Article

2006-10-24 Europe

French clerics criticize Pope's Latin mass plans

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Posted by Fred 2006-10-24 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 AFAIK, dropping the Latin Mass symbolizes the many changes wrought in the RCC by Vatican II. It's not about what language is used, but the other changes since the 60's. Personally, I was disappointed, having studied Latin for 3 1/2 years & just being able to understand the whole ceremony, when the language almost disappeared from the liturgy.

Posted by Snuns Thromp1484 2006-10-24 00:12|| 2006-10-24 00:12|| Front Page Top

#2 Latin IS a language I wish I could have seen used as a primary for a people in this lifetime, unfortunately, English is the business language and is pretty darn conscise.

Shame to lose another language - a beautiful language at that.

Posted by closedanger">closedanger 2006-10-24 02:07|| 2006-10-24 02:07|| Front Page Top

#3 It's just lots of inside politix. I am pretty sure that the clergy getting their panties in a twist are way over on the lefty side (think that liberation theology crap...Pope Benedict has been a major opponent of that bs), and can't see the attraction for many traditionalists to go back to the Latin rite.

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2006-10-24 06:53|| http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com ]">[http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com ] 2006-10-24 06:53|| Front Page Top

#4 But most people do not understand Latin. Mr. Wife enjoys coming to synagogue with me, explaining that he didn't understand the Latin Mass as a child, and now he doesn't understand the Hebrew, but at least in our service there are English translations in the prayer book, and prayers said in English as well, so he at least knows what's going on.

However, while Stateside the traditional Latin Mass is presented as an option, I suspect elsewhere this is freighted with political meaning, as the true conservatives in Europe are not the fascists, but those who hearken back to the happy days of powerful monarchies backed by the singular Church.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-10-24 07:55|| 2006-10-24 07:55|| Front Page Top

#5 I'm a non-practicing, barely educated catholic in name only... but I do greatly respect traditionalist catholics, who are the only actual catholics remaining in France... and they put their ideas into action, too, they're a vital component of the home-schooling mvt, they tend to have large families with a strong emphasis on education and values, are quite involved in orgs like scoutism, and are over-representated in "mission-driven" careers like officers schools, and prietshood...

Of course, since I'm a regular listener to their talk-shows on Radio-Courtoisie, I'm a bit slanted toward them, despite some real disagreements on issues here and there... true, there is an old background of antijudaism (not antisemitism)... but then again post-WWII french jews traditonally have been representated by their most leftist, multiculturalist, secularist, especially their vocal representative in the msm... so in addition to doctrinal and political motivations for this bias, there's a justifiable paranoia IMHO... you also might want to know than the catholic Philippe De Villiers is now quite popular among french jews, who have been driven to the right by Reality(Tm)... don't forget that IIRC even antisemite pépé Le Pen scored better among french jews than in general population in 2002.

AFAIK, the Vatican II council was a terrible thing for the Church; no wonder it coincided with the massive decline in church attendance; it was an effort, marked by its time, to merge "modernity" and the Church. Oldspook will of course be more relevant than me here, being a real catholic and all, but this is my feeling.

And without even falling into my favored Paranoid Conspiracy Mode, I can assure you than the french Catholic hierarchy is very liberal (as seen in its multicultural slant, his support of immigration, its dhimmi attitude toward islam,...), and has a strong free-masonry component... but then again the whole Republic is a free-mason shrine where the State is worshiped.

Posted by anonymous5089 2006-10-24 08:43|| 2006-10-24 08:43|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm not an expert on the matter, but I'll toss in my .02

1) Pastors have always had the option of using Latin as an alternative to the vernacular during a post-Vatican II Novus Ordo Mass. It is the specific Tridentine Rite that required specific permission from the bishop.

2) During a Tridentine Rite Mass, the congregation is not completely silent, there are, however, fewer responses and most of the celebrant's portion of the liturgy is directed towards God in a whisper. That's why the bells were so important :)

3) The pre-Vatican II Tridentine missals had accurate vernacular translations for every portion of the Mass. My 1962 version does, and the rubrics are in red.

4) French Church-State relations, as I've perceived it, are far more problematical than in most other places, with the possible exception of Mexico. I suspect that national politics isn't too far away from the topic in this Reuters article (which reminds me: Consider the source).

Personally, I rather like the Novus Ordo (post-Vatican II) Mass. I don't care for the vestigial 60's-70's do your own thing stuff that priests of that era were too prone to do. But the good news is that both JPII The Great and Pope Benedict have made strong efforts to bring steadier and more conservative youmg men into the priesthood, and that is a good thing.

Posted by mrp 2006-10-24 08:43|| 2006-10-24 08:43|| Front Page Top

#7 but those who hearken back to the happy days of powerful monarchies backed by the singular Church.

Ah yes, those evil Christians. Jews were treated so much better elsewhere in the world, weren't they?

Posted by anon 2006-10-24 10:45|| 2006-10-24 10:45|| Front Page Top

#8 Vatican II clearly stated that Latin had 'Pride of Place' in worship. The 'Liberal' Bishops were the ones who banned it in their diocese. They continue to severly repress it. Oddly, the Latin Rite Masses I have attended are filled with 18 to 39 year olds while the Novus Ordo masses are over 50.

Posted by Phaimp Craiter6711 2006-10-24 11:03|| 2006-10-24 11:03|| Front Page Top

#9 Oddly, the Latin Rite Masses I have attended are filled with 18 to 39 year olds while the Novus Ordo masses are over 50.

From the little I know, it's true in France too... traditionalists are young (many kids), very active (pilgrimages, notably) and involved, their churches are few but full, and there's a real demand for them... while Vatican II following churches are empty, or only welcome an aging population (over 60, I'd say from experience).

Posted by anonymous5089 2006-10-24 11:07|| 2006-10-24 11:07|| Front Page Top

#10 Ah yes, those evil Christians. Jews were treated so much better elsewhere in the world, weren't they?

Jew-baiting ill becomes you, anon. I attached no judgement in my statement, either to those who miss the simplicity of a singular Catholicism, or the simplicity of monarchical rule. In fact, my dear anon, had you bothered to read my post a little more closely, you would have noticed that Mr. Wife is Catholic.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-10-24 13:04|| 2006-10-24 13:04|| Front Page Top

#11 as the true conservatives in Europe are not the fascists, but those who hearken back to the happy days of powerful monarchies backed by the singular Church.

I'll let your words speak for themselves.

Posted by anon 2006-10-24 13:30|| 2006-10-24 13:30|| Front Page Top

#12 I have too much respect for you to get into a slugfest over this - but I do feel that your comment that I was "jewbaiting" for simply calling you out on your comments was beneath you.

Posted by anon 2006-10-24 13:35|| 2006-10-24 13:35|| Front Page Top

#13 Bourbon on the rocks, please.

Posted by mrp 2006-10-24 14:11|| 2006-10-24 14:11|| Front Page Top

#14 Bottom Line:

When Vatican II was implemented, there was a rule laid down that to use Latin Tridentine Mass, you had to have the Bishop give you permission. You were otherwise expected to use the Novus Ordo (new) mass, in the local vernacular.

The Society of Pope Saint Pius IX rejected this and caused a schism - Pop John Paul II excommunicated many of them when they refused to stop creating their won bishops without the Pope's permission. that's the splinter group spoken of.

Pope Benedict is said to be on the verge of reversing the order; so that ANY accepted Mass can be used - and that it would take special actions by the local Bishop to FORBID it in order to stop a priest from saying the Tridentine Mass (or the Novus Ordo mass in Latin for that matter).

The frogs who are complaining are the lefty types who came into the Church in the 60's-70's. Typical leftist radicals, they are threatened by any ability of people to revert to traditional ways of worship.

So that's why the French are fussing.

Us conservative Catholics are cheering - its about time we are allowed to have our local priests use the Tridentine mass without some of the lefty Bishops (Tod Brown in San Diego and Pervert Mahoney in LA come to mind) preventing it due to inaction (passive aggressive behavior on their part). Its basically forcing the hands of the bishops who are easy on the homosexual lifestyle and other forms of adultery, protect pedophiles, and prevent traditional worship in their diocese.

Pope Benedict has brought their day of reckoning on them, so naturally they are going to squeal. This is no longer the old lefty church that gave in on everything. This is a Church that is shaping itself to fight once again, for its survival against libertine-ism and the Muslim threat.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-10-24 14:17|| 2006-10-24 14:17|| Front Page Top

#15 Oh and I left this out: the Pius IX group will likely be back into the chuch and relieved from its Schism, although tis Bishops will likely be "demoted" until a select few of them can be properly installed by Pope Benedict.

Of course this will not satisfy 100% of them, but this does remove the biggest stumbling block that a lot of schismatics and old-time Catholics have had in their way in returnrning to full communion with the Church.

Now as for fitness to recieve communion, thats going to bite very hard when the next ruling on that comes down. There will be no more wiggle room for Catholic politicians on Abortion, Euthanasia, Embryonic Stem cells and Gay Marriage. Its going to be "self excommunications by deliberate action". And any Catholic voting for a politician because they favor them for those reasons (abortion, etc) will have broken their commmunion with the Church as well.

Basically, Ted Kennedy and al lthe other "pro choice" Catholics will be refused communion. Its not the Church refusing them, its them refusing the Church. If they disagree with fundamental tenets of the Catholic Church they should not claim to be Catholics - they should find a nice "morally flexible" church, like the Unitarians, or the Anglicans, and go there.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-10-24 14:27|| 2006-10-24 14:27|| Front Page Top

#16 Unfortunately the protestants don't have a Benedict to return the KJV and BCP derivesd liturgy to their pulpits. That's why Catholocism will recover and pretestantism won't.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-10-24 14:43|| 2006-10-24 14:43|| Front Page Top

#17 thosee who hearken back to the happy days of powerful monarchies backed by the singular Church.

TW While there are poeple like this those have seceded from Rome. The points for the latin mass are that 1) The Church has tossed away an outstanding liturgy designed by strong beliveers with the help of the greatest musicians of their time (like Bach despite being a protestant) for the cantics and replaced them by something designed by liberation theologists who probably didn't believe in God (cf the unceremonious handling of hosts, who are supposed to represent Christ's body) and the cantics are plain stupid for the text and uuuuuuuugly for the music.

2) Because it was the same words everywhere any Catolic, provided he had brought his own missel, (where the latin is translated to his language) felt equally at home in any country (except of course for teh sermon part).

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-10-24 14:59|| 2006-10-24 14:59|| Front Page Top

#18 JFM typed:

) The Church has tossed away an outstanding liturgy designed by strong beliveers with the help of the greatest musicians of their time (like Bach despite being a protestant) for the cantics ...

Whoa! Stop right there, hoss! I will not, I cannot, allow a Frenchman to mention Bach without including one of the greatest composers of Catholic sacred music (and Bach's contemporary), Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

His Te Deum H.146, Missa "Assumpt est Maria" H.11 , and Litanies de la Vierge H.83 are musical jewels of the French Baroque, and they are stirringly Catholic. Even at our Haugen/Hass-ridden parish, the organist often closes the Mass with the Te Deum's prelude.

So, there's that going for us :)

Posted by mrp 2006-10-24 15:26|| 2006-10-24 15:26|| Front Page Top

#19 I quite agree about the old music -- back in the day I enjoyed singing such things in my school chorus, and the trailing daughters are now doing so in theirs. (One soprano, one alto, and they practice their harmonies in the car. Heaven!)

anon, European conservatives look back to their old way of life, which means rule by monarchy and hereditary nobility and the Church. Those who think like American conservatives, meaning minimal taxation, minimal government regulation, minimal government intrusion into personal life, and the kinds of rights listed in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, in Europe those are called liberals. I learnt this fact here at Rantburg, as it happens.

My mother was born and spent most of her first decade of life in the tiny city of Hildesheim, Germany, which was the seat of the Bishop. That is to say, until the Napoleonic conquest, the city was ruled by the Bishop who acted in secular matters exactly as the princes who ruled the rest of the German prinicpalities. My mother is perhaps more familiar with such things than most, because it was the Catholic school where she was educated after the Nazis decreed Jewish children could not go to the public schools. And then Mama got her high school diploma through a school run by nuns in Amsterdam, connected to Oxford University (an interesting experience, as she had six months to accomplish three years' work in English, a language she didn't know when she started).

anon, I have close connections to Catholicism through my husband and my mother's experiences, and to evangelical Christianity through my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law. I've also taken a good many courses in comparative religion over the years, as well as reading widely on the history of Christianity and of Judaism. So it's remotely possible that I actually know what I'm talking about.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-10-24 17:25|| 2006-10-24 17:25|| Front Page Top

#20 TW, I think Classical Liberal is the term most in the US subscribe to, to descibe our from of conservatism. Its definitely not the European "conservatism" which quite frequently reinforces statism every buit as much as socialism (or US "Country CLub Repub" that we see a lot of in US Repuublican politicians - the big spenders who balekd at buildiing a fence and wanted to wrap immigratin into it: c.f. Bus43 and why they are in trouble now).

Posted by Oldspook 2006-10-24 17:59|| 2006-10-24 17:59|| Front Page Top

#21 TW I never doubted for a moment that you knew exactly what you were talking about. Your words and your point was very clear. As for all of your best friends being Christians - I was aware of much of that and am not sure why that matters. One of the most frothing Christian bigots I know is a jewish person married to a Christian. And no, I'm not saying that you are a frothing Christian bigot, as I know that you are far from it - I'm just saying that I'm not sure how that changes the point that you made.

I have much that I could say - but I will just point out that perhaps it is not the Christian Church that is the source of problems today (not saying that you said it was)- but that the death of Christian values is. The values of forgiveness, charity, loving your neighbors, showing mercy whenever possible etc have not been instilled in this generation of children, especially in Europe. It's not about looking inward to find your better nature anymore but demanding perfection in others while demanding nothing of yourselves. Go watch that video that anon5089 put up and see what has been lost. Worse things could certainly happen to the Jewish population of the world than the rise of the Catholic Church or "those who hearken back to the happy days of powerful monarchies backed by the singular Church".

Looking back at the abuse of power by the Christian clergy is like looking back at our forefathers and pointing out that they had slaves, slaughtered Indians and every other imperfection of their time. It's conveniently ignores the fact that, despite their flaws, they gave us a great gift by setting up the conditions for the freedoms that we enjoy today.

Posted by anon 2006-10-24 18:04|| 2006-10-24 18:04|| Front Page Top

#22 anon, I am a simple soul. My words are best understood literally, rather than for deep and subtle meaning. When I wrote that bit about those who hearken back, I meant precisely that to them those were the happy days. Hearkeners back usually prefer to dream about times that to them were better, surely.

My original statement said nothing about the treatment of Jews by Catholics, within Christendom, by Muslims within the Ummah, or otherwise. I said nothing about Christians being evil, nor did I intend to so imply, as that is not something I believe. For that matter I didn't susequently say all my best friends are Christians, as that isn't true.

The first time I noticed your posts on the subject, you were going on about your visit to the Holocaust Museum in DC, offended that the Jews had put up an exhibit about the history of antisemitism in Europe. In this thread your first post put words in my mouth that I certainly never intended. I've been posting at Rantburg for a number of years now. Surely if I were as anti-Christian as you seem to think, the old hands would have attacked my statement as unacceptable, and lotp, who actually studied religion seriously at one point, would have chastised me or banished me to the sinktrap.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-10-24 18:42|| 2006-10-24 18:42|| Front Page Top

#23 TW - Quite frankly, I don't see any of the innocence you are claiming in this comment in this context on this thread "I suspect elsewhere this is freighted with political meaning, as the true conservatives in Europe are not the fascists, but those who hearken back to the happy days of powerful monarchies backed by the singular Church." but I will give you the benefit of the doubt because you are a good person.

I took pain to note in my post that I did not think you anti-Christian, in fact I said "you are far from it". It is precisely because you are a reasoned person that I felt compelled to call attention to your comment. And as for saying that "all of your best friends are Christians" that was a play off of the common joke that excuses a bigoted comment "Some of my best friends are____"(fill in blank with black, jewish, mexican, purple). As I said, I don't see how being married to a Christian makes any difference to the statement that you made.

The first time I noticed your posts on the subject, you were going on about your visit to the Holocaust Museum in DC, offended that the Jews had put up an exhibit about the history of antisemitism in Europe.

That is not at all what I said. I said that I found it offensive that there is a room in the museum that puts forth the premise that Martin Luther set the stage for the holocaust and Christians share much of the blame for it because of their belief that the Jews killed Jesus. Thus it was not Hitler and his propaganda machine's zionist cabal that whipped up the anti-semitism in 1938 but rather the Christian anti-semitism that was to blame. I find it highly ironic, the blame of an entire group (Christians) that had nothing personally to do with the holocaust supposedly because they blamed an entire group (Jews) for killing Jesus when they had no personal responsiblity for his death. It is a parody of itself. That you say that I was offended the Jews had put up an exhibit about the history of antisemitism in Europe is completely disingenous on your part.

I will take you at your word that I have read too much into your comment. I'm personally tired of hearing that today's Christians are to be blamed for the past sins against Jews in the same way that today's Jews are tired of hearing about the past sins against Muslims or the death of Jesus. Yes... you are saying that was not your intent and as I said, I will take you at your word for that and accept that perhaps I read too much into it.

Posted by anon 2006-10-24 22:12|| 2006-10-24 22:12|| Front Page Top

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