Pope in France: Latin Mass an 'act of tolerance'
Print Friendly VersionBy JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Paris
On his way to Paris this morning, Pope Benedict XVI called fears his recent authorization for wider celebration of the old Latin Mass marks a rollback on reforms associated with the Second Vatican Council “absolutely unfounded.”
“There is no opposition at all between the liturgy approved by Vatican II and the liturgy celebrated according to the old rite,” the pope said.
Instead, the pope insisted that his 2007 ruling constituted an “act of tolerance” towards Catholic who feel attached to the rite of the Mass in use before Vatican II (1962-65).
The comment to journalists came in response to a question aboard the papal plane.
Debate over Benedict XVI’s 2007 ruling on the Latin Mass has likely caused more ferment in France than virtually anywhere else in the Catholic world, in part because there’s a strong traditionalist element in French Catholicism that has long objected to the liturgical reforms associated with the council.
It was a French prelate, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who launched the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X that broke with Rome in 1988, and still today Lefebvre’s society has its strongest membership base in France.
Recently, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, acknowledged that a slight uptick in priestly vocations in France is largely due to the impact of the traditionalists.
“Certainly, there are different accents” between the two rites of the Mass, Benedict said, but fundamentally they express the same faith. He also said that “development” in the liturgy is a natural feature of church life in every century.
The Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, had asked journalists travelling with the pope to submit questions in advance. He then read four in Benedict, all in French, and the pope responded in French. He spoke for roughly nine minutes.
There's a website devoted to
There's a website devoted to Latin Masses. Now isn't that nice,to see that kind of growth. We can point to other kinds of growth- like the number of buddist meditation centers- like the number of madrossas -like the number of Walmarts-and there are other concerns-like the destruction of the environment. A mind is terrible thing to waste especially on college campi.
It is wonderful that
It is wonderful that journalists submitted questions about the Traditional Latin Mass and that Fr. Lombardi included one of them in Pope Benedict's in-flight press conference.
Pope Benedict is to be praised for his great act of tolerance. Because of the pent-up demand for such Masses, the availability continues to growth, despite the inherent needs of priest training, etc. For example, here in Michigan, we have seen a growth from five weekly diocesan TLMs to at least ten, with continual talk of more, since Summorum Pontificium went into effect last September 14th.
http://www.ecclesiadei.org/masses.cfm
Similarly, there seems to be a strong and growing stronger demand for the TLM on college campuses, include Notre Dame:
http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/w0708/newmass.html
http://campusministry.nd.edu/liturgy-worship/mass/tridentine-mass
Praised be Jesus Christ!
I believe I understand the
I believe I understand the various reasons one would want the reintroduction of the Mass in Latin. It's beautiful. It holds a special place in the hearts and memories of older Catholics. Its inaccessibility to the general public heightens the sense of transcendence and awe at a time when the doctrine of the Real Presence is being denied by many church-going Catholics.
But I have recently acquired a new quibble. The history of the exclusive use of Latin in scripture has left Europe replete with monuments to the men and women tortured and burned because they wrote, published or possessed New Testaments in the vernacular. Latin meant control. Vernacular meant freedom to learn, freedom to pray, freedom to think.
I don't for a minute believe that the Latin Mass is an attempt to tighten Rome's control of Catholics freedom to think. But I do think there is within the debate a
lack of sensitivity to the horror that marks the original history of the use of the vernacular.