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Jesuit's profile contained uneducated opinions on the Mass
Re: “Of liturgy and life” (1/05/12) In a Catholic News Service profile of a retired Jesuit liturgist that ran in the Catholic Herald, Father Robert F. Taft expressed some deeply troubling opinions on the Mass. First (after comparing Mass to sex), he stated: "Liturgy is a play where there is no audience. We're all actors." This statement seems to indicate an egalitarian system at holy Mass, where the priest and the congregation are equals. That, of course, is not the case, as the ordained celebrant offers the Mass assisted by servers. The congregation does not, as far as the missal and rubrics are concerned, have a leading role in this "play." This notion is easily demonstrated by priests who offer private Masses. The Jesuit continued his opinions on the Mass by stating: "The prayers are not for God ... the language is for us." Oh my. Never has the Church taught the Mass is anything but a holy sacrifice to God; it is not a play for the people. In fact, our current pope, Benedict XVI, wrote on how offering Mass since the 1960s facing the congregation redirected prayer from toward-God to toward-man: “The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself” ("Spirit of the Liturgy" by Cardinal Ratzinger). Moreover, it is not necessary to know the complete meaning of Latin (the official language of the Church) words spoken by the priest at Mass or "you've got a problem," as Father Taft wrote. There is a mystery of faith that is much more important than analyzing every phrase said or sung by the celebrant or choir. Think of the wonder and awe throughout the history of the Church when a Gregorian chant schola sings the Introit in Latin at the beginning of Mass. Next, Father Taft takes swipes at the traditional Latin Mass, which has roots to at least the fifth century and has recently been promoted by Pope Benedict for greater use. Father Taft claimed: "The Tridentine reform of the liturgy was just as much of a change, with respect to what preceded it, as the Vatican II restoration of the liturgy was." In fact, the Council of Trent (hence Tridentine) codified (not created) the Roman Missal, most of which was used for centuries throughout the world. The post-Vatican II liturgy, on the other hand, did not restore, but resulted in innovation, creating what Pope Benedict XVI has called a "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture." If the "novus ordo" liturgy was a restoration, it would not have been named the "new order" of Mass. I challenge the Jesuit liturgist who made the anti-traditional Latin Mass statements to point to a period in the Catholic Church's history where there were: altar girls; Communion in the hand while standing; laywomen reading the epistle; an interruption in the Mass to shake neighbors' hands; the celebrant facing the people instead of in an ad orientem position; and the priest speaking a non-sacred vernacular language for the ordinary and propers of the Mass. It just did not exist, therefore defending these 40-year-old practices found in nearly every parish today as a "restoration of the liturgy" is impossible. Far from the modernist agenda and opinions expressed in the CNS article published in the Catholic Herald, Pope Benedict XVI has a vision for the Church that seeks to truly restore traditional aspects of the Catholic Mass, as exhibited in nearly every liturgy he has been involved in and all of his writings on the Mass. As the pope wrote to all bishops on July 7, 2007: "What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful." The traditional Latin Mass, offered at an impressive 12 of the Arlington Diocese’s 68 parishes, is growing in popularity — particularly among younger Catholics — because people today recognize the beauty and dignity in that earlier Mass known by nearly all of the saints. I thank the priests in the diocese for their generosity in offering the traditional sacraments and pray there will be many more for generations to come.
Kenneth J. Wolfe Alexandria
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Since writing this, another parish has added a traditional Latin Mass, so the total number in the Arlington Diocese is now an even more impressive 13:
http://www.arlingtondiocese.org/worship/worship_celebrations.php
Deo gratias!
Amen, Mr. Wolfe.
Unfortunately, such views are not atypical among liturgists who came of age during and after the Council.
The Roman Rite assumed its form and shape in the years between Popes Damasus and Gregory (4-6th centuries, and changed very little in the centuries afterward. As you rightly note, the "Tridentine" mass of Pius V was nothing more than a codification and standardization of what was already an ancient mass. There was nothing new about it. Indeed, the Roman missal in its 1962 incarnation has far more in common with the mass as celebrated at the time of St. Gregory the Great, 14 centuries before, than it does with that of Paul VI, instituted just seven years later - even in its most traditional form, even in Latin. Changing to the vernacular was perhaps the *least* notable change of many which the new order of the mass represents.
Unfortunately, the (false) narrative of a Roman Rite undergoing massive, constant changes through the centuries has been too convenient a one for those with an agenda of massive, constant liturgical change to suit the sensibilities of the moment.
Let us be faithful to what we have received. The traditional Roman Rite is the heritage of all of us, every Catholic - including Fr. Taft.