I can’t say I am surprised, but I am disappointed.
Pope Francis has made what can only be called disparaging comments about the Traditional Latin Mass and its adherents.
Rorate Caeli reports that the Pope made comments to a Czech Bishop during his ad limina visit those who value and esteem the extraordinary form of the liturgy are merely caught up in a momentary fashion and thus as Pope he does not need to pay attention to them. Yup.
[Abp. Jan Graubner speaks:] When we were discussing those who are fond of the ancient liturgy and wish to return to it, it was evident that the Pope speaks with great affection, attention, and sensitivity for all in order not to hurt anyone. However, he made a quite strong statement when he said that he understands when the old generation returns to what it experienced, but that he cannot understand the younger generation wishing to return to it. “When I search more thoroughly – the Pope said – I find that it is rather a kind of fashion [in Czech: ‘móda’, Italian ‘moda’]. And if it is a fashion, therefore it is a matter that does not need that much attention. It is just necessary to show some patience and kindness to people who are addicted to a certain fashion. But I consider greatly important to go deep into things, because if we do not go deep, no liturgical form, this or that one, can save us.”
Besides being completely wrong, that the Pope is so disrespectful of the reasonable desires of so many good and faithful Catholics it is staggering in its coarseness and dismissiveness.
Not to mention, such an attitude is diametrically opposed to the attitudes and pronouncement of his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.
I know that I have probably misinterpreted our humble Pope’s meaning and that the problem is me. For sure, the Pope seems to think that I am the problem. Please forgive me, I only speak Promethean.
February 17, 2014 at 1:43 pm
Another translation tempest in a teapot. I'll wait for the Pope himself to address it instead of relying on 3rd or 4th parties who are trying for 3 seconds of notoriety by trying to inflate another translation issue into a false controversy.
February 17, 2014 at 3:21 pm
"I am in a schola and I kept asking for the hymn Rorate Caeli during Advent and the schola director (a very young person) would not let us sing it, apparently because of the blog! We did not happen to have High Mass the Sunday when that is the introit."
A very levelheaded Schola Director, Elisabeth D.!… Ah, the "tolerant people"… no group is more intolerant.
February 17, 2014 at 4:10 pm
TLM Fashion in song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D45oa-rR6bU#t=80
via the sensiblebond via Fr. Ray Blake
February 17, 2014 at 5:05 pm
Mary De Voe said…
"It is just necessary to show some patience and kindness to people who are addicted to a certain fashion."
Did Pope Francis have to use the word 'addicted"?"
THE
GOSPEL
NARRATIVES
For neurotic-psychotic
“Attached” to the old,
We give you a hireling
To take care your fold.
No need for the shepherds,
Who seem so much keener,
They’ll tempt you with dreams
Of pastures much greener
And say not to mimic
Past, tolerant-barters,
So heads were cut off,
Who could dialogue with martyrs?
The shepherds tell fables,
‘Bout a man, hated, hailed,
Like you, just “attached”,
Don’t believe He was nailed!
February 17, 2014 at 9:22 pm
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February 17, 2014 at 9:28 pm
Is it possible to read these comments from Pope Francis such that the fashion is not merely having a great love of the TLM, but to have such a great distaste for the NO that they wish to see it abolished?
Honest question; because this is how I initially interpretted the comments.
February 17, 2014 at 10:32 pm
There has always been only one Mass and the Mass celebrated, presumably in Aramaic, by Pope Saint Peter is no different than the Mass celebrated by Pope Francis.
The Mass is the action of Jesus offering Himself to God, as both Priest and Victim, (through the Priesthood He instituted) as an act of propitiation and we redeemed Christian Catholics offer the the action of our own lives ( and our petitions, adoration, reparation, thanksgiving) which is swept-up in the action of Jesus and, thus, made an acceptable sacrifice to our Triune God and graces (great and miniscule) are realised by each of us to the extent to which we are disposed to receive them.
And how, pray tell, can we be said to be disposed to receive Grace when captious questions of secondary importance predominate in the various subgroups of Catholics against which Pope Benedict XV authoritatively warned ?
There is a Mass of all time but it is not the one claimed by Mons Lefebvre who settled on a transitional Missal of two years existence as "the Mass of all time."
The Rise of the Online Trad Machine has resulted in a grave chasm that now exists between far too many of those who identify themselves as different from all other catholics (actions warned against by Pope Benedict XV) and in that chasm can be heard the repetitious echoes of unsound claims and in far too many places – especially in the sspx schism – there are generations of Christians being raised to either hate or mistrust the Divinely-Constitued Papacy; worse, in the sspx chapels, many are being taught that Holy Mother Church has taught error and that an Ecumenical Council can be ignored.
If that is Tradition, it is protestant Tradition.
February 18, 2014 at 3:54 am
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February 18, 2014 at 12:39 pm
We better pray the Lord will help us during Francis Pontificate because he will bring so much trouble to the Church.
February 19, 2014 at 5:43 am
@thepalmhq: Notice I said it is not traditional "except for the Diocese of Rome". The Iberian "Mozarabic" liturgy was older, and while Trent's grandfather-clause of "over 200 years old" meant it was not actually banned, it received absolutely no support (much like happened to the Tridentine after Vatican II)—exacerbated by the fact the post-Trent Church was increasingly Italian-dominated, and Italians were (and to an extent are) extremely bigoted against Spaniards.
@wkndbeachcomber: Please notice that my name is Sophia's Favorite. Peace to you to; but did you notice I specifically said the Tridentine? I very specifically did not say "Traditional Latin Mass". The Use of Sarum is not the Tridentine. The Mozarabic Rite is not the Tridentine. I am not saying that Latin was suddenly imposed on the Church by Trent, and I frankly find the implication I could ever think that to be insulting. I know far too much history to say anything so inane. I am saying that the liturgy of the Roman diocese was imposed on the whole rest of the Church, in order to simplify administration and the training of priests. That would be because that was the express purpose of the liturgical reform enacted by Trent.
I would love to get Mass in the Sarum. More, I would love to get the Novus Ordo in Latin—a language I am quite capable of following the liturgy in (I speak both French and Spanish and am an amateur linguist), but the Novus Ordo is the liturgy I know. But if I want it in Latin, in the language of the Church for well over a millennium and a half? "No, well, if you want Latin, you have to be content with a liturgy you don't know. The Novus Ordo isn't supposed to be in Latin, it's not like the Council documents say precisely the opposite, or anything."
RE: Your later comment about "Ressourcement"…exactly. I see no difference between the Tridentine and the Novus Ordo; from my perspective they are both equally attempts by antiquarians to reconstruct a hypothetical original liturgy. But one is the Mass I actually know, and the other is not. I would like to get the Mass I know in Latin—a language, again, that I have little difficulty following. I cannot have that, because people cannot grasp that "Latin Mass" means "a Mass in Latin", not one particular way of doing it that was published half a century after Spain conquered the Aztecs.
@Irenaeus of New York: People like me? You have no idea what I am like, if you think I am not aware of all the history involved. I am well aware of the history of celibacy; I regularly annoy the ignoramuses you mistake me for by pointing out the hierarchy of the Orthodox Churches has always been celibate (it's only the secular clergy—which is what "people like me" call parish priests—that ever weren't).
But the fact is Trent imposed the diocesan use of Rome on the whole of the Latin Church. The few uses "grandfathered" in because their then-current form was older than 200 years received precisely zero official support, and the regions using them were made to feel like mission-territory and converted heathens, if they weren't simply openly discriminated against (again, Italians were and to a degree are bigoted against Spain). The Spanish colonies, despite the Mozarabic Rite being as old as Isidore of Seville, used the Tridentine Rite. That's really all that needs to be said. Trent represented a centralization of influence and culture within the Church; in many ways for good, but in other ways for bad.
February 19, 2014 at 4:59 pm
Sophia,
Would you like to comment on this wikipedia article? "The Mozarabic Rite is the second-best attested liturgy in the Latin Church in terms of preserved documentation…The first is, of course, the Roman Rite, which, to encourage unity of faith and worship, generally replaced the Mozarabic in Iberia from about 1080." I don't accept Wikipedia as Gospel, but this suggests a gradual handover from the Mozarabic rite to the Roman rite. This is not my are so I'm open to correction.
I think the word tradition can be misleading – on its own it can just mean any custom – morris dancing, or the like. What Catholics should be careful to preserve is Apostolic Tradition – whatever is passed on (tradere) by means of Apostolic Succssion to the whole Church. I maintain the Tridentine Rite is part of our Apostolic Tradition, even if it is not embedded in the small-t traditions of each and every place. It comes to us through the passing on of the Rite from Bishop to Bishop, first in Rome, then later in the whole Church. Perhaps it would be more precise to say it is part of our patrimony. If the imposition was draconian, that was because Trent felt that it was necessary to maintain faith in the Real Presence – you might disagree with them about the method, but the motive was sound. The same cannot be said of Annibale Bugnini, who wanted a text which was ambiguous as possible, for ecumenical purposes. That's no reflection on people who go to the novus ordo, but it should ring alarm bells.
February 20, 2014 at 2:59 am
Listen to you all. You are all LOST. Superfluous, petty and misleading talk and once again absolutely none of it whatsoever to do with Jesus or the Word of God. But no wonder you're lost, for you are the blind being led by the blind. Just more Papal pontificating and prancing about town like a fancy clown. And while you all discuss the ins and outs and minutiae here and there of Catholic doctrine, who said what and why, you've thrown out the baby with the bathwater and missed the point entirely. Political. Putrid. Pathetic. Not only that, but exceedingly dangerous and folly. You are all caught up with the doctrines of men and he (your Cardinal Imbroglio) is leading you up the garden path (or should I say down a bottomless pit). As Yaweh lives and in the name of Yaheshua.
February 20, 2014 at 11:40 am
After reading that, I'm certainly lost. Where are you coming from? On the one hand you hint at us being overly querulous – petty, discussing the ins and outs and minutiae of Catholic doctrine – and then you hint at us being overly docile – being led up the garden path, the blind leading the blind etc. It can't really be both, can it?
These are important topics, and they need discussing, in their proper place and proper measure. No-one on this discussion forum spends their whole life on here. There's people here I disagree with but they have families and responsibilities the rest of the time. It may not look like it but we are sharpening one another intellectually – highly necessary in an age of mass propaganda. I'm not saying there are no risks here, and it's up to everyone to discern whether this sort of thing is an occasion of sin. If that's true for you then by all means abstain from internet use.
February 20, 2014 at 1:55 pm
The novus ordo mass is truly different than the TLM. Personality, the novus ordo killed my faith and if it weren't for the TLM I'd still be out there flailing
February 20, 2014 at 1:55 pm
The novus ordo mass is truly different than the TLM. Personality, the novus ordo killed my faith and if it weren't for the TLM I'd still be out there flailing
February 21, 2014 at 5:46 am
Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them. See the link below for more info.
#sacred
http://www.insgift.com