Monday, October 17, 2005
(8:38 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tridentine Mass
I was searching for some biographical information on Athanasius and forgot that I had my search box in Firefox pointed toward Google News. As a result, I got this article objecting to a Vatican Synod on the Eucharist that had not considered the question of reinstating the traditional Tridentine mass:For the two or three Sundays each month in which I am blessed to be able to attend the Traditional Latin Mass, I encounter very few who attend who lack belief in transubstantiation. I encounter very few who are receiving our Lord in a state of mortal sin or who consciously reject a dogma of the Faith, yet still receive Holy Communion.He repeats the "not a priority for the Synod" line throughout, in an apparent attempt to be poetic. Or perhaps he believes that if he says it enough times, the Synod will magically be convinced -- just like if the Catholic Church reinstates the Latin Mass, all the church's problems will magically be solved.
And at nearly every Traditional Latin Mass location I have attended around the United States, the priest is usually available for a set time ON SUNDAY prior to Holy Mass, to hear the confessions of the faithful—not at some extremely inconvenient time like 3 or 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. In other words, most priests who offer the Traditional Latin Mass, and most especially those who offer it exclusively, hear many confessions prior to every Mass they offer. One Traditional Priest in Rockford, Illinois hears confessions for a set time EVERY DAY prior to Holy Mass, with one and one half hours of confession on Saturday afternoon, and another 45 minutes prior to his Sunday Mass.
But the “Tridentine Mass” so-called, is “not a priority for the Synod,” according to the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
It's coincidental that I would find this article, because on Saturday night, as I was sitting and waiting for SNL to come on, I clicked to the Catholic Channel, where they were showing a televised Latin mass (Novus Ordo, however). I watched until communion, listened to the voice-over "spiritual communion" prayer, then slinked out the back.
I used to attend Latin mass at Oxford, at a church where there were constantly priests available for confession, three masses a day, etc., and I'll vouch for those people: they were very devout, as was I at the time. I'm skeptical as to whether the Latin as such was the real deciding issue -- though I do agree with the author that reception of Eucharist in the hand, in a standing position, is sub-par. Perhaps his argument would be more convincing if he focussed more on emphasizing confession, inspiring greater reverence for the Eucharist, etc., instead of the Tridentine mass as such. And that's if we accept his apparent premise that greater piety as such is a good in itself and is the most relevant measure of the success of the Church as an institution and of Vatican II in particular.
That's what you come here for: critiques of Catholic super-traditionalists from a convert-turned-lapsed Catholic.
(But maybe I would go to mass more if it was in Latin. As it stands, it's too easy -- I feel like they're insulting my intelligence. The stand-sit-kneel routine is hard to learn at first, but I want more of a challenge -- make me say the Lord's Prayer in Latin!)
