The News from Rome

      If the rumors are true (as of this writing), then we know as of yesterday, Saturday, what the Holy Father has in mind concerning granting wider freedom for the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.  And a lot of people are nervous, even the New York Times, which weighed into the rumor market with, as usual, an only half-accurate editorial (“Pope to Allow Wider Use of Latin Mass”).

      The worries are ill-founded.  The main purpose of this papal action is simply one of generosity:  to try to accommodate those Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass.  The intention cannot be to begin to replace the New Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) with the Old; that is not feasible and would be pastorally disastrous.  But this tense situation does afford us all a chance to come to some real clarity on matters liturgical. 

      Perhaps a deeper understanding of the history of the Traditional Latin Mass would be helpful.  This Mass is often inaccurately called the “Tridentine Mass,” so named because, it is claimed, it came out of the reforms of the Council of Trent in the 16th century.  Actually, that Council, led by Pope St. Pius V, made only very minor changes to what can be historically traced all the way back to the 6th century, if not even earlier.  So what we are dealing with here is the Liturgy of the Mass as it had been recognizably celebrated for well over a thousand years before the coming of the New Mass in the 20th century. 

      Another important thing to note is the vacuity of the media’s – and some bishops’ – insistence that Pope Benedict’s initiative will cause division in the Church, when the Church is already “divided” liturgically into something like 30 different rites.  And then there is the phenomenon of the wide divergence in the way the New Mass is celebrated, often from parish to parish in the same diocese.  And it is often the ones who laud “diversity” who are the first to disapprove of other Catholics’ desired access to the Traditional Mass. 

      I think too that for many an older Catholic their experience of the Traditional Mass was most often the Low Mass (perhaps sometimes slovenly and too rapidly said), which is quite different from the Solemn High Mass.  I remember as a small child attending with Catholic neighbors the Traditional High Mass at a Benedictine monastery in my hometown; and I was awed by it and have been ever since.  And I have attended liturgies of the New Mass, in Latin with Gregorian chant and the priest facing East, and have come away inspired by the beauty of Catholic worship, as were, evidently, the many young people who crowded into those churches and chapels where beauty so moved them. 

      Strangely, though, it is often these very things of such beauty that worry so many!  The usual concern is expressed that if the Mass is not “relevant” – especially to the young – then people will not show up.  It is, I counter, so much of this “relevancy” that has put off a lot of people.  Let me give an illustration.  A few years ago, I was with a young men’s hiking group, and at the end of the day we were eating dinner together on the patio of a rectory, and these ten or so young men began to ask each other what their favorite Mass hymns were.  I immediately noted that their repertoire was limited pretty much to the 1970s, and a priest friend and I had them listen carefully to a recording of Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria, sung in six parts in Latin by an all male choir.  For them then – so “protected” in ignorance as they were from the Church’s glorious music tradition – it was “Ciao, 1970s!”  Whatever the claims of those espousing a “relevant” and “comfortable” liturgy, the statistics pull the rug from under them:  Mass attendance continues to decline, especially among the young... except, for the most part, among the traditional minded.

      This brings up the French bishops who have given strong opposition to the Holy Father’s attempt to free up the celebration of the Old Mass.  They who have presided over the worse decline in Catholic practice in Europe present themselves as “experts” on this issue, mainly because the Traditionalists have such a strong and growing presence in France.  Their Excellencies and Eminences never seem to ask themselves why growth in the Catholic faith in their country is almost completely limited to the Traditionalists. 

      This is where the Pope’s strategy, I believe, reveals itself.  He has long argued for a “reform of the reform” of the Roman Rite – to restore to the modern rite more uniformity and beauty.  For him the Traditional Latin Mass is, as the thousand-year patrimony of the Church, the standard, the beginning point for all true future liturgical reform.  It is time to re-visit the Vatican II document on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, time to actually read it and apply the principles of organic and legitimate reform found therein to the Missal of 1962 (the last published missal of the Old Mass before the New Mass).  And a living, experienced Traditional Latin Mass will then establish itself within the Church as a reference. 

      I know this project faces opposition, and I think much of it is motivated by a fear of the beauty of the Sacred, a fear we all inherit from the shallow culture in which we now live.  The Sacred signals danger, reveals a God who is not at all tame and valet-like, there to assist us in our pursuit of comfort instead of holiness.  The Traditional Latin Mass is exquisitely fashioned to direct the worshipper toward God and away from himself.  And as challenging, disturbing, and bracing as that is, it is the opening, in the end, to utter delight, freedom, a liturgical glimpse of the goal that is the glory of God.  This God-directedness is what is so desperately needed nowadays in Christian worship, and the Old Mass can give us all much instruction in this regard. 

      We have nothing to fear from this papal initiative; rather, let us learn from it and not merely cling to a forty-year experiment that has shown numerous signs of faltering.  Now is the time for the reestablishment of liturgical beauty, beautiful worship that breathes into us the truth, the goodness, the love and yearning for God, in a day when modern religion, as the psychologist Dr. Paul Vitz described it, is on the verge of becoming nothing more than “the cult of self-worship”; or, as a “liturgical expert” at one of those myriads of workshops claimed, “We come to Mass to celebrate ourselves.”  As I heard that my mind went back to that Benedictine monastery church where I knelt as a little boy in awe at what was happening before me, and that was certainly not a celebration of myself.  Now, as a priest, I delight in the words of the ancient Roman Canon, whether in Latin, English or Spanish, “Father, we celebrate the memory of Christ your Son....”  That’s what the Mass is.