Karl Keating's E-Letter of September 4, 2007

[Forum Admin]

Karl's E-Letter of September 4, 2007

Topic:

A Non-Debate On The Latin Mass

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http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_070904.asp

[dessert]

We have a cluster of parishes, now 5, with 6 priests including the nursing home one. I tthink only one I know or 2 knows Latin he said only of the liturgy. He is bent on including like more churches in our county, like our bulletins are so full of news now, but we are becoming more like family, This priest is the oldest, and the most organized says we need to accept change, like a diff time and day for confession, That really made everyone mad but he said he doesn't care if we get mad he is used to that alot. It will maybe grow to 10 or 12 ? not sure? churches, this seems like a lot.

Ahhh none I say none want the TLM. sorry!

We are thinking hispanic, one church has a spanish mass on saturdays and Espanol may be included in our schools.
We are introducing uniforms this year.
We have too much other stuff to think about to do Latin.

We still do some of the music in latin like O Sanctisima does that count?
Dessert

[Repenting]

Our church is offering a Tridentine Mass on Sunday mornings at 7:15 AM which I feel is way too early. Or I would go. They are doing this by election of 100 votes which you are incouraged to vote only if you will attend the Mass on a regular basis. Our parish has a Latin Mass, German Mass and Two English Masses. I feel this isn't a fair way to decide.

A little frustrated.
Repenting.

[Hungry1]

I'm new to the Catholic Church, with no experience at all with the Latin Mass. Personally, I like knowing what I am saying. On the other hand, I like the idea of learning some Latin!

I would not be surprised if a lot of people are at least initially interested in the Latin Mass - some out of curiosity, but some out of a deep desire for something "more", including, believe it or not, more ritual.

Protestants have long recognized that there is a movement, an attraction, of younger people to more orthodox churches. The Baby Boomers dropped institutions and traditions, but some of their children are looking for more reverence and mystery. Perhaps they will come to the Tridentine Mass with the same kind of seeking.

[JimG]

For the past 40 years, parishioners have pretty much patiently endured whatever form of Mass they were presented with. Reverent, non-reverent, guitar music, band combo, choir, organ—there has been no lack of variety. It is, after all the Mass, and Catholics attend Mass. We go on Saturday or Sunday, and we take our chances.

So here’s my proposition. To enhance diversity, a parish with say, seven Masses each weekend, should randomly have one according to the Tridentine rite. That way most of the parishioners would be exposed to it at some point during the year. After a period of time, they will know whether or not they like it. That would be a fair test.

[MattG]

Recalling the change, from Latin to vernacular, it was exciting,
-but I was young. The older people spoke uniformly with derision
-about the Novus Ordo. This was confusing; was the Church
-making a huge mistake?

Eventually, I learned to loathe the dancers at Mass, well, the idea
-actually, and the Folks with their Masses were never to my
-liking.

Asking my Pastor about September 14, and when TLM would be
-celebrated he said, "I don't know Latin and I'm not learning it. If
-the Pope wants TLM here, he'll have to come and say it
-himself."
-I was getting excited again about the change, even though I'm
-no longer young. Father's reply confused me, anew, but having
-the Pope visit us will be interesting.

Leave aside that this Pastor is the first one for me who entered
-life after I did and he did so in Vietnam, a country I'd like to
-return to see. We have tentative plans to go together, since he
-speaks the language and I don't.

Latin is still the official language of the Roman Catholic Church,
-isn't it? What will that mean when it is no longer learned and
-the ones who have are gone?

Yesterday is gone and does not exist; we can never see
-tomorrow, since it only exists like two days before it as an
-idea. Everything else happens, now.

[Bob Rowland]

Anyone with a working knowledge of what passes as the Catholic media could have accurately predicted the response of both Daly and Hemrich. If you had wanted a debate you should have asked a priest thst is now involved in training those priests who want to learn the Tridentine Rite. The seminaries of their order are always filled to capacity. Can we say the same about seminaries who use the Novus Ordo?

I hope we will see a new "pentecost" in the church, and a revival of the spirituality that has almost been squelched by the social community-praising Novus Ordo. Maybe it will also revive belief in the Real Presence that has declined precipitously in the last 40+ years.

A return of the Tridentine Rite to prominance is something I did expect in my remaining years. By deposing Latin as the universal language of the Church, VCII only revived the Tower of Babel and clouded the universal structure of the Church. I look forward to September 14th with joy.

[Warren Stassi]

Many thanks for your email, really enjoyed it. Hope that modernism will not destroy future generations of the beautiful past of our church. I have been to mass in many cities the one I look back on was celebrated during the Korean war long before vatican11 and before the Russians had launched Sputnik. Our chaplin wanted to say the shepherds mass(pardon spelling Pietro e yan? memory gone since anuerysm) Choir practiced for weeks,my wife who was reared a Baptist knew nothing of Tantum Ergo, Adeste Fidelis, O,Salutaris but since she was one of the two Altos her voice was needed.On Christmas eve at midnight mass our small chapel was filled to the brim,all of us in dress uniforms and the civilions in formal attre.I know nothing of their Latin comprencion of latin but I can assure yoy no one knelt saying the rosary Beauty of this mass will have to remain in my memory hope it is not lost on our decendents.

[dawgfan]

The problem with Hemrick's argument is that there is no need for priests to be expert in the classics or even in Latin. I know any number of priests who celebrate the new Mass in Spanish, even though they hardly can get through a Spanish homily (which they laboriously write out beforehand) and cannot at all get through a Spanish conversation. But they celebrate Mass just fine. They know what is going on, what the words of the Mass mean, and even how to pronounce them reasonably well.

I think that is a good point. I have been to both Spanish and English masses where the priest was not a native speaker of either language nor able to converse beyond a few memorized phrases and the mass was fine.

[Warren Stassi]

Years ago when I was a student at a Jesuit college I had a job working in the Jesuit rectory (1945 or1946) we had a visit from a Chinese Cardinal,the minister came to us hoping to find someone to serve him at mass, no one voluntered I think they were afraid he would say the mass in Chinese.To make a long story short I voluntered. The mas was said in impeciable latin for my reward the Cardinsl gave me a dollar bill(good money in those days)

[catholic2]

Sorry you had to go through a "non-debate", Karl. As we come to the time of the moto proprio, it would be good to have one. I would like to see a list of pros and cons on the Latin Mass so that we can have a debate, at least in our mind.

I am afraid to ask either of my two overworked priests of my large parish what they might feel about doing a latin mass. I am afraid that their response might be negative. So far none of them have touched on it, and that seems to me of an indication of their interest in it.

Personally, I think the Latin Mass would make, in one aspect, a needed counterweight to the secular type novelties introduced in the vernacular masses, but most of all I yearn for the Latin Mass because it lends to a more contemplative worship which is to a large degree missing now in the vernacular.

[Fidelis]

All I know is that my 12 year old son-- who knows nothing about the recent Motu Propio and has never been to a Latin Mass, but only caught snatches of Latin at the ordinary Mass and in the Harry Potter books -- bugged us all summer to include Latin in his homeschooling curriculum this year -- which we have done.

Our hope is in the young, optimistic and strong, not the old, negative and cynical.

[Warren Stassi]

Excellent He should enjoy Caesar,s Gallic wars but keep him away from Ovid.

[John Higgins]

My prediction: In very, very many parishes, September 14th will just be 3 days after the 6th anniversary of the September 11 tragedy. No one who doesn't regulary attend a TLM is screaming for the Extraordinary Form. I suspect those who attend a TLM at St. John Cansius or St. Thomas More or any of the few other places in Chicagoland it is offered would not trust a TLM said in any of the NO parishes. I know if I were of that bent (I'm not.) I would attend the "Mass of the Ages" where I had been attending.


John

[hazmatdude]

Dear Karl.

Going back to the Tridentine Mass would make it a whole lot easier to go to Mass while traveling abroad. With my little Sunday Missal in hand there's the Latin on one side of the page and English (or whatever) on the other I would know whats going on in Serbia, the Ukraine or even Sri Lanka. Kind of like the good old days.

Also the Latin Mass would unite the parish community in worship especially for those who don't speak the vernacular the USA. Frankly replacing the tower of babel bi-lingual or sometimes tri-lingual Mass the English speaking faithful of all races have to endure every Christmas, Easter and Holy Day of Obligation would be a godsend.

By the way did you all catch the Holy Father in Lorento, Italy this past week on EWTN? The Mass and all commentary were in Italian. Good for them!