In a stunning press conference given in England during his visit to that country, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, said that, according to The Telegraph, all seminaries must teach priests to say the Mass according to the Extraordinary Form. Additionally, he said that this Mass will return to every parish.
[Telegraph]The traditional Latin Mass – effectively banned by Rome for 40 years – is to be reintroduced into every Roman Catholic parish in England and Wales, the senior Vatican cardinal in charge of Latin liturgy said at a press conference in London today.
In addition, all English seminaries must teach trainee priests how to say the old Mass so that they can celebrate it in all parishes. Catholic congregations throughout the world will receive special instruction on how to appreciate the old services, formerly known as the Tridentine Rite.
…
Pope Benedict now clearly intendeds to go much further in promoting the ancient liturgy. Asked whether the Latin Mass would be celebrated in many ordinary parishes in future, Cardinal Castrillon said: “Not many parishes – all parishes. The Holy Father is offering this not only for the few groups who demand it, but so that everybody knows this way of celebrating the Eucharist.”
There have been hints of this in some of the responses to questions coming out of the PCED, but this is the most sweeping public statement to date on the re-introduction of the Traditional Mass. They also seem to be giving the Mass a name change.
Pope Benedict will reintroduce the old rite – which the Cardinal said should be known as the “Gregorian Rite” – even where the congregation has not asked for it. “People don’t know about it, and therefore they don’t ask for it,” he explained. The revised Mass, adopted in 1970 after the Second Vatican Council, had given rise to “many, many, many abuses,” added the Cardinal.
The Cardinal made sure that everyone understood that this is not intended to replace the new mass, but compliment it.
However, the new rite – in which the priest faces the people and speaks in the vernacular – will definitely not be phased out. The Pope wishes to see the two forms of Mass existing happily side by side.
The Cardinal admitted that such a change does not happen overnight but that it will happen.
The changes will take a few years to implement fully, he added, just as the Second Vatican Council had taken a long time to absorb. He insisted that the widespread reintroduction of the old Mass did not contradict the teachings of the Council.
The fact that the Cardinal made this announcement in England, the land where the Bishops have just about ignored Summorum Pontificum, is as striking as it is amazing! This statement by the Cardinal for the Vatican, if accurately reported, has the potential to be one of the most pivotal events of this pontificate and even of this generation. Stay Tuned!
Update:The Moment – Damian Thompson Speaks
—Journalist sets the scene when the Cardinal said “Latin Mass for All”
June 14, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Now can he come to the U.S. and do the same, please?
June 14, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I’ve posted this story as well, but wish we could get confirmation. Any luck on another source?
D.v.
June 14, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Anon,
One would assume that this would not apply in England only. I assume this will be spelled out in the long awaited instruction. We shall see.
June 14, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Deo,
I have been refreshing my google query every 5 seconds. So far only Damian Thompson. Although he did mention that a Tablet reporter was there. However, I don’t expect much from that source!
June 14, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Thank you, Mr. Archbold, for this report.
I am amazed by this. The reason is that there is no hint in S.P. per se that the Holy Father hopes to introduce the old Mass into every parish. Having tracked the numbers of this for a very long time now, I find this hard to imagine. At present, after all this prayer and hoping and work, most countries in the world, including many Catholic countries in Latin America, do not even have one ‘Gregorian Mass’ in their entire countries.
I have a feeling that Rome is indeed preparing to introduce the exempt international and personal jurisdiction which many of us have been urging now for since it was proposed for the S.S.P.X by this same Cardinal in 2000. Even that would not achieve this lofty goal, but, in light of the Cardinal’s statement, it would now be easy to erect one into which the Transalpine Redemptorists and the I.B.P. could be incorporated, with others to follow.
The Cardinal would not be saying all of this unless more were coming. I figure that the long-awaited ‘clarification’ from the P.C.E.D. might come on the first anniversary of the publication of S.P., 7 July, 2007.
Alleluia!
I know of a case in the Diocese of Biloxi, Mississipi, and another one in the the Diocese of Greensburg, Penn. in which such disposition would have DIRECT effect.
Peter Karl T. Perkins
Victoria, B.C., Canada
June 14, 2008 at 9:03 pm
See there -just one word dropped can colour something right into ugliness. “New mass” is missing the words “order of” right in the middle. My goodness, one would think Mass hasn’t been Mass these 40 years.
Pretty soon, maybe the Trads can finally get their own ponies, TOO.. but the Sedes, those pseudo-Catholics who adhere to dead bones and call out “Apostasy,” never noticing they are looking in the mirror–and any schismatic little rebel like deNantes who makes the Jack Chicks’ workload very light, will never receive a blessing on their inner crematoria.
Balance is a good word all by itself. So is leaven. When I’m online, and thank God, it’s only then that I have any cause to wonder –I wonder how many of us remember what we as Church were supposed to leaven, and how.
Carol
June 14, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Excellent news. I saw the cardinal this afternoon at Westminster, and he’s a commanding figure all right.
June 15, 2008 at 1:27 am
I ask myself, how is my current parish priest supposed to handle the extraordinary form and the ordinary form on Sunday? He already has to say Sunday Mass in 2 different spots. How is this going to work to in parishes where there is only one Mass on Sunday? You can’t have both at the same time…
June 15, 2008 at 4:08 am
Praise be to Our Lady of Good Success, for her Son has triumphed victoriously over His adversaries, and wrought the long-awaited restoration. This is truly miraculous!
Let us greet this wonderful news with celebration! No bitter words should be uttered by our mouths ever again, only adoration to God!
Alleluia!
June 15, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Alleluia,Praise God in His Goodness fore he has spoken thro his Chair of Peter, His representative in restoring the Gregorian Rite of Holy Mass in Latin which was the Mother tongue for all pre-Reformation Catholics.Our Martyr Priests died for this Mass and brave Men and Women suffered for the Old Mass.We rejoice and are glad,
June 16, 2008 at 12:21 am
‘Gregorian Rite’ sounds 1000 times better than ‘Extraordinary Form’.
June 16, 2008 at 3:48 am
The Holy Spirit did not make a mistake in guiding the Church to replace Latin with the vernacular language following Vatican II. These modern day gnostics who would shroud in unintelligible Latin the Lord’s beautiful gift of His Eucharistic liturgy, the Mass, forget the most important command of Our Lord as He ascended: to make disciples. We must present the Mass to the people in the language in which they think, hear, and speak to most effectively evangelize those inside and outside the Church. It should be remembered that the very first Mass was celebrated by Our Lord Himself in the Upper Room, not in Latin, the language of the Roman occupiers, but in Aramaic. As the early Christians were driven from Judea to areas far away, Aramaic was replaced by Greek because it could be understood by the widest number of people at the time. Later, Greek was replaced by Latin for exactly the same reason: to make the Mass as understandable as possible to the widest number of people. Finally, the vernacular has replaced Latin to conform to the Lord’s overriding command to disciple all nations. All those demanding the force-feeding of Latin need to realize that they have an obligation go beyond what makes them feel good to follow the Lord’s will to reach the masses with the Eucharistic liturgy. Dr. Scott Hahn would not have been converted to the Catholic Faith as he was had he sat in on a Mass which was largely unintelligible to him. He understood the powerful meanings of the words and actions of what he was seeing because it was celebrated in the language he understood. What a wonderful disciple was made that day as he witnessed the Mass in the vernacular. He entered that Mass that day as a Protestant and left as a Catholic. I pray that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church to keep it from locking away much of the Mass to any soul in need of salvation.
June 16, 2008 at 5:28 am
Bob, the statement is not saying every single Mass is required to be the Extraordinary Form. What is the big deal if every parish has at least one Holy Mass said in the Extraordinary Form? If you don’t want to participate in that Form go to the Form you want to participate in, dosen’t seem to difficult to do.
June 16, 2008 at 1:31 pm
http://www.angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=228522#228522
When will Pope Benedict order back the communions rails in the churches?!
June 16, 2008 at 4:25 pm
The Latin is not the point as far as I’m concerned: it’s a different mass in any language. That’s what many of the traditionalists object to the most about the Novus Ordo Missae. But Latin does not make the mass inaccessible in any way. Its beauty draws us in. What about all of those who are alienated and feel separated by the banality of the new mass? (I think it is justified to call it that: it is a new mass). Every Latin mass, whether TLM or NO, that I have been to has had missals in English and/or Spanish for everyone. Also, I have heard Scott Hahn speak: I think that his reason for conversion may have been scriptural and theological at base. I wouldn’t assume that he would have been kept away by the TLM.
June 16, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I am so happy. This last comment: “The Latin is not the point as far as I’m concerned: ” etc. states my own feelings. We will have tears in our eyes during the Consecration. We will be able to hear a pin drop. Oh! how I can state all the positive things. Wait and See unbelievers, it will put you on your knees. If it does not, then go jump into a lake-refresh your baptism.
June 16, 2008 at 10:35 pm
A former landlord of mine once said that he’d heard some crackpot “prophecy” that Benedict XVI “has no soul.” (Not that he couldn’t git down, but that he was evil.)
And now B16 his own self is returning the Gregorian Rite to the Church.
Stick THAT soul in yer pipe and smoke it, Landlord. Git down!
June 17, 2008 at 1:43 am
Vatican II has been an abomination and all of these lame excuses why the Traditional mass and all that was catholic, to be restored, as they were changed under 4 popes everything new from a new mass, new catechism, new code of canon law, new customs-it is a new religion and those that call the trads sedes and schismatics really have to look at how they worship
B16 is a student of the faith and he knows this and he will do what is right over time
The church cant even with the current crop of so called Cardinals and Bishops take a stand on anything as the “spirit of Vatican II” and almost anything goes is how they spent their formative years in seminary
Lets pray for the church, till then my family and friends worship as catholics always had with the Baltimore Catechism and the mass that produced saints and martyrs
June 24, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Ok, its time to do my Happy Dance since Latin Mass is(hopefully) coming back
July 8, 2008 at 1:09 am
When I was in the seminary 25 years back a lecturer took us to a Mas said in Latin he was saying in a local churcfh. When he got to the homoly he presented it in Latin and at the end of Mass he gave the parishes notices in Latin as well. When confronted by the parish priest, who said that it was stupid to give the homily and notices in latin because people did not understand it, the lecturer said: my point exactly.” The Eucharist is the centre of my life and I want it said in the language of my heart. English, the language I grew up in.