudgeons would blow a gasket!
The TLM is the ORGANIC Roman Rite. It should continue to be ORGANIC and not frozen in time because some traditionalist curmudgeons would blow a gasket!
Mark,
You’re taking a very narrow-minded view of this.
Yes, it should be, but not at this time.
Right now, the Pope must deal with those very elements that are creating divisions in the Church.
It would be an irreponsible and thoughtless act to introduce yet another destabilizing variable that could end up creating further turmoil and division in the Church — especially since the destabilizing variable you propose is exactly on the same level as that of the Novus Ordo to those of the TLM mindset.
Even further, as I have mentioned, not only would such a third missae be distasteful to the zealous followers of the TLM, but most likely to the Liberals as well and even perhaps those who are faithful adherents of the Novus Ordo.
In other words, you would merely be breeding further chaos in an already chaotic situation.
A. Williams —
What’s wrong with “On Eagle’s Wings”? It’s taken directly from Scripture, and I think it’s a beautiful, reverent song, suited to the liturgy. Not after the Eucharist, perhaps, but maybe as a closing hymn. Just my opinion.
Back on topic — since converting to Catholicism in 2003, I haven’t had the opportunity to attend a Latin mass. If my dicoese does offer a Latin Mass after the Motu Proprio is issued, I’d definitely attend to see what it was like.
A couple of questions…
Why would bishops who ignored the motu proprio in Ecclesia Dei heed this one?
Will this new motu proprio on the TLM bring the SSPX any closer to reconciliation? Or does this set the stage for a firm condemnation of the SSPX confirming their schismatic status? It seems like this is a challenge to them saying “okay, we’re giving you something, now come back…or else.”
Esau,
So you’re OK with jeopardizing Jewish relations by leaving the demeaning and outdated language about the Jews in the TLM? Have you heard of “lex orandi, lex credendi” (the Church believes as she prays)? Are you hoping the Jews won’t notice because it’s in Latin.
With all due respect, the Holy Father should have called for an analysis of the 1962 Missal before issuing the MP.
The “narrow-minded” position here would seem to be resisting the living, breathing development of the TLM …
“Let us pray also for the Jews, that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Why is that a problem? God is doing exactly that now and if this is prayed every Good Friday more will be converted.
Why is that a problem? God is doing exactly that now and if this is prayed every Good Friday more will be converted.
Vince,
I’m so appreciative of your presence here!
What a wonderful way of putting it!
I hope this “fire” in you for your Catholic Faith never dies!
God bless you, brutha!
“Why is that a problem?”
Because it’s not nice to say that the Catholic faith is true and that therefore adherents to other faiths have a veil on their hearts.
Seriously, though, there isn’t anything doctrinally or theologically wrong with the pre-Vatican II prayer for the Jews — it’s thoroughly biblical and motivated by profound charity. What people are concerned about is that when Jews hear Catholics praying for their conversion, they immediately remember the long shameful and very regrettable history of Catholics harassing and demeaning and killing them. Jews notice how Catholics who favor the pre-Vatican II Mass far too often tend to be anti-Semitic. So their concern about the old prayer for the Jews is very understandable.
However, the prayer itself is not demeaning or inappropriate. It’s the old anti-Semitic culture that is the problem, and the prayer can and should be understood in isolation from the painful history of the past. After all, the Church had been praying for God to remove the veil from the Jewish people for a long, long time before anti-Semitism began to infect Catholics.
Vince,
Whether you find it persuasive or not, the argument posed by The Center for Jewish-Christian Learning is that “references to “even the Jews,” “their darkness,” and “blindness” and for their conversion runs counter to the respect for ongoing Jewish covenantal life throughout historic time that was expressed in Nostra Aetate, 4.”
I use the Jewish issue merely as an example of how the 1962 suffers from the “Austin Powers” syndrome: it is frozen in a set of attitutes and understandings which are uninformed by the last 60 years of interreligious dialogue and theological development.
Do Jews have any more of a veil than many Catholics sitting in the pews? Than any of us?
Jordan Potter:
A lot of what you say in your comments has some truth in it.
However, it would be a distortion of the facts if one were to single out Catholics as far as being solely responsible for the many injustices committed against Jews. Protestants have similarly mistreated Jews as well throughout history.
Need I mind you that during the days of our founding fathers here in America, Jews were looked down upon and were treated as 2nd class citizens, not even possessing full rights. Even in Protestant dominated regions in Europe, Jews were also mistreated.
JoAnna,
I included On Eagles Wings more as a known symbol of modern Church Music, rather than on it’s own particular merits..but I still don’t like it much. But overall I’m protesting against any music that promotes a “horizontal” liturgy, one wherein Eucharistic devotion and profound contemplative prayer are not encouraged…but rather, continual distraction and/or liturgical entertainment.
Now, I can mention that a Mass that I have participated in more than 150 times in the past few years has songs which incorporate about 75 percent hand clapping rhythms. They also dance around the altar after the closing prayers, and singing and hand clapping continues. It is in my wifes parish which is ‘Neocatecumenal’.
What can I say?? The pope is on the verge of recognizing this group!? This June, yes..this month, is the month when the 5 year experimental period for the approval of the Statutes expires. And wil the dancing around the altar continue? Will they need to submit their songs to the Vatican, as does the USCCB?
The great problem with all of this is that Eucharistic devotion is attacted by these abuses! Dancing in the Sanctuary is an abuse of the respect due to the holiness of the same Sanctuary! And moreover, there is not a Tabernacle to be seen anywhere nearby…it’s completely in another room, not even under the same roof! Dancing, it seems is preferred to a holy Tabernacle containing the Body of Christ!
But what I see is war! War between those who love Jesus in the Tabernacle, and those who love themselves in the Community! As Pope B16 says..horizontal versus vertical worship! And isn’t this the great problem in the Church these days?
But will the NCW still be permitted to continue all of their horizontal practices? Will all of the Liberal Bishops continue..and just ignore the Pope, just hoping for a future liberal pope to legitimize for good all of their ‘horizontal’ liturgical ways??
I only hope any liturgical reform has at least SOME teeth. Otherwise nothing will change and the liberals will become more embolden than ever.
Oh Lord, I pray that make this reform real! So that your Kingdom may come, and Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven! Amen!
I’ve typically stayed out of the music discussions, but to be honest, I like a lot of the music that is often criticized here, including On Eagle’s Wings. It’s not for me to say whether it should be used in Mass, or just listened as spiritual music outside Mass, but I like it.
I’d have to agree with Esau, that another Rite in between the NO and TLM would add confusion and probably not solve any problems. And I don’t see the problem with the prayer for the Jewish people. As Catholics, if we truly believe that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth, then anybody short of that (especially those who won’t acknowledge Jesus at all) would seem, to some extent at least, to have a veil over their hearts. I don’t consider that racist or even an insult; it’s just a logical conclusion from our beliefs. We should certainly want the Jews to accept Jesus as Savior, as so many did in the first century.
Also, it’s not helpful in that discussion to bring up the mistreatment of Jews by Catholics. Jews mistreated Catholics just as badly (or worse) in the first century (or two, or more) of Christianity. People mistreat people; it’s a sad fact of life, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray for people’s conversion if we honestly believe we have spiritual truths we could be sharing with them.
As Catholics, if we truly believe that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth, then anybody short of that (especially those who won’t acknowledge Jesus at all) would seem, to some extent at least, to have a veil over their hearts. I don’t consider that racist or even an insult; it’s just a logical conclusion from our beliefs. We should certainly want the Jews to accept Jesus as Savior, as so many did in the first century.
Also, it’s not helpful in that discussion to bring up the mistreatment of Jews by Catholics. Jews mistreated Catholics just as badly (or worse) in the first century (or two, or more) of Christianity. People mistreat people; it’s a sad fact of life, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray for people’s conversion if we honestly believe we have spiritual truths we could be sharing with them.
Snowman,
You preach the Truth, brutha!
Keep preachin’!
A. Williams —
I am quite fortunate to belong to a parish with a very reverent NO mass. It is a college Newman Center so we occasionally have guitars accompanying the cantor, and I suppose some of the more “modern” hymns, but overall it is a very reverent service. No handclapping, a homily always grounded in Church teaching and Scripture, and a priest who has a true love for the Eucharist (and who is not afraid to expound upon the evils of abortion, artificial birth control, etc. loudly and often!).
Our priest has just been recalled to active duty in Iraq, though, (please pray for Fr. C!) so I’m hoping his temporary replacement will be just as good. It’s going to be one of the priests from our local cathedral, so I’m confident he will be.
I’m a little late to the party, but I do want to comment on Mark’s first comment.
The decision by the Council Fathers to abandon the centuries old TML altogether instead of reforming it was unfortunate.
The Council Fathers did no such thing. Go re-read SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM. It called for certain reforms, not for a new rite.
I am finishing up reading Reform of the Roman Liturgy by Monsignor Klaus Gamber. Both Monsignor Gamber in this book, and the Cardinal Ratzinger in his book, Spirit of the Liturgy, would disagree with your assertion.
Mark posted:
“I use the Jewish issue merely as an example of how the 1962 suffers from the “Austin Powers” syndrome: it is frozen in a set of attitutes and understandings which are uninformed by the last 60 years of interreligious dialogue and theological development”
Ahhhh comparing the liturgy and the never changing deposit of faith to Austin powers and Hollywood. What a catechesis you have Mark! Wow, what an uninformed bunch of Catholics we are trying to convert those who are Jewish and DENY our Lord in his entirety and per the Gospels and every inch of Catholic teaching one who denies our Lord and savior as God (Esau can even check his Bible which he is so good at quoting) can not be saved!
Gee praying for their conversion is so antisemitic!!
Mark posted:
“I use the Jewish issue merely as an example of how the 1962 suffers from the “Austin Powers” syndrome: it is frozen in a set of attitutes and understandings which are uninformed by the last 60 years of interreligious dialogue and theological development”
Ahhhh comparing the liturgy and the never changing deposit of faith to Austin powers and Hollywood. What a catechesis you have Mark! Wow, what an uninformed bunch of Catholics we are trying to convert those who are Jewish and DENY our Lord in his entirety and per the Gospels and every inch of Catholic teaching one who denies our Lord and savior as God (Esau can even check his Bible which he is so good at quoting) can not be saved!
Gee praying for their conversion is so antisemitic!!
“A lot of what you say in your comments has some truth in it.”
That’s another way of saying that some of what I say in my comments has some error in it. (By analogy, compare the prayer for the Jews in the pre-Vatican II Good Friday liturgy with the prayer for the Jews in the post-Vatican II liturgy.) However, I’m not aware of any error or inaccuracy in what I said.
“However, it would be a distortion of the facts if one were to single out Catholics as far as being solely responsible for the many injustices committed against Jews. Protestants have similarly mistreated Jews as well throughout history.”
But we’re not talking about Protestant attitudes towards the Jews. We’re talking about why Jews today react the way they do to the knowledge of Catholics praying the pre-Vatican II Good Friday Prayers of the Faithful.
“Need I mind you that during the days of our founding fathers here in America, Jews were looked down upon and were treated as 2nd class citizens, not even possessing full rights. Even in Protestant dominated regions in Europe, Jews were also mistreated.”
Again, it’s really not relevant to bring up what non-Catholics have done to the Jews, since the Tridentine Mass is a Catholic thing, not a non-Catholic thing. Sure, Catholics aren’t the only people to have mistreated Jews, and yes, Jews have also mistreated Catholics. But if we want to understand why Jews don’t like the idea of Catholics praying that God would have mercy “even on the Jews” (suggesting to many that it would be harder for him to have mercy on a Jew than it would be to have mercy on a Gentile), then we have to look at the Catholic history of harassing Jews, not non-Catholic history of harassing Jews.
That being said, it is somewhat misleading for The Center for Jewish-Christian Learning to portray Nostra Aetate 4 as speaking of “respect for ongoing Jewish covenantal life throughout historic time,” if by that is meant the Sinaitic Covenant, which was rendered obsolete when God gave the Jewish People a New Covenant in Christ. Some think the Catholic Church is open to the Judaising notion that because God’s covenant with the Jews is never revoked, that means the former covenant is salvific for the Jews, and that all a Jew needs to do to be saved is to faithfully observe the Law of Moses, apart from faith in Christ. Nostra Aetate says no such thing, and that notion is repeatedly rejected in the New Testament, by the Fathers of the Church, by the Popes, and by the Councils of the Church.
Jordan Potter:
I just wanted to clarify on your comments for the benefit of ‘others’ in order to make clear that it wasn’t only Catholics that were the ones who have committed such injustices against the Jews.
The reason for the subsequent clarification is because there are actually those individuals who operate on the mistaken notion that it was only Catholics responsible for such while Protestants on the other hand aren’t. This is not true at all.
As for your concluding comments:
That being said, it is somewhat misleading for The Center for Jewish-Christian Learning to portray Nostra Aetate 4 as speaking of “respect for ongoing Jewish covenantal life throughout historic time,” if by that is meant the Sinaitic Covenant, which was rendered obsolete when God gave the Jewish People a New Covenant in Christ. Some think the Catholic Church is open to the Judaising notion that because God’s covenant with the Jews is never revoked, that means the former covenant is salvific for the Jews, and that all a Jew needs to do to be saved is to faithfully observe the Law of Moses, apart from faith in Christ. Nostra Aetate says no such thing, and that notion is repeatedly rejected in the New Testament, by the Fathers of the Church, by the Popes, and by the Councils of the Church.
I have no idea what you’re talking about here since I did not even bring up such things in my comments.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about here since I did not even bring up such things in my comments.”
I know. I should have made clear that I was responding to comments “Posted by: Mark | Jun 6, 2007 1:36:11 PM”
Jordan Potter:
No prob!
I think Snowman said it best:
“As Catholics, if we truly believe that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth, then anybody short of that (especially those who won’t acknowledge Jesus at all) would seem, to some extent at least, to have a veil over their hearts. I don’t consider that racist or even an insult; it’s just a logical conclusion from our beliefs. We should certainly want the Jews to accept Jesus as Savior, as so many did in the first century.
Also, it’s not helpful in that discussion to bring up the mistreatment of Jews by Catholics. Jews mistreated Catholics just as badly (or worse) in the first century (or two, or more) of Christianity. People mistreat people; it’s a sad fact of life, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray for people’s conversion if we honestly believe we have spiritual truths we could be sharing with them.”
Esau posted:
“You would essentially be creating further disaster and division rather than allaying the one that’s already been brewing in the Church for quite some time now since the Novus Ordo came into being.”
I actually agree with you-=but you fail to realize that this has been going on for years within the church whose enemies always wanted to destroy the liturgy
In the eighteenth century modernists were dissatisfied with the liturgy because they felt it did not correspond with the problems of the times with the bishops of France, and some bishops of Italy, meeting together for the Synod of Pistoia, and they carried out reforms and liturgical experiments back them which resemble the newmass of today
Liturgical reform , considered heresy back then but not today, was now taken up again in the 1920s and 30s by liturgists Dom Lambert Beauduin (1873-1960) in Belgium and France, and by Dom Pius Parsch and Romano Guardini in Austria and Germany.
The “reformers” of the 1930s and 1940s introduced the “Dialogue Mass,” because they wanted “to participate” They went out to students and they were successful in introducing Mass in the
vernacular, the celebration of Mass on a table facing the faithful, and even concelebration.
One young priest loved this experiment back then in 1933 named Father Giovanni Battista Montini who was later Paul VI
Pius XII in 1947 condemned liturgical reform but reforms took place all throughout the next decades with a modified mass that appeased John XXIII and ecumenism but lasted only another 7 years until Paul VI did the final deathblow
So looking at liturgical reform, you have to look at a problem much deeper in the church as it has promoted a climate of rebellion. Was this wave of rebellion because of V2 (I dont think so) or was this already taking place but always suppressed by strong popes before V2. Obviously JPII is no Pius X so I guess the church will always want reformers but we had popes in the past who took the teachings, liturgy and deposit of faith seriously and knew it was not supposed to change, but eventually yielded to what we have today
“Also, it’s not helpful in that discussion to bring up the mistreatment of Jews by Catholics.”
I agree it’s not helpful for people to wallow in past hurts, to dredge up sins of past centuries and fling them in people’s faces. But it is helpful for us to consider history if we want to understand why people do and say the things they do today. And in that respect, if we want to know why Jews have a problem with the old Good Friday prayers, we have to consider the wider context of some very painful and at times dark pages of our shared history with the Jews.
Personally I find the old prayer for the Jews to be very meaningful and powerful, and not at all essentially an anti-Semitic thing. But I understand perfectly why many think it is.
Jordan Potter:
But it is helpful for us to consider history if we want to understand why people do and say the things they do today. And in that respect, if we want to know why Jews have a problem with the old Good Friday prayers, we have to consider the wider context of some very painful and at times dark pages of our shared history with the Jews.
Personally I find the old prayer for the Jews to be very meaningful and powerful, and not at all essentially an anti-Semitic thing. But I understand perfectly why many think it is.
Actually, I’m very much in agreement with the psychological take of your original comments, further explained here.
The prayer, though innocent and benign in nature, would seem to provoke an almost psychosomatic episode (much like when a person hears the sound of a drill that’s similar to that of a dentist’s, which causes him/her to shrink at the sound) where the prayer arouses such painful memories of the past, causing the person to have such a terrible opinion of it.
…you have to look at a problem much deeper in the church as it has promoted a climate of rebellion.
Now what would you, John, know about a climate of rebellion?
What’s wrong with “On Eagle’s Wings”?
I like it as a song. My own problem with it and a lot of other songs sung in church is that they’re not very good for congregation-singing. You get the music leader and two or three women who can master the song properly, and everyone else mumbling along or just staring into the distance.
I say women because the songs are usually sang at an insanely high pitch.
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned yet, but depending on the type of letter, it may make a statement more or less forcefully. In any case, what the accompanying letter (be it an apostolic exhortation or an encyclical, most likely the former) says is, “This MP has more magisterial import than an edict or disciplinary change alone.” It ups the ante magisterially, so to speak, more than the MP alone would do.
The Holy Father has repeatedly made reference to the state of the liturgy, the use of Latin, and the need for a refocus on the Eucharist. That he’s likely to do it again amplifies the point and increases its authority. While a typical change in discipline would not merit such emphasis, this one apparently does (John Allen’s opinion, notwithstanding).
Bill B.
Brian Day says,
(About the statement: The decision by the Council Fathers to abandon the centuries old TML altogether instead of reforming it was unfortunate).
“The Council Fathers did no such thing. Go re-read SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM. It called for certain reforms, not for a new rite…”
Brian, Sacrocactum Concilium was promulgeted in 1963. The final edition of the Tridentine missal was issued by John XXIII in 1962. So, none of the liturgical reforms outlined by the Council Fathers in SC were incorporated into the TLM. That is unfortunate. The organic development of the TLM, a la Austin Powers (and our very dear friend John) is frozen in 1962!
Just a thought of mine… is it possible to imagine that several generatons after the motu proprio when the two masses have openly existed side by side for a long time, that a hybrid mass will organically evolve from the best qualities of both masses and once again unite the Latin Rite liturgy?
This would truly be the work of the Holy Spirit, for the work of man results in the mass I went to at my parents’ church this weekend – the crucifix had been moved from over the altar to the entrance of the church because it blocked the view of the organ, after an ear-tickling introduction by the priest the homily was given by two high school girls, and while we were singing the Lamb of God one of the EMHCs took hosts from the tabernacle and passed them out to a platoon of EMHCs who then held our Lord in their hands through the rest of the prayers (Lord I am not worthy…, etc) and popped Him into their mouths just milliseconds after the priest took communion. I think I grinded all the enamel off my teeth; thankfully I don’t have high blood pressure because I would have had a stroke. I can’t believe I ever found my way back to the Church after growing up in that parish.
“So, none of the liturgical reforms outlined by the Council Fathers in SC were incorporated into the TLM. That is unfortunate.”
You forget the ephemeral 1965 Missal. That was an TLM that incorporated some of the reforms of SC. But it was quickly scrapped in favor of the massive, unprecedented overhaul of the 1969 Missal.
Esquire, you said that ‘these songs are usually sung in an insanely high pitch,” just try singing along with the compositions of Palestrina. I’m afraid it’s going to drive you crazy.
John said, “Obviously JPII is no Pius X so I guess the church will always want reformers but we had popes in the past who took the teachings, liturgy and deposit of faith seriously and knew it was not supposed to change, but eventually yielded to what we have today”
You still need to distinguish between discipline which can change and Dogma that can’t. That is were most people get confused. From you above statement I infer that you think Dogma has changed in some fashion.
Certain doctrines (teachings) not dogmatically held (De Fide) are able to change as the Holy Spirit leads the Church for a further understanding. Liturgy falls under discipline and can change and is within the Church’s discretion to do so.
You tone has been tempered from the other day but you still are trying to influence people with your leanings which are incorrect.
Most devote Catholics agree the liturgy is a mess in much of the US (I can’t speak for anywhere else). It will get better only if the laity correspond with obedience and charity to the new “tweaks”.
Obey the POPE! He is Jesus’ Prime Minister for the Kingdom of God.
Vince posted:
“You tone has been tempered from the other day but you still are trying to influence people with your leanings which are incorrect. ”
Such as?????????????
Brian Day said,
“I’m a little late to the party, but I do want to comment on Mark’s first comment.
The decision by the Council Fathers to abandon the centuries old TML altogether instead of reforming it was unfortunate.
The Council Fathers did no such thing. Go re-read SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM. It called for certain reforms, not for a new rite…”
Brian, I might find your argument persuasive except the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) was promulgated in 1963; one year after the Roman Missal of the TLM. The TLM has been cryogenically frozen, al a Austin Powers, since 1962 and so untouched by the pastoral and theological developments of the last 60 years (including those outlined by the Council Fathers in SC).
motu proprio signed; document being translated
Sure would be nice if this is true.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Vince posted:
“Certain doctrines (teachings) not dogmatically held (De Fide) are able to change as the Holy Spirit leads the Church for a further understanding. Liturgy falls under discipline and can change and is within the Church’s discretion to do so. ”
Infallibly taught in the council of Trent . decreed, which stated that “the reason and the purpose of the liturgy is for the ceremonies of Holy Mass to be designed in order to promote the reverence of the faithful”. Does the new mass do this? Was it the intention or to promote “participation”?
Pope for centuries have battled innovators, but they clearly fought for the faith and for the preservation of a pure Liturgy, a Liturgy which had been entrusted to them as conservators and custodians by the Apostles themselves, to safeguard and defend Tradition as eventually taught infallibly at Vatican I
Enemies always have attacked the liturgy for centuries with heretics corrupting the liturgy in order to attack and destroy the faith, which they have basically done to date. What is the first thing the Protestant schismatics did when they broke away from the church? Lutheranism and Anglicanism in the 16th century, then with
the Illuminist and Jansenist reforms in the 18th century, and finally
with the Modernism, they change the Mass itself!!! So the church in formulating the NO mass at the hands of Fr. Bugnini, who started his destruction in the 1950’s and 1960’s only to be exiled later as a FreeMason was the architect of the New Mass. Not a saint, not the apostles, but a freemason.
If that is organic development-or if you dont consider the liturgy part of Tradition to be safeguarded by the Pope, not destroyed-then I guess like everything else you don’t believe that anything is “off limits”! And that is because like most Modernists, you believe the church is supposed to conform to sinful modern man/woman instead of holding fast to her tried and true teachings
Vince posted:
“Certain doctrines (teachings) not dogmatically held (De Fide) are able to change as the Holy Spirit leads the Church for a further understanding. Liturgy falls under discipline and can change and is within the Church’s discretion to do so. ”
Infallibly taught in the council of Trent . decreed, which stated that “the reason and the purpose of the liturgy is for the ceremonies of Holy Mass to be designed in order to promote the reverence of the faithful”. Does the new mass do this? Was it the intention or to promote “participation”?
Pope for centuries have battled innovators, but they clearly fought for the faith and for the preservation of a pure Liturgy, a Liturgy which had been entrusted to them as conservators and custodians by the Apostles themselves, to safeguard and defend Tradition as eventually taught infallibly at Vatican I
Enemies always have attacked the liturgy for centuries with heretics corrupting the liturgy in order to attack and destroy the faith, which they have basically done to date. What is the first thing the Protestant schismatics did when they broke away from the church? Lutheranism and Anglicanism in the 16th century, then with
the Illuminist and Jansenist reforms in the 18th century, and finally
with the Modernism, they change the Mass itself!!! So the church in formulating the NO mass at the hands of Fr. Bugnini, who started his destruction in the 1950’s and 1960’s only to be exiled later as a FreeMason was the architect of the New Mass. Not a saint, not the apostles, but a freemason.
If that is organic development-or if you dont consider the liturgy part of Tradition to be safeguarded by the Pope, not destroyed-then I guess like everything else you don’t believe that anything is “off limits”! And that is because like most Modernists, you believe the church is supposed to conform to sinful modern man/woman instead of holding fast to her tried and true teachings
“Sure would be nice if this is true.”
We can be confident about that information. Fr. Zuhlsdorf is a reliable source. In addition, what he reports fits in perfectly with the recent comments of Cardinal Bertone, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, and Cardinal Kasper. It was Cardinal Kasper who commented a while back that the decision the Pope has made cannot now be unmade, which can only mean the Motu Proprio had been signed (only if it were still unsigned would the Pope change it or decide not to publish it). Then, I think it was last week that Fr. Zuhlsdorf was informed that the MP had been signed — now another source has told him the same thing, adding that the MP is being translated.
The post-synodal apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis was greatly delayed by translation problems. Looks like the same thing might be happening to the MP.
“only to be exiled later as a FreeMason”
Exiled as an ALLEGED Freemason. He denied being a Freemason, although it seems Pope Paul VI did believe the allegations.
Inocencio and Jordan Potter:
I’ve been keeping a vigilant watch for the Motu Proprio at Fr. Z’s blog for quite some time now.
It would be nice if this were true, but the arrival of the MP had been predicted so many times at his blog, it’s to a point where one tires of ‘wolf’ being cried out far too many a time.
I’ll only hope this is true, but am holding my breath.
If what Fr. Zuhlsdorf reports is true, then that means we could have a while yet to wait. I’m being patient, and I don’t put any stock in rumors and speculations about the date it will be promulgated. There’s no point in guessing which feast day would be the most likely. The Pope told Alice von Hildebrand that something would happen “in May,” but there have been delays . . . as usual. It will happen when it happens. But it will happen.
John said, “Infallibly taught in the council of Trent . decreed, which stated that “the reason and the purpose of the liturgy is for the ceremonies of Holy Mass to be designed in order to promote the reverence of the faithful”. Does the new mass do this? Was it the intention or to promote “participation”?”
My Mass is quite reverent all in English with the Priest looking out at us. Show me infallibly again. I am not convinced with this reference here.
I agree with you that the irreverent liberal priests are doing their best to slaughter the liturgy, the abuses make me sick. But to scream Apostasy and Heresy which you do at all occasions is a bigger joke than the liberals.
You have gone too far to one side John(Traditionalist) and are no longer inside the Church. I am sure there are Traditionalist websites you can rant at.
True change (reform) for OUR Holy Mother the Church must happen from within. The body of Christ is a living breathing entity, taking in good along with the bad. Eventually bad will be expelled but for you to stay outside and not work for actual change is sad and counter-productive.
I will stay inside and pray for the reforms to happen, which they are. They won’t happen as quickly as we like but then again we are not the center of the Church history just because it affects us. Lose your egocentric ways and become Christ centered.
Just to let everyone know – Everything is an infallible teaching according to John!
Just to let everyone know – Everything is an infallible teaching according to John!
True change (reform) for OUR Holy Mother the Church must happen from within. The body of Christ is a living breathing entity, taking in good along with the bad. Eventually bad will be expelled but for you to stay outside and not work for actual change is sad and counter-productive.
Vince,
Great point!
I think what you mentioned above is what distinguishes Saint Francis from Martin Luther.
Had Martin Luther remained in the Church to reform it from within for its greater good, who knows? He might have ended up a saint if only he had humility enough to recognize the authority of the Successor of Peter, as St. Thomas More did, resulting in the sacrifice of his very life all for the Glory of God and His Church and the authority given to its Vicar, the Pope, the Successor of Peter.
Also, you are right, Vince, in your distinction between dogma and discipline.
It’s amazing that Converts should know more about the Catholic Faith than a supposed ‘traditional Catholic’.
God continue to bless you in your journey!
Vince, I admire your patience, but you are trying to reason with one who is not reasonable. One who has his own reality cannot be reached by us. I wish Jimmy would ban the one who hijacks every thread on which he comments. Until Jimmy does, we should ignore him. If we don’t respond to him, he will have nothing to which he can react.
I think it is important to read up on all of the tougher questions from Protestants and Traditionalist alike regarding their problems with the Church. Typically there is a level of understanding within me for their confusion; something reasonable for their difficulty -whatever it be. Just like Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the schismatics who followed him.
But when you read the Church’s documents or independent theologian (Cardinal Dulles) to counter that difficulty; it only adds to my faith.
I am off to Adoration now, John you may want to get back to Jesus in the Eucharist. It really solidifies your faith to be in His presence.
Esau and Vince posted:
“Had Martin Luther remained in the Church to reform it from within for its greater good, who knows? He might have ended up a saint if only he had humility enough to recognize the authority of the Successor of Peter, as St. Thomas More did, resulting in the sacrifice of his very life all for the Glory of God and His Church and the authority given to its Vicar, the Pope, the Successor of Peter.”
Finally they have come out, true admirers of Luther and their intent to REFORM the church, as every Modernist has always intended to do under the guise of adhering to the sacred deposit of faith!
The wolf in sheeps clothing has been exposed!!
You’re such a goofball, John. You would object to somebody wishing that Martin Luther hadn’t lapsed into heresy and riven the Church in Europe, but instead had remained a faithful Catholic committed to reforming the things that very desperately needed reforming??? There had been numerous abortive attempts at reform in those days, leading right up to the eve of Luther’s revolt. Even after the rise of the Protestants, it took a long time to convene and complete the reforming Council of Trent, and even longer actually to implement that council. Were the Council Fathers of Trent modernistic pseudoreformers too?
At least I NOW know not to bother responding to any of John’s statements. He is completely out there. I will continue to pray for him though as we all should.
Ahhh, your trying to cover up your true feelings, as you respect a Protestant like Luther, who failed to bring down the church from outside, but the Modernists learned from that and as Leo XIII and Pius X warned, and made all clergy take the “Oath against Modernism”, the church’s enemies who demanded reform were now WITHIN!!
You admire Saint Luther, your hero who though he failed to accomplish what you so desire from without, you and many like you are doing so from within
Pray for our church, for the modernists, pantheists, and all those who want to appease secular society and worship man instead of God be within the church when we are blessed with a Pope like Pius X we shall see how “obedient” they are then or will they scat for the hills!
You have been exposed
Never once did I say I admired Luther, IMO he was more deceived by Satan than most of the other Reformers because he truly believed he was reforming the Church.
Kind of reminds me of the Traditionalist point of view – interesting.
Yes, let’s make it better by breaking away from it. Try that with your finger if it gets broken. Rip it off and see where that gets you.
There is a reason these verses are in the Bible Matt. 23:2-3. And a reason Jesus chose Judas as an Apostle. Even when things looks bad, to your own particular short-sightedness, our leaders are to be obeyed. This is the everlasting covenant and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. No matter how hard you try John.
From now on our replies to John’s posts need to be as follows (everyone cut and paste for the future):
DON’T LISTEN TO JOHN (HE DOESN”T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT CATHOLICISM)
“We all pray for you John, we really do
However much pain you have put us through.
We love Jimmy’s site and hate to see
It run into the ground by the likes of thee.”
John, it’s fine to argue and debate, but now you’re just being stupid. Nobody said they admired Luther or considered him a saint, they said IF he had stayed faithful to the Church and worked from within to correct the abuses that were happening, THEN he might well have been recognized as a saint.
When you attribute things to people that they never said, you not only show yourself as lacking in integrity, but you leave yourself open to charges that you bear a resemblance to the father of lies, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be looked at as one of his followers.
Jordan Potter said,
“That being said, it is somewhat misleading for The Center for Jewish-Christian Learning to portray Nostra Aetate 4 as speaking of “respect for ongoing Jewish covenantal life throughout historic time,” if by that is meant the Sinaitic Covenant, which was rendered obsolete when God gave the Jewish People a New Covenant in Christ.”
Jordan,
I thing it’s more accurate to view the Sinaitic Covenant as having been broadened/fulfilled/superceded rather than “rendered obsolete”.
Consider our Lord’s own words, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.” Matthew 5. Or Paul’s own formulation, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”
Cardinal Ratzinger himself wrote, “It is evident that dialogue of us Christians with the Jews stands on a different level with regard to the dialogue with the other religions. The faith witnessed in the Bible of the Jews, the Old Testament of Christians, is for us not a different religion but the foundation of our own faith.” “L’eredità di Abramo” (The Heritage of Abraham), appeared in L’Osservatore Romano, on December 29, 2000.
Look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 839:
“When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, the first to hear the Word of God. The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ,’ (Rom 9:4) for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”
Or Nostra Aetate,
“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.”
None of this theolgical development is reflected in the 1962 Missal of the TLM …
Here is Esau’s post for all to see:
“Had Martin Luther remained in the Church to reform it from within for its greater good, who knows? ”
Esau desired that the greatest of all reformers stayed within the church and REFORMED it-THOSE ARE HIS OWN WORDS!!!!
But you dont have to worry as those who hated the church learned that they could not tear it down as there were mighty popes like Pius V and a might council in Trent to counter-not EMBRACE those views of Luther, but then came the infiltration and the changing of everything the church once stood for, and Pius X saw this was at the highest level but the Evil one may have his way today working through this very men but they and he shall be defeated as Our Lady stepped on the head of the serpent, so shall she crush the Modernists as though they are now WITHIN as ESAU said in his own words above, how he wished that Luther had stayed in the church and REFORMED it, he could have be a SAINT!
Mark said, “I thing (think) it’s more accurate to view the Sinaitic Covenant as having been broadened/fulfilled/superceded rather than “rendered obsolete”.”
You are correct here, the new Covenant transformed and fulfilled all of the previous Covenants perfectly in Christ.
The Eucharist is the celebration and renewal of that Covenant at every Mass. Until ALL are receiving our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, in a state of grace, we have to pray for the conversion of all people.
The Jews have a special place in our hearts regarding Salvation History (much more so than pagans & protestants) and are to be looked upon with respect but TLM doesn’t insult them with the prayer you cited regarding Good Friday. It exalts them to a place of preeminence IMO.
DON’T LISTEN TO JOHN (HE DOESN”T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT CATHOLICISM)
“We all pray for you John, we really do
However much pain you have put us through.
We love Jimmy’s site and hate to see
It run into the ground by the likes of thee.”
Anybody wants to get back to music in the Tridentine Rite? I can’t imagine my poor rural parish having to purchase a pipe organ, maintian it, find a professional organist (he or she will ask for a salary comparable to what the methodists and anglicans pay), a degree’d and then certified in Gregorian Chant choir master (who will also ask for a professional salary) for the sake of aesthetics. Jesus did not institute the mass in Latin nor did he have a pipe organ. It seems if we throw out non-liturgical instruments; we in small rural parishes will be no different (in terms of music, but we will have the Lord truely present under the species of bread and wine) than my friends in the “Church of Christ” who sing a-capella. Anyone want to send us $250,000 for our organ once the Motu Proprio is given? And an endowment for its maintenance and yearly salary for the organist and choirmaster?
find a professional organist (he or she will ask for a salary comparable to what the methodists and anglicans pay)
What ever happened to volunteers?
John,
Listen up. You are twisting words like a pretzel maker. Esau wished that Martin Luther had not left the church, but had obeyed the pope and reformed the church from the inside. Luther was right to be angry at the corruption within the church in his day. However, like you, he revolted, and condemned both the good and the bad practices and people within the church.
You Know that you are distorting Esau’s and Vince’s words. Because of your hatred for Esau, you are committing calumney against them both. That is a grave sin, John. Cease posting such scandalous things for all to see!!!
That’s exactly why we are in such a sorry state of music in our Church. We don’t want to pay professionals who work hard for their degrees in organ performance and choral direction. I’m not a musician but it seems to me that volunteers play the guitar. Vive la modernite e la Soeur Sourire!
Destroy and Reform the church from Within Luther and Vince say, just like St Pope Pius X warned us about! I am amazed this actually came out, never saw this said before on any blog, that Luther should have stayed in the church and reformed from within!!
So prophetic!!
Saint Luther!! Esau and anyone who supports him has been exposed!!
Thank-you David B., Snowman, Jordan Potter for interpreting my comments in the rightful spirit in which they were intended.
I think Vince is right in that all we can do is pray.
Keep Up the Faith & God Bless You All!!!
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.” Mt 13:16
We don’t want to pay professionals who work hard for their degrees in organ performance and choral direction.
You might try CDs. They’re cheap and easier to find. And often more appealing to the ear than the lady down the street.
Do you think that ML was destined the start the revolt? Their was the possibility that he could’ve become a saint, correct? (unless you believe in predestination.)
ML’s sin wasn’t that he hated the rampant simony, bribery, etc. His sin was rejecting the entire church. If ML had only done like the saints and obeyed the church and the pope, all the while encouraging him to thrust these corruptions out, then he would be a saint. John, No one said ML’s condemnation of Church teaching was right. Only that he should’ve rejected his prideful inclinations and driven corruption. (like homosexual priests adultery, etc. You know, all of the things that you say you oppose.)
Stop hyperventilating. try to comprehend what you’re reading.
Because of your hatred for Esau, you are committing calumney against them both. That is a grave sin, John.
And what are you committing?
I think that the Mass or Liturgy as “ritual” should be static. Can we remember when Rome finally said that the period of experimentation had ended. What? Then we got more changes. And, more options. In San Antonio, Texas, Roman Catholics can attend Mass at Our Lady of the Atonement (Roman Catholics of Anglican Use). Our Latin Rite children are being instructed in a (can I say) Liturgical Style created by their Pastor Fr. Phillips (who lives with his wife, as a blood sister, and children)? When is the period of experimentation really going to end. The “Missae Romanus” is a ritual and should be static; otherwise we will always wonder what new thing will happen at Mass when we attend.
Anybody wants to get back to music in the Tridentine Rite? I can’t imagine my poor rural parish having to purchase a pipe organ, maintian it, find a professional organist (he or she will ask for a salary comparable to what the methodists and anglicans pay), a degree’d and then certified in Gregorian Chant choir master (who will also ask for a professional salary) for the sake of aesthetics. Jesus did not institute the mass in Latin nor did he have a pipe organ. It seems if we throw out non-liturgical instruments; we in small rural parishes will be no different (in terms of music, but we will have the Lord truely present under the species of bread and wine) than my friends in the “Church of Christ” who sing a-capella. Anyone want to send us $250,000 for our organ once the Motu Proprio is given? And an endowment for its maintenance and yearly salary for the organist and choirmaster?
Posted by: Joey | Jun 7, 2007 1:56:57 PM
Joey,
You’re very mistaken in your notions here.
In fact, the Tridentine can be celebrated without any music if need be.
Also, don’t forget, the chaplains in the World Wars celebrated the Tridentine rite not in Church but in open area — and I’m guessing they did so without such musical accompaniments.
Link:
Using a canvas tarpaulin for a church and packing cases for an altar, a Catholic Navy chaplain holds mass for Marines at Saipan in memory of those who lost their lives during the initial landings. June 1944.
Great Esau, I’m going to ask my pastor to play a Palestrina CD at the TLM. Did I misunderstand you?
“And what are you committing?”
Hiawatha,
One of the spiritual works of mercy: Admonish the sinner.
Great Esau, I’m going to ask my pastor to play a Palestrina CD at the TLM. Did I misunderstand you?
Huh???
Also, about your comment here:
I think that the Mass or Liturgy as “ritual” should be static.
I would encourage you to learn about Liturgy.
“Esau and anyone who supports him has been exposed!!”
Yee haw!!! Who needs this loincloth anyway!!!
Great Esau, I’m going to ask my pastor to play a Palestrina CD at the TLM. Did I misunderstand you?
Joey,
Allow me to elaborate on my comments to you since it appears you have a difficult time understanding them:
Joey,
You’re very mistaken in your notions here.
In fact, the Tridentine can be celebrated without any music if need be.
Translation:
I am saying that you don’t have to have music at a Tridentine Mass. There have been Tridentine Masses celebrated where no music is even played.
Please note: No mention of a Palestrina CD.
Also, don’t forget, the chaplains in the World Wars celebrated the Tridentine rite not in Church but in open area — and I’m guessing they did so without such musical accompaniments.
Link:
Using a canvas tarpaulin for a church and packing cases for an altar, a Catholic Navy chaplain holds mass for Marines at Saipan in memory of those who lost their lives during the initial landings. June 1944.
Translation: There have been Tridentine Masses celebrated even outside of Church where musical accompaniments such as an organ would likely be absent. Yet, the Mass has been celebrated even without the presence of such a luxury.
Please note again: No mention of a Palestrina CD.
Esau, I remember as a 6 year old boy that there were three degrees of celebration. Missa Solemnis, Missa Cantata and Missa (?); maybe you can help me out here. But we called it “low mass” and didn’t light all six bees wax candles on the altar. I’m thinking that what the traditionalists want is the Missa Solemnis and for that liturgy to be performed correctly it takes a lot of money. Correct me, please? I’m just saying I would like the Missa Solemnis, but how to celebrate it in a small country parish?
“Esau and anyone who supports him has been exposed!!”
Yee haw!!! Who needs this loincloth anyway!!!
Jordan Potter:
You mean to say streaking is NOT against Da Rulz at JA.O????
Yee haw!!!
(j/k)
Oh, I remember now it’s Missa Lecta. No singing, just spoken quietly and can be celebrated (as I remember my old pastors telling me) in less than 15 minutes.
Brian,
Just a thought of mine… is it possible to imagine that several generatons after the motu proprio when the two masses have openly existed side by side for a long time, that a hybrid mass will organically evolve from the best qualities of both masses and once again unite the Latin Rite liturgy?
That sounds to me like what is likely to occur, once the liturgical situation has stabilized, then those reforms which have been shown to be in error or illadvised can be gradually removed until we have Novus Novus Ordo which could be seen as an “organic” reform of the TLM. In my lifetime? Doubtful. It will take many decades to restore the accidents of the liturgy to it’s former beauty (it’s true substance never having lost perfection).
God Bless,
Matt
Esau, all I’m saying is: Rome what’s it going to be…TLM; NO; Anglican Use; Latin for everyone, everywhere, physical exchange of peace or pax board, Hymnal of St. Gregory or Glory and Praise (that Mother Angelica chucked out along with the poor sister that played the guitar in her t.v. ministry, do you remember) no slight to WLP, by “static” I mean that the liturgy should be celebrated as “ritual” ala Mercea Ilieade without changes. All I’m saying is Arinze stop tweaking (as someone said on this blog) the Mass. Point en fin!
Joey,
That’s all????
I think you’re forgetting other Catholic rites aside from the Tridentine and the Pauline (Novus Ordo Missae), which are only those under the Latin Rite.
There are:
The Ambrosian Rite, the Mozarabic Rite, the Slavonic Rite, the Gallican Rite, the Maronite Rite, the West Syrian Rite, the Malankara Rite,
the Chaldean Rite, the Malabar Rite, the Armenian Rite, the Coptic Rite, the Ethiopic Rite, the Melkite Rite, the Ukrainian Rite, the Russian Rite, the Bulgarian Rite, the Greek Rite, the Georgian Rite, the Italo-Albanian Rite, the Romanian Rite, the Serbian Rite, etc.
It’s not your fault, really. It’s a common error. Several others beside you neglect the fact that the Latin Rite is but only one of many other rites in the Catholic Church.
Lets go back and look at Esau’s 10:29 post where he really revealed himself as a Modernist and a wolf in sheeps clothing where he said:
“Had Martin Luther remained in the Church to reform it from within for its greater good, who knows? He might have ended up a saint if only he had humility enough to recognize the authority of the Successor of Peter, as St. Thomas More did, resulting in the sacrifice of his very life all for the Glory of God and His Church and the authority given to its Vicar, the Pope, the Successor of Peter.”
So lets break this down
Luther
Stay in the church
Reform it from WITHIN (I guess to his Protestant liking?)
Obey the Vicar of Christ
Become a Saint!
Well now, lets just take a look at myself for example, or any Traditionalist who is:
Staying within the church
Trying to REFORM it from WITHIN
Obeying the Vicar of Christ (On faith and morals and when tradition is being adhered to as defined by Vatican I)
HEY-I am headed for sainthood like Luther would have been! Thanks Esau!
Your hatred for Traditionalism and LOVE For Protestanism as a former Protestant bent on diverting church teaching even further from within are quite evident as St Pope Pius X warned us about! You and your lemmings have been exposed as the above logic structure clearly dictates(you did go to college and logic is one of the approved courses of the Modernistic vatican II courses in seminary dont you know?)
Hey-I am going to be a saint as per Esau!
All hail the Crypto-Protestant Nudist New World Order!
Reform it from WITHIN (I guess to his Protestant liking?)
John, the whole point Esau is making is that if Luther had stayed WITHIN the church and SUBMITTED TO THE POPE AND SACRED TRADTION, then he would NOT have been Protestant. He would have remained Catholic, and maybe his zeal could have done good instead of ill.
Now could you please either (a) start listening to what people say and applying actual logic, or (b) go find another blog to troll? It’s getting really, really tiresome to scroll past all your comments, which NEVER have anything useful to contribute to the conversation.
P.S.: I am seriously considering the idea that you are a parody sockpuppet trying to make real Traditionalists look bad. If so, then shame on you. Many Traditionalists are reasonable, devout Catholics, and they have enough persecutors already.
Esau, so you’re telling me that the Church has many traditions or with a captial T (Traditions) and many languages from different countries and ethnicities or races; should I have to live with liturgical diversity or what? It’s driving me crazy what about “ut unum sint?”
DON’T LISTEN TO JOHN (HE DOESN”T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT CATHOLICISM)
“We all pray for you John, we really do
However much pain you have put us through.
We love Jimmy’s site and hate to see
It run into the ground by the likes of thee.”
Joey,
1) The moto proprio won’t stipulate that every parish must have a TLM mass. Only that it can be freely celebrated without explicit permission from the local bishop. Your rural parish can follow which-ever rubric it wants (I just hope it sticks to the rubrics unlike too many parishes today).
2) Let’s get people to put their money where their faith is. I’m always astounded when I go to beautiful old Churches. For example I know that the people of Rome, NY didn’t have a lot of money 100-200 years ago. Yet they built an absolutely beatiful Church. If you live in a poor rural area people may not be able to give much money. But in most areas if people would tithe 10 percent of their net income parishes would have more than enough money to run all their charitable activities and build a church that’s a catechism in and of itself.
***WARNING: SCARIEST THOUGHT EVER***
If the heterodox Catholics are real smart, they’ll join in the TLM when the motu proprio comes out. Then over the next couple of decades they’ll propagate the same types of abuses that they’ve made so commonplace in the NO mass. What do we do if this happens?
Brian:
1. Have you even attended a TLM??? I have until the priest who used to celebrate it retired from the parish I used to attend. No way a heterodox Catholic would attend it due to a lot of particulars inherent in it that no heterodox Catholic would have the patience and the devotion for.
2. When the TLM was in effect back in the days, there were a lot of abuses that occurred during that time, though not glaring as they are today where license has been taken taken to an extreme and the abuses that have ever multiplied due to the modern attitudes of the times we live in as well as the liberal agenda. There have been those TLMs in the past where things were rushed and the Latin prayers were recited in such horrendous and rapid fashion, it seemed they were trying to mimic a speed announcer from the horse races (except they were going at it with 10x the speed).
Also, can you please try and distinguish between the genuine “Spirit of Vatican II” and the mistakened “Spirit of Vatican II”?
I saw your post in the other thread which read:
John,
Great post. All of us on this blog want to rollback the “Spirit of Vatican II” – it violates both the letter and spirit of the Gospel. We all want to return to strict morals rooted in absolute truth and restore the tradition and beauty of the Catholic Church. As far as these things go, we agree with you.
This does great injustice to what Vatican II was actually all about.
In short, the reason why there have been so many abuses that have occurred in the Church is NOT because of Vatican II or the “Spirit of Vatican II”, but because of what folks erroneously think is the “Spirit of Vatican II” or what they believe Vatican II was all about, which have thus resulted in all the liturgical abuses seen today.
Please read the 16 documents of Vatican II.
Thank-you.
Esau, so you’re telling me that the Church has many traditions or with a captial T (Traditions) and many languages from different countries and ethnicities or races; should I have to live with liturgical diversity or what? It’s driving me crazy what about “ut unum sint?”
Joey,
Which is older — the Maronite rite or the Latin rite?
John, the whole point Esau is making is that if Luther had stayed WITHIN the church and SUBMITTED TO THE POPE AND SACRED TRADTION, then he would NOT have been Protestant. He would have remained Catholic, and maybe his zeal could have done good instead of ill.
Now could you please either (a) start listening to what people say and applying actual logic, or (b) go find another blog to troll? It’s getting really, really tiresome to scroll past all your comments, which NEVER have anything useful to contribute to the conversation.
P.S.: I am seriously considering the idea that you are a parody sockpuppet trying to make real Traditionalists look bad. If so, then shame on you. Many Traditionalists are reasonable, devout Catholics, and they have enough persecutors already.
Posted by: zmaria | Jun 7, 2007 6:02:13 PM
zmaria:
Thank you for your post and your moral support of genuine Traditional Catholics.
God continue to bless you!
Esau,
I have never attended a TLM mass, the closest I’ve come is watching the DVD I bought from the Coalition Ecclesia Dei. But seriously, what’s to stop heterodox Catholics from purposely applying the exact same abuses to the TLM mass? The Holy Spirit preseves the Church and the Truths it teaches, not the liturgy. Please tell me, I’m ignorant. I don’t mean this as a challenge, but merely a question.
The more I learn about the church the bigger a supporter I am of Vatican II and what its documents actually say. I put the “Spirit of Vatican II” in scare quotes for a reason. If I meant the true spirit of Vatican II I wouldn’t have used the quotes. Or I would have said the letter of Vatican II, for how can the the true letter and the true spirit contradict each other. I support all the documents of Vatican II and I meant exactly what I said. All true Catholics want to repeal the “Spirit of Vatican II” – the self-centered, mirror-worshipping, faith-killing hijacking of the documents released by the Ecumenical Council. Again, I support Vatican II and all my comments on this site have shown that.
Also whenever I’ve commented on the liturgy I think I’ve been fairly middle of the road between NO and TLM. I personally don’t have a preference at this time as long as it’s celebrated reverently. Which brings me back to my question, what’s to stop the purposeful sabbotage of the TLM mass after the motu proprio. I’m not asking because I think I’m smarter than anyone, I’m asking because I don’t know.
Esau, thanks for the challenge. I looked up some info on the net and found this about he anaphora of Adai and Mari:
Rome diary: new thoughts on Eucharist – Faith & Spirituality – Jesuit Father Robert Taft talks about the Eucharist Catholic New Times, May 4, 2003 by Robert Blair Kaiser: In a crowded, frescoed room in an old Roman palazzo off the Piazza Navona in March, Jesuit Father Robert Taft cited history again.
He showed that Catholic Masses didn’t use the so-called words of institution, “This is my body, this is my blood,” until after the Council of Nicaea in 325, and that even then the words of institution were not ordered until the Council of Trent issued a decree in 1531, responding to Luther’s challenge over transubstantiation.
A final affirmation of the notion that Jesus is not sacramentally present until the priest says the magical words, “This is my body,” did not happen until Plus VII issued his brief, Adorabile Eucharistiae, on May 9, 1822.
We know now, said Taft, through some very thoroughgoing historical research, that no one in either the ‘Eastern Church or Western Church, tried to identify a “moment of consecration apart from the prayer over the gifts in its entirety.” These words did not comprise the essence of the Mass. This wasn’t just Taft’s opinion. It’s now the official teaching of the church, according to a quiet instruction that the pope signed on July 20, 2001, which stated that Chaldean Catholics (many of whom live in Iraq) could participate in the valid Masses of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Orthodox “sister” Church that goes way back to the second century, even though these ” Nestorians” had never used the words of institution. But they had a valid Mass all right, according to three Vatican offices (including the Holy Office), who prepped the pope on the liturgical history of the people of what is now Iraq. Their Mass was celebrated in the words of the ancient, Anaphora of Adai and Mart, which, said Taft, may lack the words of institution in so many words, but contains those words “in explicit, if oblique, references to the eucharistic institution, to the Last Supper, to the body and blood and sacrifice of Christ, and to the oblation of the church, thereby clearly demonstrating the intention of repeating what Jesus did, in obedience to his command: ‘Do this in memory of me.'”
Thoughts on this information Esau and others Thanks!
NOTICE TO JOHN:
I’VE BEEN VERY PATIENT, BUT THE NUMBER OF COMPLAINTS I’M GETTING IS INCREASING.
KNOCK OFF THE HOBBY-HORSEISM OR VAMOOSE, ONE OR THE OTHER.
THIS IS YOUR RULE #1 WARNING.
“He showed that Catholic Masses didn’t use the so-called words of institution, ‘This is my body, this is my blood,’ until after the Council of Nicaea in 325”
No, he showed no such thing. That’s an argumentum ex silentio. We barely have any liturgical texts from before 325 A.D., and we know that in those early days the words of consecration were regarded as special secrets of the Church that Christians were not to talk about publically, which would explain why we have no evidence one way or the other about the use of the words, “This is My Body, this is My Blood.”
“We know now, said Taft, through some very thoroughgoing historical research, that no one in either the ‘Eastern Church or Western Church, tried to identify a ‘moment of consecration apart from the prayer over the gifts in its entirety.'”
That’s basically correct. Eucharistic theology developed over the centuries, and it was inevitable that the Church would seek to explain the essential form and matter of the sacrament. However, just as the Church no longer stands by the teaching of the Council of Florence regarding teh form and matter of the sacrament of Holy Orders, so it is possible that the Church might not have definitively explained the bare minimum of the form and matter of the Eucharist.
While in the Latin Rite, the prevailing belief has been that the momen of transubstantiation are the words, “This is My Body, This is My Blood,” in the Eastern Rites there are different beliefs. For example, if I recall correctly, in the Maronite Rite, the priest passes a cloth over the gifts, and that is regarded as the moment when the gifts are transubstantion.
“It’s now the official teaching of the church, according to a quiet instruction that the pope signed on July 20, 2001, which stated that Chaldean Catholics (many of whom live in Iraq) could participate in the valid Masses of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Orthodox ‘sister’ Church that goes way back to the second century, even though these ‘Nestorians’ had never used the words of institution.”
You’re not exactly correct. First of all, the Nestorians of Iraq are more usually known as the Assyrian Church, and they are not one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Most of the Orthodox certainly don’t accept them as such, but continue to reject them as Nestorian heretics, just as the Catholic Church did for most of its history. (I think these days, however, the Church tries to nuance the theological and christological differences with the Nestorians, much as she does with the Armenians, who historically have not accepted the infallible doctrine of Chalcedon.) Secondly, it’s true that many scholars believe the Assyrian Church never included an institution narrative in its anaphora (and that opinion is followed in the 2001 instruction), but I know that others are of the opinion that the Assyrians once included it but began to omit it in practice, because their liturgical texts never included that moment of the anaphora — again, because that moment was regarded as the most significant treasure of the disciplina arcana. In any case, the Assyrian version of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari (as opposed to the Chaldean version) is the only ancient Christian anaphora that does not include an institution narrative, which certainly raises the question of why all other ancient Churches have, as far as we know, always included an institution narrative while the Assyrians do not. In reading the Assyrian anaphora, it does feel to me like there is a lacuna, like something is being referred again and again to that the priest never gets around to actually mentioning or introducing. However, others think the institution narrative was added to the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, to bring it into conformity with all the other ancient anaphoras of the Church.
All the same, the historical facts of the matter (which are in dispute, and the opinions of Father Taft and his ilk in this matter are far from certain) aren’t as important as the question of whether or not the Assyrian Church has a valid Eucharist. If the Eucharist must explicitly include the words, “This is My Body, This is My Blood,” then the Assyrian Eucharist is invalid. It is currently the stance of the Church, however, that the specific words, “This is My Body, This is My Blood,” are not absolutely necessary, at least not in the case of the Assyrians, since the Assyrians do believe in the Real Presence and have always believed that their anaphora does effect the miracle of the Real Presence. That legislative (not doctrinal) ruling enables Chaldean Catholics to receive the Eucharist in Assyrian liturgies if they cannot assist at a Chaldean liturgy. But it is quite conceivable that the Church may in the future rethink things and issue a definitive judgment on the form and matter of the Eucharist.
By the way, it’s not surprising that the dissident ex-priest Robert Blair Kaiser would inject error and confusion into this question . . .
Actually, we do have a 1st century witness to the earliest Christian tradition on how the Eucharist was celebrated and the words of institution: St. Paul.
The “handing on” process which he describes in 1 Cor 11 is literally “tradition”:
23] For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
[24] and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
[25] In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
[26] For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Likewise, the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper are themselves a testimony to the carefully guarded tradition of the early Church.
Is this the same Mark who actually said St. Paul is non-essential?
I said Paul’s preachings aren’t needed by everyone. Posted by: Mark | Apr 26, 2007 2:04:32 PM
There’s no requirement that everyone read St. Paul. If it’s helpful to you, go ahead and read it. But it’s not required. It’s also not required that your speedometer work perfectly / correctly. It might be helpful, but it’s not required. Posted by: Mark | Apr 26, 2007 12:10:53 PM
There’s no requirement that everyone read St. Paul.
Do you have to read St. Paul to be saved?
On the question of whether or not the institution narrative formed a part of the ancient anaphoras prior to 325 A.D., St. Justin Martyr’s famous description of the Eucharistic liturgy in his First Apology (151 A.D.) provide evidence that the liturgy in his day included the institution narrative. He writes:
“For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that *the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word*, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, ‘This do in remembrance of Me, this is My body;’ and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, ‘This is My blood;’ and gave it to them alone.”
“Blessed by the prayer of His word” indicates that the consecration is effected not just by a prayer, but by a prayer that consists of some of Christ’s own words. St. Justin then goes on to relate account of the institution of the Eucharist, probably indicating what “the prayer of His word” refers to.
If the anaphora with which St. Justin was familiar lacked an institution narrative, then his comment must be interpreted to mean that Christ consecrated the Eucharist “once for all” at the Last Supper, that the gifts become His body and blood by virtue of what Jesus prayed at the Last Supper, not by virtue of what the priest prays during the liturgy. But Christ commanded the apostles to repeat what He had done, so it would not have been very long before the Eucharist included an institution narrative. Also, the priest offers the sacrifice “in persona Christi,” as an “alter Christus,” which would not be the case if every Eucharist has been preveniently consecrated by Jesus circa 33 A.D. Thus, the natural interpretation of St. Justin’s “prayer of His word” is that the anaphora included the words, “This is My Body, This is My Blood.”
Do you have to read St. Paul to be saved?
Is the New Testament important?
And you also have to have a working speedometer, atleast in my state.
In the last three states I’ve lived, my car had to have a speedometer but it didn’t have to be working or accurate.
The TLM should be reformed because it’s the right thing to do, not to please one side or the other.
Mark, You should really preface remarks like this with something like, “In my opinion…”. Just because you believe something does not make it so and you really should consider the possibility that the reason history has occurred the way it has with the TLM being preserved on the fringes of Catholicism while the NO has suffered such abuse is because the Holy Spirit desired it be so. The TLM as it is may be more precious to God than your perspective can realize. At the very least Catholics should approach with trepidation the idea of changing such a venerable rite. Our judgment is not God’s judgment and his ways are not our ways.
…you really should consider the possibility that the reason history has occurred the way it has with the TLM being preserved on the fringes of Catholicism while the NO has suffered such abuse is because the Holy Spirit desired it be so.
Michael,
That’s a very interesting thought — that is, to put the TLM away for the time being (especially given that particular point in history) in order to preserve it until the time was ripe for it to re-introduce it into the Church — its absence serving only to cause an even greater devotion and preference for it since absence does make the heart grow fonder and we never actually know how precious something is until it is absent.
Just for kicks, from an entertainment perspective, for those familiar, look to Stargate SG-1 when Dr. Jackson was made absent from the series, how his long absence caused such a stir amongst fans, who came to miss his vital presence in the show, who came to wanting to bring him back, promoting an even greater following for the series.
Or in that ancient cartoon Transformers when Optimus Prime was made absent from that series, same thing.
Interesting to note, in both SG-1 and Transformers, the return of these characters to their respective shows required a certain resurrection as the departure of these prominent characters from their respective shows was due to a certain demise they suffered in the original storylines!
I know, I know.
This is out there and indeed silly.
But, hey, it’s a Friday!
“|”: No, those comments about St. Paul were not made by me. You’re being petty.
Michael said,
“Mark, You should really preface remarks like this with something like, “In my opinion…”. ”
Michael, perhaps you should have prefaced your remark to me with “in my opinion”, unless you are claiming divine status.
I think it’s obvious I was stating MY OPINION. However, I was also making AN ARGUMENT. Isn’t that what comboxes are for? If you don’t agree then step up to the plate and make a response…
Seems all anyone wants to do around here is argue with John ….
One of the differences between John and Martin Luther is that Martin Luther admitted his disobedience!
John,
Watch out, I’ve sent the ARMS(Albino Retroactive Monks Society) after you! Keep lookin’ over your shoulder! Bwa ha ha hah ha!!!!!!
>> Whether you find it persuasive or not, the argument posed by The Center for Jewish-Christian Learning is that “references to “even the Jews,” “their darkness,” and “blindness” and for their conversion runs counter to the respect for ongoing Jewish covenantal life throughout historic time that was expressed in Nostra Aetate, 4.” << First, the Center for Jewish-Christian Learning is an ecumenical organization and does not speak for the Catholic Church. Second, the above statement is in error. Jesus came for the Jews and Gentiles - he even warned what would happen to those who would not accept Him (John 3:18) - and He was speaking directly to the Jewish audience, not exempting them as children of Abraham [John 8:36]. It is a blatant injustice and work contrary to Christian Charity to "give up" on evangelizing any group of people on the false pretext that they don't need Jesus for whatever reason. Jesus didn't do that to the Jewish people because He loved them and neither should we. Alas, this "respect for ongoing Jewish covenental life" in this context seems to do just that. We should be praying fervently for conversions and actively evangelizing all people whatever their religion - no exceptions! Finally, Nostra Aetate condemned unjust bias and persecutions against the Jews and others. However, never did it espouse the modern "Jews had their own covenent and didn't need Jesus" teaching. Rather this document stated: "Besides, as the Church has always held and holds now, Christ underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation. It is, therefore, the burden of the Church's preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God's all-embracing love and as the fountain from which every grace flows." [cf NA 4] And why would we want to deny this fountain of grace to our Jewish brothers and sisters? -- John
JohnA,
You’re setting up a straw-man argument. No one is saying that the Jewish people “don’t need Jesus”. But Nostra Aetate was a watershed in terms of redressing the history of vilification, persecution and even charges of “deicide” against the Jews by members of the Church. NA called for a new respect and understanding of the special status of the Jews as our “elder brothers” in God’s covenental plan:
“Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.”
“Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”
To return to the topic of the thread and my initial point, the fact that the Roman Missal has not been updated to conform to the teaching of NA in terms of a negative portrayal of the Jews is one example of the need for the reform of the TML before the broadening of the indult by the Holy Father. Yes Michael, that’s my opinion.
>> You’re setting up a straw-man argument. << Straw-man? I don't think so. The statement referenced on this board was: ""references to "even the Jews," ... ***and for their conversion*** runs counter to the respect for ongoing Jewish covenantal life throughout historic time that was expressed in Nostra Aetate, 4." So just referencing the conversion of Jews is being touted as something bad. This is all rubbish. It's the interpretation of some that since the Jewish people have their own covenant, one should not evangelize them that is popular today. See Cardinal Avery Dulles' response to this nonsense even from the USCCB office. (http://www.sfarchdiocese.org/dulles.html). When one is chastised for attempting to evangelize the Jewish people because they have their own covenant one needs to respond because the covenant with the Jewish people should never be a hindrance to their evangelization and Nostra Aetate never suggested it was.
Mark A,
To return to the topic of the thread and my initial point, the fact that the Roman Missal has not been updated to conform to the teaching of NA in terms of a negative portrayal of the Jews is one example of the need for the reform of the TML before the broadening of the indult by the Holy Father. Yes Michael, that’s my opinion.
Ummm, which paragraph exactly of Nostra Aetate has overturned the spiritual work of praying for those who are outside the Church that they should have the veil of ignorance lifted by the grace of God?
Now, before broadening the “indult” to celebrate the Novus Ordo in English, I think they should fix the explicitly erroneous translations, and restore the “sliced and diced” lectionary… ooops, to late, it’s celebrated universally already. The point is, that there is one liturgy in dire need of reform, and it’s not the TLM.
God Bless,
Matt
JohnA I’ve seen the term used “straw-man” argument on other blogs what do you mean by that term please explain so that I can understand you logic?
Hi Matt,
Of course, a “straw-man” agument is a logical fallacy that is used to argue against a misrepresentation of someone’s argument.
— John
Sorry Joey that I called you Matt… I was reading the blog incorrectly.
— John
Matt,
The Novus Ordo of Pope Paul VI is an organic rite which has been updated to accord with Nostra Aetate, Sacrosanctum Concilium and other recent teachings. The TLM is frozen in 1962.
Mark,
The Novus Ordo of Pope Paul VI is an organic rite which has been updated to accord with Nostra Aetate, Sacrosanctum Concilium and other recent teachings. The TLM is frozen in 1962.
Posted by: Mark | Jun 11, 2007 10:05:01 AM
Organic? I’m sorry I, and the most important liturgist of the Church (ummm.. aka the Holy Father) beg to differ. As Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict wrote that the Novus Ordo is a “fabrication”, meaning that it was created rather than an organic development from the TLM.
As to consistency with SC… have you READ that document? Tell me what language is to be retained? Tell me the primary means of increasing “Actual” participation in the mass? Tell me what is the primary principle when making changes to the liturgy? Tell me where it says “versus populum”? Tell me what principle of SC requires a modification of the 1600 year old Roman Canon and then allowing 3 other optional Eucharistic prayers? I could go on and on. The bottom line is that the liturgy called for by SC is the TLM with a few minor adaptations, it is significantly different from the Novus Ordo, and especially different from the NO as is commonly celebrated today (more like some protestant service than a Catholic Mass).
As to the requirements of NA, I don’t see any instructions for changing the liturgy, perhaps you could actually cite the paragraph? And again I will ask you to withdraw your suggestion that praying for the Jews to have the veil lifted from their eyes violates NA, or actually cite the paragraph which you are claiming.
Tell me more about your “other recent teachings”, this seems an interesting line of discussion.
The TLM is not frozen… it is timeless. At least that’s how the saints and popes have described it.
God Bless,
Matt
Mark,
Also, could you comment on the erroneous translations of the Novus Ordo? What about the fact that the English lectionary carefully avoids offending homosexuals, women’s libbers, and fornicators by “slicing and dicing” various readings, and relegating others to Tuesday or Wednesday of ordinary time, instead of, as Scripture calls for – “to preach the Gospel in season, and out of season”. Further arguments for reform of the Novus Ordo to bring it in line with the Tradition of the Catholic Church.
God Bless,
Matt
ps. I want to be clear that I am not saying the NO is not a Catholic Mass legally promulgated, and I’m not saying it’s an incitement to impiety. I’m just saying that the accidents of the liturgy are in need of reform.
Italian Papal News website:
Motu proprio “signed and imminent”
Quotes from the Accompanying Letter
Very interesting article.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Matt,
I’m not taking a position of defending every element of the NO. It is a work in progress and I personally hope the Holy Father and the Congregation for Liturgy work agressively to reform it. At the same time, if you say the TLM is “timeless” and therefore immune to change then you are very naieve indeed.
The TLM is just as susceptible to humanistic errors and distortion as is the NO (by the way, even if you say the NO was “fabricated” in the early 1960’s, a statement I agree with, that does not logically exclude the fact that it has been organically developing for the last 50 years). For example, the 1962 Missal omitted the reference to the “perfidious Jews” which was previously included in the liturgy of Holy Week.
Here are a few examples of problematic phrases in the 1957 Missal of the TLM (obviously translated for easy comment):
“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.”
*****”Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Matthew 24:35
P./ May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant us pardon, + absolution, and remission of our sins.
***** Mass is not the designated forum for absolution from sin.
P./ we implore You to admit us, not weighing our merits, but freely granting us pardon.
***** He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Mt. 25:33
…
Here are some facts for the contributors to this forum to consider.
1. The Council Fathers at V2 did not discuss or request a New Order of Mass. It was Pope Paul VI who did this after the Council.
2. The construction of the NO Mass was carried out by one Fr. Annibale Bugnini in conjunction with six Protestant ministers. Fr. Bugnini (later Archbishop)was finally exiled from Rome to Iran for reasons best forgotten).
3. Apart from the words of Consecration, which remained in the NO, albeit with a little alteration, every prayer and reference to the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, as clearly defined in the TLM, was removed. Hence, Fr. Bugnini provided the Catholic world with a rehash of apostate Thomas Cranmer’s Protestant meal service.
For example, the TLM had two readings, the Epistle and Gospel. Cranmer introduced a third, including one from the Old Testament. Fr. Bugnini copied this.
Cranmer introduced lay readers as part of the Protestant service. Fr. Bugnini copied this.
Cranmer abandoned the idea of priest at the altar offering the Sacrifice of Christ to the Father and replaced it with a presiding minister facing the congregation over a table. Fr. Bugnini copied this.
Cranmer excluded kneeling, genuflections and all other marks of adoration from his commemoration service. Fr. Bugnini copied this.
Ever wondered why the altar rails were removed from most Catholic churches after V2, and why congregations were suddenly obliged to receive Holy Communion in their hands while standing? These were all integral parts of Cranmer’s original Reformation service, as was the introduction of Communion under both kinds, lay ministers and Anglican Canon prayers, which now feature in the NO Mass.
We were HAD dear Catholics, for whilst it is still possible for the NO to be celebrated validly, e.g., by the words of Consecration, it has to be said that this New Mass is poison to Catholic souls.
Our Lord said “By their fruits you will know them.” Let every Catholic, then, take a look at the fruits of the NO. Since its inception, millions of souls have abandoned Catholicism, tens of thousands of priests have abandoned their vocations. Monastaries and convents have closed by the hundreds. Religious vocations have all but disappeared, and more clerical sexual scandals have occurred in the past forty years than in the entire 2000-year history of the Church.
This is all thanks to the New Mass having robbed the Church of its God-Centred religion in favour of a man-centred equivalent.
Putting all other argument aside, one only has to walk into a modern Catholic church service today to realise that there simply is no reverence for, or adoration of, God present any more. Grace has greatly diminished in proportion as Catholics have embraced this quassi-Protestant form of worship. Our Lady of Fatima pray for us.
Marty, you may want to be better read in Church history, Vatican II and previous. I don’t have time to address all your points – this post is a flyby – but here are two:
The Council Fathers at V2 did not discuss or request a New Order of Mass
The very first document of Vatican II was Sacrosanctum Concilium which called for a review of the liturgy. I’d suggest that you also read General Instructions of the Roman Missal, esp. paragraphs six through nine.
Bugnini
There was talk of liturgical reform beform Bugnini was born.
Read a little more widely of Church documents.
Mary Kay,
I can understand the misunderstanding here. You have to realise that I was not referring to histroical reforms of the Liturgy, such as Pius XII’s reform of Holy Week services. Nor was I referring to legitimate review of the Liturgy as expressed in Sacrosanctum Concilium. I was referring to the abolition of the Liturgy as it has existed and matured over two thousand years, like the mustard seed, in favour of a new, Protestant-leaning equivalent. This is what happened. It is not what Vatican II called for.
Regarding Church history, please recount to me another instance in Sacred history when the Liturgy was butchered in the manner it has been today. You will find that while there were occasional additions, minor alterations, no significant, ancient prayers were ever removed. I know my Church history.
Finally, remember the critique of the New Mass by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, who wrote to Pope Paul VI about the New Mass saying “it represents in whole and in part a grave departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as expressed and codified at the Council of Trent.”
MaryKay,
reviewing the liturgy and promulgating an entirely new one are not the same thing. I don’t really need to point that out, but it would appear from your response that you think the Council did call for a new liturgy.
God Bless,
Matt
Mary Kay
Did I not specifically state in my response to you that the Council did not call for a new liturgy. A new liturgy, however, is precisely what Catholics got AFTER Vatican II. No point in trying to justify it as some kind of development of the old liturgy, because it is nothing of the sort. It is entirely new, designed for ecumenical reasons to bring the Catholic Faith closer to Protestantism. That is what the two senior Cardinals I cited warned about in their letter to Paul VI.
Matt,
At the same time, if you say the TLM is “timeless” and therefore immune to change then you are very naieve indeed.
I didn’t say it was immune to change, what I did say is that it doesn’t belong to a particular era, as does the Novus Ordo.
The TLM is just as susceptible to humanistic errors and distortion as is the NO (by the way, even if you say the NO was “fabricated” in the early 1960’s, a statement I agree with, that does not logically exclude the fact that it has been organically developing for the last 50 years)
If you’re talking about the 50 years prior to the promulgation, that’s patently false. There is virtually no difference between the missal of 1912 and the missal of 1962, and a massive difference between the missal of 1962, and 1970.
Development since 1970 has been primarily in reining in abuses and changes to the lectionary, not to the mass itself. Finally the US bishops have approved a corrected translation which resolves a number of difficulties, I guess you could call that organic.
. For example, the 1962 Missal omitted the reference to the “perfidious Jews” which was previously included in the liturgy of Holy Week.
A change in the TLM like this is organic, but what does that have to do with the Novus Ordo?
Here are a few examples of problematic phrases in the 1957 Missal of the TLM (obviously translated for easy comment):
“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.”
*****”Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Matthew 24:35
The words in Latin “Saecula, Saeculorum” are a common phrase meaning forever. They could as easily be translated into modern English as “forever and ever”… so what, it is well known what the intent is, and it’s not about the earth. Furthermre, the Douay-Rheims correctly translates Matthew 24:34 as Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass. A subtle distinction, but heaven and earth will change after the last judgement they will not end.
transitus : crossing, passing over, transit / changing, alteration.
P./ May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant us pardon, + absolution, and remission of our sins.
***** Mass is not the designated forum for absolution from sin.
So you want to make a distinction between forgiving sins and absolving them, or you want the confiteor completely abandoned? Wow, you sure are a reformer. That part of the mass has been around since the beginning, it’s in the earliest liturgies we have.
P./ we implore You to admit us, not weighing our merits, but freely granting us pardon.
***** He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Mt. 25:33
I’m not sure, are you saying that we “merit” heaven? Because we don’t. Even a minor sin against God merits eternal damnation. It is only the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ that has sufficient merit for our salvation from the end we truly deserve.
God Bless,
Matt
From the article Inocencio linked to: “…the Motu Proprio for the liberalization of the Latin Mass…”
I like that oxymoron. Maybe that’s the way to sell it to everyone who is worried about the Motu Proprio. The ones who are most outspoken against it are the ones who bear the most responsibility for it – if the NO Mass was consistently celebrated the way Vatican II intended I doubt the Motu Proprio would be iminent today.
Italics off!
Brian,
I think there would be a lot fewer voices, the way the NO is celebrated has driven many people to the TLM. Once there they find out the differences go deeper than the way it is celebrated, now those people will not settle for a properly celebrated NO, but the restoration of what was taken away.
Matt
ps. sorry about the italics, it was my bad.
“Here are a few examples of problematic phrases in the 1957 Missal of the TLM (obviously translated for easy comment):”
Problematic phrases, eh? Okay, let’s see what you think are problematic.
“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.”
*****”Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Matthew 24:35
Wait a second. All you’ve given us is an old English translation. Where is the problematic phrase in the 1957 TLM you promised us? The Latin is “sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in secula seculorum.” How is that problematic? “As it was in the beginning, is now and always, and to the worlds of worlds (or ages of ages).” Well, if you think “secula seculorum” is problematic, what are you going to do about the Credo, which concludes with a declaration of faith “in the world to come”? You seem to think that Matt. 24:35 proves that there will never be any future world that lasts forever. The Catholic Church emphatically disagrees.
Your problem is that you think the traditional English rendered “world without end” is referring to THIS world, the form of which is passing away. But the “world without end” is eternity, the new heavens and the new earth that abide forever. I’m frankly astonished that you weren’t aware of that.
By the way, if you’ve ever prayed the Gloria Patri — I’ll bet you have, perhaps as a penance — then you have been praying that allegedly problematic clause “to the worlds of worlds (i.e., “forever and ever.”). Whether the priest prays the Gloria Patri during the liturgy or not, it is still an approved and perfectly Catholic prayer.
_P./ May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant us pardon, + absolution, and remission of our sins.
***** Mass is not the designated forum for absolution from sin._
Again, you’re given us only an English rendering, not the actual words of the 1957 TLM. It may surprise you to know that the Novus Ordo penitential rite includes the same Latin words that are above rendered in English. If those words were problematic in the 1957 TLM, why are they still in the Mass?
Now, since you seem to think that this prayer is an absolution, I would encourage you to note that the prayer is actually a request that God would grant us absolution. It does not specify that God absolve us at that moment. It is rather a prayer that God make us contrite and penitent, so we may be worthy to participate in the Holy Sacrifice and receive the Holy Victim.
_P./ we implore You to admit us, not weighing our merits, but freely granting us pardon.
***** He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Mt. 25:33_
Again, you’ve got a big problem here: those are words that are still in the Roman Canon. Granted, in current English mistranslation does not do those words justice, but those words are nevertheless still a part of the Mass. Now, I don’t know why you think a prayer asking God for His mercy and grace, to not condemn us for our sins (which is what would happen if He were to weigh our own merits — for of ourselves, we have nothing to merit His favor), is contrary to Matt. 25:33.
Well, you have given us three examples of passages from the Mass that are allegedly problematic, but which the Catholic Church continues to embrace. Three strikes, you’re out. I’m sticking with the Church here, thanks anyway.
Those examples weren’t problematic. On the contrary, you just don’t have an adequate understanding of Catholic doctrine, or of the English language — for it is only the older English translation that you failed to understand: you didn’t interact with any of the actual (i.e. Latin) words of the Mass at all.
Did I not specifically state in my response to you that the Council did not call for a new liturgy.
Did you not see that it was Matt who put those words in my mouth?
Hoping that’s a momentary lapse in critical thinking, or at least reading, it would be interesting to have a discussion with you. However, it’s a gloriously warm, sunny Sunday here, so after two brief comments to Matt, I’m going to go out and enjoy. (We get too few of them to waste.)
from your response that you think the Council did call for a new liturgy.
Matt, you should stick to what people actually post, rather than putting words into their mouths and/or making strawman arguments.
As for the “new” liturgy that you and Marty are going on about, I’ve read a history of the liturgy and guess what – for nearly 2000 years, Christians have gathered in thanksgiving, Scriptures proclaimed, grace given to confect the Eucharist. Yes, there’s more to Mass than that bare bones description. Yes, there have been changes through the ages since then. But the essentials of Mass are the same.
now those people will not settle for a properly celebrated NO
It may surprise you to learn that many people don’t feel they are “settling” for the 1970 Missal.
Many people show up to fulfill an obligation and don’t care what is said or not said.
If we are all Catholics here…. then why are we questioning the authority of the Pope to issue a decree that he believes is right? This puts us in the same category as the Lefevbrites. If you don’t agree with the Pope, then why are you Catholic? Being Catholic means that you recognize the fact that the Pope is infallable in matters of faith. Case closed.
Being Catholic means that you recognize the fact that the Pope is infallable in matters of faith.
1 a often capitalized : of, relating to, or forming the church universal
b often capitalized : of, relating to, or forming the ancient undivided Christian church or a church claiming historical continuity from it c capitalized : roman catholic
2: comprehensive, universal; especially : broad in sympathies, tastes, or interests
cath·o·lic
1. Of broad or liberal scope; comprehensive: “The 100-odd pages of formulas and constants are surely the most catholic to be found” (Scientific American).
2. Including or concerning all humankind; universal: “what was of catholic rather than national interest” (J.A. Froude).
3. Catholic
a. Of or involving the Roman Catholic Church.
b. Of or relating to the universal Christian church.
c. Of or relating to the ancient undivided Christian church.
d. Of or relating to those churches that have claimed to be representatives of the ancient undivided church.
The Eastern Orthodox Church also identifies as Catholic. And most Reformation and post-Reformation Churches use the term Catholic (sometimes with a lower-case c) to refer to the belief that all Christians are part of one Church, regardless of denominational divisions. It is in line with this interpretation, which applies the word “catholic”/”universal” to no one denomination, that they understand the phrase “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” in the Nicene Creed, the phrase “the catholic faith” in the Athanasian Creed, and the phrase “holy catholic church” in the Apostles’ Creed.
The term is used also to mean those Christian Churches which maintain that their Episcopate can be traced unbrokenly back to the Apostles, and consider themselves part of a broad catholic (or universal) body of believers. Among those who regard themselves as “Catholic”, but not “Roman Catholic” , are Anglicans, and some small groups such as the Old Catholic Church, the Polish National Catholic Church, the Independent Catholic, the Ancient Catholic and Liberal Catholic Churches, as well as Lutherans (though the latter prefer the lower-case “c,” and, like Anglicans, stress that they are both Protestant and Catholic).
Drew,
The liberalization of the indult for the TLM is a prudential matter and not the subject of Papal Infallibility. Infallibility, as you should know, does not make the Holy Father immune from any misjudgement or lack of prudence on a matter such as this. When the Pope exercises the charism of infallibility he clearly states that he is teaching as the successor of St. Peter on an issue of faith and morals and that this teaching is binding for the universal Church, irreformable (meaning it will not change) and infallible (meaning it is without error).
Jordan says,
“Those examples weren’t problematic” and “those are words that are still in the Roman Canon”.
The fact those phrases are still in the Canon is not conclusive of anything. That just begs the question of their appropriateness. If the penitential rite of either the TLM or NO is giving the impression that absolution of sin is granted then this is “problematic”. The TLM uses the phrase “Indulgentiam absolutionem …” which my 1962 Missal translates ” … grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins.”
Apparently, you want to take the position that the TLM is not in need of pastoral or theological updating or reform. You are entitled to your opinion. I, respectfully, disagree.
The fact those phrases are still in the Canon is not conclusive of anything.
How do you mesh that contention with the Church’s principle of “lex orandi, lex credendi”?
Anyway, I have a fact error in my previous comment. The prayer “May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins” was removed from the Roman Missal. I was confusing it with the preceding prayer, which is in both the traditional Roman Missal and the Pauline Missal. It could be that it was deleted because the committee that created the new Missal agreed with your contention, that the prayer was a sacramental absolution or could be misunderstood as a sacramental absolution. It must be borne in mind, however, that it is only a comparatively recent development that limits the definition of the word “absolution” to the Sacrament of Penance. Historically, Catholics have understood that God absolves us of sin in the confessional, but also absolves us of venial sins when we contritely assist the priest in offering the Holy Sacrifice and contritely and humbly receive the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion. On balance, then, there is no adequate grounds for your contention that this old penitential petition was “problematic.” Just because you or others didn’t understand it doesn’t mean it was wrong or contrary to the Catholic faith. The Church has never included anything in her Missals that conflicts with the Catholic faith.
That just begs the question of their appropriateness.
You have not given us any reason to doubt their appropriateness, so if anyone is begging that question, I would have to say it is you.
If the penitential rite of either the TLM or NO is giving the impression that absolution of sin is granted then this is “problematic”.
Why? Is God not allowed to forgive sins during Mass?
Apparently, you want to take the position that the TLM is not in need of pastoral or theological updating or reform.
I don’t see why you would reach that conclusion. Just because I have demonstrated that the examples you cite in support of your contention don’t do a thing to further your argument, that doesn’t mean I think there was no need to reform the traditional Roman Missal. Granted, it’s clear that the reform of the Missal was a nearly complete disaster pastorally and theologically, but that doesn’t mean the Council Fathers were wrong in their judgment that reform was needed.
I do think, however, that you haven’t helped your case at all by bringing up your three “problematic” examples. From where I’m sitting, it appears you don’t have an adequate grasp of the history and doctrine of the Church’s liturgy to be able to discuss these questions intelligently. The “Glory Be” is problematic, praying to God not to condemn us but instead of pour out His grace on us is problematic . . . Ooooookay . . . .
The liberalization of the indult for the TLM is a prudential matter and not the subject of Papal Infallibility. Infallibility, as you should know, does not make the Holy Father immune from any misjudgement or lack of prudence on a matter such as this.
Well, you do have a point there — one example is the the papally-approved Oecumenical Council of Vienne, which unjustly condemned and suppressed the Templars. That being said, you seem to be laboring under the false notion that Catholics are obliged to show respect and docility to the Pope only when he speaks ex cathedra. That is certainly not the case.
In any event, in my opinion, on a matter such as this it is far more likely that criticising Benedict XVI would be an example of misjugment or lack of prudence than his issuing this Motu Proprio would be. We can leave it to our descendants to determine whether or not the Pope’s Motu Proprio is prudent or not. I trust his judgment in liturgical matters far more than I trust yours.
Okay, one more comment for Mark, and then to bed. I have criticised your objection to the traditional Roman Missal’s inclusion of a prayer that mentions absolution, because I think it is inadequate merely to assert that that the Mass is not the appropriate place for absolution. It is my contention that the prayer of itself is not a sacramental absolution.
I should mention, of course, that the prayer to which you object was in the pre-Vatican II Sacrament of Penance. That fact may help you elaborate upon your contention that the prayer was inappropriate. It may also help you understand why the Church included it for such a long time.
Re: absolution during mass,
correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the Mass is efficacious in the absolution of venial sin, in the confiteor and when receiving communion?
Ma55
Jordan posted in his response to Matt:
“In any event, in my opinion, on a matter such as this it is far more likely that criticising Benedict XVI would be an example of misjugment or lack of prudence than his issuing this Motu Proprio would be. We can leave it to our descendants to determine whether or not the Pope’s Motu Proprio is prudent or not. I trust his judgment in liturgical matters far more than I trust yours.”
This is much of the problem, if a discussion is to take place regarding the MP, then there will be crticism of some sort of the Pope, and responses such as “I trust his judgement in liturgical matters far more than I trust yours..” is really not necessary, as the poster was offering his opinion and it is quite funny that when I meet after mass with Deacons (who despise teh TLM as they basically are not supposed to be celebrating the TLM if one goes back before V2 as the diaconate was restored, with 0 deacons before and now close to 16,000), and others after a New Mass, when I discuss why there are no TLM’s anywhere to be found, the answer is overwhelmingly “well, the people want to “participate” and read, and hand out communion, etc”. I find that so lame and borderline Protestant. Here it is OK for the church to listen to, I guess a majority at this time of laity as to what “their opinion is”…but when someone offers their opinion on why there is no TLM or the MP is being held up-Then that is BAD
But then you have the Catholic hierarchy in England and wales wrote to the Holy Father saying they dont want or need a MP (I guess that is their opinion!!!!)-And that Is OK and should be a thread on JP as it is on some other blogs
Double standard!!!
Jordan said,
About “The fact those phrases are still in the Canon is not conclusive of anything.” How do you mesh that contention with the Church’s principle of “lex orandi, lex credendi”?
The principle of LOLC simply means that the Church’s liturgy better be theologically accurate because “what she prays is what she believes”; it is not a guarantee that every nuance of the liturgy is the optimal expression of the faith. Pope Paul VI, himself, said in 1969 of the decades old liturgical reform movement: “This renewal has also shown clearly that the formulas of the Roman Missal ought to be revised and enriched.”
For better or for worse, Pope Paul VI ultimately opted to supress the TML and promulgate the NO. My assertion is that the TML is still in need of the revision and enrichment cited by Pope Paul VI and that Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio does nothing to address that issue.
Jordan, I would suggest you stick to the discussion instead of making disparaging and condescending remarks such as “you just don’t have an adequate understanding of Catholic doctrine, or of the English language” and “it appears you don’t have an adequate grasp of the history and doctrine of the Church’s liturgy to be able to discuss these questions intelligently”.
Given your dogmatic and condescending style of discussion, I personally don’t care to debate the matter with you anymore.
Mark, when you make dogmatic assertions but fail miserably to back them up with evidence and arguments, the proper response is to provide evidence or else concede the point, not to complain that somebody caught you with your intellectual pants down. Since you’ve failed to supply the evidence, I have to stand by my statements that the inadequacies or “problematic” things are with you, not with the pre-Vatican II Roman Missal.
it is not a guarantee that every nuance of the liturgy is the optimal expression of the faith.
Very true. However, as Pius XII taught in Mediator Dei, it is a guarantee that every nuance of the liturgy is an authentic expression of the faith. But no, not always optimal.
Mark,
Pope Paul VI ultimately opted to supress the TML and promulgate the NO. My assertion is that the TML is still in need of the revision and enrichment cited by Pope Paul VI and that Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio does nothing to address that issue.
So, basically. You stand with Paul VI and against Benedict XVI without an iota of reasoned support. I understand.
In any event, the point I was making, and I think most of those here with a traditional slant, is not that the TLM could not be enriched, but that there is a rite that is in far greater need of reform (the Novus Ordo, as we have demonstrated), and further that, in this age of great upheavel and massive liturgical abuse, it is important to preserve the TLM untouched as a bastion of stability and fidelity to the Church’s teachings.
God Bless,
Matt
Matt said,
“So, basically. You stand with Paul VI and against Benedict XVI without an iota of reasoned support.”
No, Matt, I do not stand “against” Pope Benedict but rather have the highest regard for him as a theologian and as the Chief Shepherd of God’s people. Standing “with” the Holy Father, however, does not mean I must mindlessly acquiesce to everything he does or says. His remarks at Regensburg, for example, which triggered the murder of an Italian nun in Mogadishu were obtuse. I am confident he would take the quote back if he could. I’ve stated my position on the pending motu proprio numerous times already.
It is unfortunate that the comboxes of so thoughtful a blogger as Jimmy Akin are beset by a few thin-skinned and kneejerk posters; self-styled defenders of the faith. Fortunately, the faith will withstand such smallminded “defense”.
That the Church’s liturgy was stale yes.
It did need enrichment.
But protestantizing it was not the anwser either.
But, that is not to say that it is illicit or anything.
I still go to normal NO mass. In fact I have only been to TLM 10 times in my whole life. The Church is always old, always new. It will continue to perfect itself.
Regardless of human corruption.
I know personally a good example are the Heralds of the Gospel. They totally renovate the liturgy without being ultradox. And trust me, they certainly love the latin mass, but that is no reason to be disobediant.
Matt said,
“So, basically. You stand with Paul VI and against Benedict XVI without an iota of reasoned support.”
No, Matt, I do not stand “against” Pope Benedict but rather have the highest regard for him as a theologian and as the Chief Shepherd of God’s people. Standing “with” the Holy Father, however, does not mean I must mindlessly acquiesce to everything he does or says.
Right, so you acquiece to Paul VI in regard to the liturgy. I understand.
His remarks at Regensburg, for example, which triggered the murder of an Italian nun in Mogadishu were obtuse. I am confident he would take the quote back if he could. I’ve stated my position on the pending motu proprio numerous times already.
So, when you speak truth to power, and it reacts, it’s your fault? Should we be silent in the face of tyranny? Did you read Benedict’s “obtuse” speech? Don’t you understand that radical Mohammedans don’t need to an excuse to murder? We’re not dealing with rational people, we need to stand firm. You really should stop putting words in the Holy Father’s mouth, if the Vatican Secretariat of State couldn’t convice him (as they clearly tried) to then you shouldn’t pretend he did. While he regretted the harm to those victims of Islamic terror, he did not withdraw the remarks.
It is unfortunate that the comboxes of so thoughtful a blogger as Jimmy Akin are beset by a few thin-skinned and kneejerk posters; self-styled defenders of the faith. Fortunately, the faith will withstand such smallminded “defense”.
Posted by: Mark | Jun 19, 2007 7:09:24 PM
Ah, the inevitable unfounded “ad hominem”… it had to show up eventually.
God Bless,
Matt
I’m still chuckling about Mark thinking there is some kind of contradiction or tension between “world without end” and “heaven and earth shall pass away,” and between “not weighing our merits, but freely granting us pardon” and “He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.”
Some day posted (and this is a wonderful contradiction on just how little Catholics know or care about how they worship, no offense Some Day)
“That the Church’s liturgy was stale yes.
It did need enrichment.
But protestantizing it was not the anwser either.
But, that is not to say that it is illicit or anything.
I still go to normal NO mass. In fact I have only been to TLM 10 times in my whole life.”
Lets analyze
The “Mass, meaning the TLM” was “stale”
The mass (New mass) has been protestantized
I have only gone to the TLM 10 times…
So as Catholics we want a mass, that is not stale, we admit the new mass has been “protestanized”, but you still attend the New Mass
Great, wonderful, I am sure you are getting all of the graces one needs for salvation
“if there’s one thing that catholic/orthodox theology and modern astronomy can both agree on, then it is that the world most decidedly is going to end!”
The phrase “world without end” is an unfortunate translation of the Latin “saecula saeculorum”; “from age to age”. In Hebrew, “le’olam va’ed”; literally “from this world to the next”.
The Novus Ordo phrases in European liturgies are as follows:
French : pour les siècles des siècles.
Italian : per tutti i secoli dei secoli.
Spanishc : por los siglos de los siglos.
German : in ewigkeit.
John,
As I have said before, it may taste like heresy but it isn’t heresy.
And if you ever hope to perfect liturgy or at least help, it does you no good to be undiplomatic.
Remember, war is an extended form of diplomacy.
Publicly going to only the Old Mass will not make you friends in the Diocese, nor Rome.
And those are the ones that have a say.
Again I tell you to be prudent and not a brute pharisee.
The phrase “world without end” is an unfortunate translation of the Latin “saecula saeculorum”; “from age to age”.
No, it’s not unfortunate, it’s just archaic and traditional. “Saecula” refer both to an “age” and to a “world.” The expression “world without end” means “forever and ever,” just like “saecula saeculorum” means. Although this world will end, the world to come (Hebrew olam haba) will never end.
And I repeat that the Latin expression “saecula saeculorum” is not problematic and did not need to be removed from the Mass, and is still a part of the approved prayer of the Most Holy Rosary.
Some Day,
Remember, war is an extended form of diplomacy.
Publicly going to only the Old Mass will not make you friends in the Diocese, nor Rome.
People don’t go to the Traditional Latin Mass to protest the abuses that occur typically in the Novus Ordo, nor to protest the watering down of Catholic dogma which the liturgy embodies, nor do they go their to protest the modernist sermons of the priests there… they go for refuge from these things and they go for the spiritual enrichment that occurs when you are exposed to authentic Cathplic teachings, authentic Catholic theology, and a more reverent and God centered liturgy.
It’s not about politics or diplomacy… it’s about salvation.
God Bless,
Matt
ps. I’m not denying the validity of the Novus Ordo, or suggesting that it is an incitement to “impiety”, to do so would be heretical in itself. Only that the liturgy is in much need of reform (as the Holy Father has made clear)
“World without end” is consistent with Mormon and Masonic teaching (maybe Scientology too). If taken literally, not idiomatically, it is contrary to Catholic escatology. In the sense that it is confusing and misleading it is “unfortunate”.
I know, I know, Jordan always gets the last word. Go ahead with your ad hominem attack Jordan …
Mark,
perhaps you missed it, but your criticism of “world without end” is a red herring because that is not what is said during the TLM. I’ll say it slowly for you:
“s-a-e-c-u-l-a s-a-e-c-u-l-o-r-u-m” – forever and ever.
I’ll concede that given the 40 years that catechesis in the mass and outside of it have nearly destroyed the orthodox understanding of the archaic expression (world without end), it perhaps now could be considered to be a problematic translation that needs to be updated. Perhaps instead of trying to water down the faith as they have since 1970, the ICEL and Abp. Fishperson should worry about that?
God Bless,
Matt
Matt,
That applies to some.
And I agree to certain extent, in fact I tell you, Mon. Lefevbre was only following orders.
Evil is like a snake. There are those at the front, the head, who would dash off into straight satanism.
Yet the tail, the ones who would crystalize against that, need to be brought along, if not, the snake splits and dies. So what did they do with the ones with good reactions? They created a false right movement, and then Mon. L. got SSPX excommunicated and the good ones went with him.
But I assure you…those called to defeat this reign of Satan over the world and inflitrated into the Church did not fall with Mon. Lefebvre nor the False Right.
Hopefully the motu proprio freeing the ancient liturgy from the fascistic suppression of it for 40 years by revisionists, leftist and reactionary advocated of modernity like mahoney, tod brown, adamec and a host of cum by ya protestant-catholics of the 1960s vintage will send these pedophile enablers crapping their nappies and running for the hills. Roger Mahoney would make a wonderful prelate in the dahhhhhhh we dunt believe in anythig and everything anglican cult.
I am a Byzantine Catholic and the debates within the Roman Church astonish me. From my prespective, liberals and traditionalists within the Roman Church both have ideas both valid and liturgically dangerous.
NOVUS ORDO MISSAE:
1) Never in the history of the Church has the celebrant ever faced the congregation during the Ephaclesis/Cannon. This Calvinist innovation should be reversed immediately.
The liturgical meaning of the priest standing to the East with the congregation, which is that the priest and people both offer the sacrifice together, is that the priest with the congregation offer the “rational and bloodless sacrifice” to the Father and invokes the Holy Spirit to “make this bread the presious Body of Christ and that which is in this cup the precious Blood of Christ.”
For the priest to stand where God the Father is supposed to be poses a grave liturgical danger by sending the subliminal message that the Eucharist is not the most holy body and blood of Christ, and could even contribute to a false pantheism (that man can become God) instead of the traditional theosis (that sacraments confrom the believer to Christ- the beleive becomes LIKE God).
2) Chant and iconography/sacred art absolutely must be restored the NO Mass. The death of beauty in the Roman Church makes the NO Mass unbearable for me- and ultimately chased me to the Byzantines. As far as Catholics who want to tear out sacred art to make Protestants happy- I will remind them both that we are christians- NOT MUSLIMS! Also, by the 7th ecumenical coucil (Nicea 2), they are also heretics- the council condemned as heretics those who would remove icons from the Churches.
TRIDENTINE LATIN MASS
1) I do not understand the need for the Mass to be in a language that is not spoken today. As St. Jerome said, “Igronance of the Scrpitures is igronance of Christ.” The Mass is full of scripture. If one does not know what is said at Mass, then one will not know Christ. Christ gave us the Mass, so that we may come to know and love Him who died on the Cross for our sakes. The Eastern churches have always given the sacraments in a language that people can understand. (This doesn’t mean that none of the Mass can be served in Latin, but some should be served in a dignified venacular language.)
2) The Churches of the East have always made supplications for the Church of God with its needs and struggles. However, the Tridentine Mass makes no provisions for such supplications. This was one thing that always bothered me about the TLM, more than the Latin.
This is a very short list of Easter observations about the Roman Church. I feel that the Roman Church is trapped in a fierce division based on false dichotomies, and that the Roman Church will be unable to pull itself out of its current situtation unless it follows the example of the Eastern Churches.