Not sure about all this 'traditionalism'.

[alan29]

Sorry, I still don't get it.
Where is the benefit in worshipping in a language that even the celebrant is not fluent in? If there was a requirement for fluency in the celebrant, then perhaps I wouldn't be put quite so much in mind of a very clever parrot. And no, a generalised understanding of the meaning is not sufficient - that is what I have whan I go to the opera. I expect much more from liturgy. Please remember that I spent years with the tridentine mass, so I speak of what I know.
Alan

[Southern Comfort]

Redemptionis Sacramentum:

[112.] Mass is celebrated either in Latin or in another language, provided that liturgical texts are used which have been approved according to the norm of law. Except in the case of celebrations of the Mass that are scheduled by the ecclesiastical authorities to take place in the language of the people, Priests are always and everywhere permitted to celebrate Mass in Latin.

[113.] When Mass is concelebrated by several Priests, a language known both to all the concelebrating Priests and to the gathered people should be used in the recitation of the Eucharist Prayer. Where it happens that some of the Priests who are present do not know the language of the celebration and therefore are not capable of pronouncing the parts of the Eucharistic Prayer proper to them, they should not concelebrate, but instead should attend the celebration in choral dress in accordance with the norms.

113 seems to imply that if a priest doesn't know Latin, he shouldn't try to celebrate in that language! (Yes, I know the instruction doesn't actually say that, and in fact 112 is there to promote Latin, but the underlying principle of the second sentence of 113 appears to be 'don't try to do what you aren't comfortable with'.)

[oopsorganist]

This is a reassuring debate!

SO we're not running out of Fossil Fuel after all?! That's good.

[gwyn]

SO we're not running out of Fossil Fuel after all

I don't understand this.

It's noteworthy that the reduced restrictions in usage of the E.F. has refreshed the dialogue between Rome and the Eastern Orthodox church(es), one of their big fears was that if we were to re-unite then they'd have to give up their beautiful and ancient liturgies, having to replace them with something that was cobbled together just a few decades ago.

Deo Gratias for this renewed dialogue which until the Moto Proprio had been all but stifled.

[alan29]

Post hoc, not propter hoc, I think.
The dialogue with Eastern and Orthodox Churches has proceded at different speeds with different Churches. It has pretty well come to a halt with the Russian Church for political reasons. The Greeks are very undecided (the monks of Mt Athos don't count catholics as Christians for example.) But with the Syrian etc churches it has been much more cordial and fruitful.
The Orthodox know that their liturgies would not be under threat from union because of the example of the Uniate Churches which they pretty well loathe as Roman wolves in Orthodox sheeps' clothing.
People will start saying that the revised liturgy is responsible for declining attendance next!!!!! Oh, they already have.
Alan

[contrabordun]

Remember that in the current rubrics, the Word of God may be proclaimed in the vernacular even in the EF

Ah, well even this is apparently unnecessary....

this may come as a shock to some, but the primary reason for the readings is not for our benefit. the purpose of the readings (like the rest of Mass) is to glorify God. we already put the Mass on pause for the homily, let the vernacular readongs happen there. anywhere else it destracts from the worship of God.

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2008/04/pced-clarifies-summorum-pontificum-6-allows-vernacular-readings-instead-of-latin/ and search for adamsaj

[Southern Comfort]

Going back to the beginning of the thread, here's Benedict XVI on his way to France yesterday on the plane:

QUESTION: What do you say to those in France who fear that the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum marks a step backwards with regard to the great insights of the Second Vatican Council? How can you reassure them?

BENEDICT XVI: The fear is unfounded because this Motu Proprio is simply an act of tolerance, with a pastoral aim for people who were formed in this liturgy, love it, know it, and wish to live with this liturgy. It’s a small group because this presupposes a formation in Latin, a formation in a certain culture. But for these people, having the love and the tolerance to allow them to live with this liturgy seems to me to be a normal requirement in faith and pastoral care for a bishop of our Church. There is no opposition between the liturgy renewed by the Second Vatican Council and this liturgy.

Each day [of the Council – Ed.], the Council Fathers celebrated Mass according to the old rite and, at the same time, they conceived a natural development for the liturgy in this whole century, for the liturgy is a living reality which develops and which conserves its identity in its development. There are therefore certainly different emphases, but all the same a fundamental identity which excludes a contradiction, and opposition between the renewed liturgy and the previous liturgy. I think, all the same, that there is a possibility of an enrichment on both sides. On the one hand, the friends of the old liturgy can and should know the new saints, the new prefaces of the liturgy, etc... On the other hand, the new liturgy has a greater emphasis on communal participation but, always, it is not simply a gathering of a certain community but always an act of the universal Church, in communion with all believers and all times, and an act of adoration.

In this sense, it seems to me that there is a reciprocal enrichment and it is clear that the renewed liturgy is the ordinary [= normal] liturgy of our time.

[Reginald]

So many different things to add:

Permission for the readings to be in the vernacular existed before Vat II - it just wasn't used. Since this was explicitly restated by B16 it would seem to be his wish that this option be used.

I also would like my priest's Latin to be sufficient that he has a good grasp of the meaning of the prayers - since the requirement for Latin in seminary wasn't ever dropped and has been restated at regular intervals I find it unfortunate that so many have little or no Latin. A priest is ordained to (amongst other things) say Mass in his own rite and to my mind that means in Latin, with the vernacular as the add-on and not vice-versa.

Do the same requirements about comprehension of the Mass apply to non-native English speaking priests working here? For that matter, where do we stand on priests who regularly magle prayers by putting the emphasis/pause in the wrong place. Do they understand what they are doing well enough.

Arguments about the congregation's grasp of Latin are surely weak 40 years after the widespread introduction of the verncaular Mass, I intuitively know the meaning of the Creed/Gloria/Sanctus etc just from having used them in English all my life. The Propers are of course a different kettle of fish.

'Jesus didn't speak Latin' was recently quoted at me as the ultimate argument against tradition. Well, probably he didn't but (and I know that there is a degree of disagreement on this next point) but it is most likely that synagogue worship/temple worship was conducted in what we would now call Biblical Hebrew, not the language of the Jew in the street. If Christ had issues with the use of a 'dead' language for worship wouldn't we know about it? He wasn't afraid to criticise other aspects of contemporary Judaism with which he disagreed? Shouldn't we expect to hear 'this text, which I've just read to you in the wrong language because I want to be sure that you understand it, is being fulfilled...'?

I can't think of a single major religion which doesn't make use of a liturgical language - other than Protestant Christianity and us over the last 40 or so years. Use of long-dead medieval Arabic isn't stopping the spread of Islam, Jewish families are still coaching their kids in Hebrew for their Bar Mitzvah because it matters to them. And on the subjects of Islam and Judaism, they have no issues with facing a particular direction for prayer - no anxieites about not being able to see the smiling face of whoever is leading them in prayer (and again I know I'm generalising). Aspects of traditional Catholicism are shared between many faiths - there's probably a PhD to be had from a study of the links and whether or not they represent some deep seated human need or instinctive sense of the sacred.

This young-ish trad has no more desire to put the clock back than B16, no desire to resurrect the days of the Low Mass and servers reciting "I'm a cowboy, I'm a cowboy, I'm a Mexican Cowboy" in the confiteor. I just can't help thinking that something has been lost along the way, and that we ought to be able to have the best of both worlds. I want less of the personality of the priest celebrant, I want more reverence, I want to be able to go to an EF Mass to understand the readings without a Missal and to join in the responses without some harpie glowering at me and shushing me! I want to understand what's happening in the Mass and be able to join myself to that action mind and body. I want to feel 'fellowship' at Mass, but I want to feel the transcendent too. Some of my colleagues at school think Mass was good if the kids sang Shiney Jesus loudly, I judge it by the depth of stillness and quiet after the Communion Song or chant. My issue with both trads and non-trads is that there's a degree of complacency "It's better than in the old days" or "It's better than at Saint whatsits up the road". Is it as good as it could be?

[alan29]

BENEDICT XVI: The fear is unfounded because this Motu Proprio is simply an act of tolerance, with a pastoral aim for people who were formed in this liturgy, love it, know it, and wish to live with this liturgy. It’s a small group because this presupposes a formation in Latin, a formation in a certain culture.

Now that IS interesting. So the Pope's explicitly stated intention is that the Motu Proprio is for people who were FORMED in the EF, who were formed in Latin and in the culture that it enshrines - so not an a la carte alternative for everyone else, then. According to that statement of intention the "tolerance" only extends to ex-members of schismatic non-catholic sects, and to people of a certain age. No wonder the schismatics have been so underwhelmed.
Alan

[oopsorganist]

Reginald said.....

'Jesus didn't speak Latin' was recently quoted at me as the ultimate argument against tradition. Well, probably he didn't but (and I know that there is a degree of disagreement on this next point) but it is most likely that synagogue worship/temple worship was conducted in what we would now call Biblical Hebrew, not the language of the Jew in the street. If Christ had issues with the use of a 'dead' language for worship wouldn't we know about it? He wasn't afraid to criticise other aspects of contemporary Judaism with which he disagreed? Shouldn't we expect to hear 'this text, which I've just read to you in the wrong language because I want to be sure that you understand it, is being fulfilled...
........I would not expect to hear that, no, not at all. This argument won't get anywhere at all but even I can see a lot of holes in this line of reasoning.

Then there's Islam. People will keep bringing this up as a good example of a faith where they study worship and pray in a dead language. What? What? (Said even louder). Back to fossil fuel again. Thus traditionalism (not that I know what that is) is done like fossil fuel, much better in Islam. And a few other things, just let's not go there.

[mcb]

'Jesus didn't speak Latin' was recently quoted at me as the ultimate argument against tradition. Well, probably he didn't

Probably?! Do you know something we don't?

It's important to know the history here, especially of when and why the Roman church began to use Latin. The church in Rome used Greek (the lingua franca of the Mediterranean) for the first two hundred years or so, and for longer as far as the canon of the Mass was concerned. There's documentary evidence to suggest that Latin was first used for the canon in the late fourth century. The gradual switch to Latin came about because in time people in the western empire stopped being able to understand Greek. Latin was adopted because it was the vernacular, and everyone in the western church could understand it. Greek was preserved in the East, because that was what people spoke there.

Should we feel that this line of reasoning doesn't apply to us?

[Reginald]

RE probably....just trying to avoid too many assertions ex nihilo. I would have thought that, living in an occupied country, he would have had some knowledge of the language of the occupiers, but that it would be more likely (for social/cultural reasons) that Greek would be used rather than Latin.

As for the holey argument - the point is that use of the vernacular has been a non-issue except for C16 Protestants and C20 Catholics. A non-issue for Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists to name but a few - and not enough of an issue to Jesus for it to make it into the Gospel narratives.

As for the Church's shift from Greek to Latin, I think here too the situation is complicated. I think it's fascinating that the Kyrie has been (semi) preserved to the present day, a living linguistic link to the Early Church. I'm not clued up enough to know whether or not the use of the Greek deacon in Papal Masses is a continuous tradition (I'm being cautious because at one time I assumed that the berakah blessing in the Mass had survived from the early church - only to discover that it was parachuted in during the '60s). Whilst intelligibility will have played a significant role in the change, we ought not to eliminate other factors. When we get to the C4 the tension between Old Rome and the New Rome may also have been a factor with Latin a convenient way of asserting identity...I've never argued for a complete return to Latin, but there ought to be a place for it - such was the will of the Fathers of Vat II and of the Church ever since. I ought as a minimum to be able to sing the Credo and Pater Noster (again, according to the Council Fathers) - well, I've taught myself the Pater Noster and can sing Credo I and III with the dots in front of me but I've only once - literally only once in thirty odd years - had the opportunity to sing either in Mass (Ordinary Form).

And finally...B16's remarks on the aeroplane. Either they were spoken with the French Church in mind - and its reluctance to embrace Summorum Pontificum - or B16 really has changed his mind since he wrote the accompanying letter to SP in which he explicitly refers to the younger people who have come to know and love the EF. I know which I think - IMHO B16 wants the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite to be as rare as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. On the aeroplane he goes on to talk about mutual enrichment between the rites - we are not talking about going back to 1962, but neither are we talking about ignoring the past and pretending that everything prior to the '60's was of no value.

So, off to bed now. Unlikely to be able to get back here tomorrow so don't assume I'm sulking!

[Southern Comfort]

it is clear that the renewed liturgy is the ordinary [= normal] liturgy of our time.

This was the bit that really struck me, and the reason I posted the entire quote.

[oopsorganist]

I liked that you posted that quote Southern Comfort. I understood it to mean that all forms were valid and to be used...... it seemed so wise.... and then I wondered about a man who could be so wise and diplomatic..... does he have it all written down so he can make wise statements? Or can he think on his feet and always know what to say? Anyways, it seemed to answer all questions to all people.... he does not make statements in Latin though if he wishes other people to understand........
.......
so about Latin and use of vernacular. One imagines without a great deal of historical knowledge, that Jesus went to the temple using the vernacular tongue of his people. And was familiar with Latin. And maybe Greek. And whatever dialects were used in his time and place for peoples in the middle east, and there must have been many. That there is nothing in the Gospels about vernacularity means something but what? I imagine He had to wave his hands a lot to get meanings across. In His humanity He would have been as engaged with the construction of meanings and signs as we all are.
Before the Last Supper they sang songs but the language is not significant.
Afterwards, when the spirit came, the apostles spoke in "tongues" yes? But not in just Latin.
The Bible is different to the Holy writings of other faiths because it has been translated and translated and was until recently I think, the most printed book in the world? And also unique because of its historical validity... debated yes, but certain enough for the truth to remain. If this is as it should be, then arguments about other faiths having no issue over their scriptures hold little value......that is OK for them and respect can be given, but the Bible belongs to all mankind whatever language they are speaking just now. Just now is the key.
What hope would there be if mankind and womankind cannot understand what has been given to us?
Maybe French is the way forward. Or English. Or even Chinese. Or all. Or the venacular. How 'bout Arabic?
SOS for rambling and gobbing.
There may be something important in the fact that when the Bible is translated into the vernacular tongue it still makes sense.........and that debate even heated about what it all means, leads to live faith......

[docmattc]

]

I liked that you posted that quote Southern Comfort. I understood it to mean that all forms were valid and to be used...... it seemed so wise.... and then I wondered about a man who could be so wise and diplomatic..... does he have it all written down so he can make wise statements? Or can he think on his feet and always know what to say?

According to Zenit, the questions were submitted beforehand, so no thinking on feet necessary.

... this Motu Proprio is simply an act of tolerance, with a pastoral aim for people who were formed in this liturgy, love it, know it, and wish to live with this liturgy. It’s a small group because this presupposes a formation in Latin, a formation in a certain culture. But for these people, having the love and the tolerance to allow them to live with this liturgy seems to me to be a normal requirement in faith and pastoral care for a bishop of our Church.

Interesting that he seems to contradict (or at the very least, fail to endorse) his own views as reportedly put forward by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos : "The Pope wants the traditional Latin Mass offered in every Catholic parish in the world". Looks like not all the curia are singing from the same Graduale!