Discussions on Traditionalism: The Mass
So this parish you're going to, it's one of those 'pre-Vatican II' parishes?
Yes, it's a parish that only celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass.
What's so important about having the Mass in Latin? Is English really so evil?
It has nothing to do with English. Latin is important for a couple of reasons: first, it's been universally recognized as the language of the Church for centuries; second, because it has been the "ecclesiastical language" for so long, it has become a sort of sacred tongue of sorts - you hear Latin, you think "Catholic Church"; third, because it was so universally used within the Church, it stands as a very powerful sign of the Church's unity - it used to be that you could walk into a parish anywhere in the world, Denmark, Switzerland, Africa, China, wherever, and you could assist at the Mass. It was the same everywhere. Now that everything is in the vernacular, you can't do that; you can't see that visible sign of unity anymore. What you see instead looks more like the Tower of Babel. And finally, because Latin is a "dead language" which is not subject to change or development, it is the perfect language for the Church to use when expressing doctrine - because the doctrine cannot change either.
It just seems a bit extreme - refusing to go to any of the parishes in the diocese just because they say the Mass in your own language.
Well, wait a second. Latin is important, don't get me wrong. But ultimately, it's a peripheral issue. Even if all the priests in my diocese started saying the Mass in Latin, I still wouldn't go to any of them.
Ok, now I'm confused. What is the issue, then?
The New Mass changed a lot more than just the language in which it was celebrated! The whole form of the Mass changed, so that it now breathes an entirely different spirit - the whole tenor has changed.
Go on ... be specific.
Just look at the externals - for example, even architecture itself used to point you right to the Eucharistic Presence of Christ. The rows of pillars leading up the side aisles would draw your eyes right to the main high altar, which was right in the middle of the sanctuary wall; in the center of the altar, and just above it on the wall, was a crucifix whose very angles (especially the downward-pointing "V" shape created by the figure of Christ on the Cross) pointed you to the focal point of the sanctuary: the tabernacle, in which was reserved the Blessed Sacrament.
Yeah, I can see that. Interesting.
Yes! And then when the priest would come out with his altar servers, the first thing he would do is stand at the foot of the stairs leading up to the altar and begin confessing his sins, facing the tabernacle. Except for a few points during the Mass, he would maintain this posture and position of prayer: facing Jesus in the tabernacle, and addressing all his prayers in that direction. The priest and the people were united in that respect - all facing the same direction, all pointed towards their common Love.
And they don't do that anymore?
When's the last time you were at a Catholic Mass?
Oh ... I don't know, probably not since I was a kid, sometime in the early 60s
Yeah, right before everything changed. Well, check it out for yourself sometime. The priest comes out for Mass now and the first thing he does is talk to the people. In the Old Mass, the first words out of the priest's mouth (not counting the sign of the cross) were "Judge me, O God." Now the first words from the priest (again, not counting the sign of the cross) are "The Lord be with you!"
As far as the architecture goes, he really can't face the altar anymore, because the altar has been moved off the wall and brought closer to the people. The priest now stands behind the altar and faces the crowd for the duration of the Mass.
But he's still facing the tabernacle ...
No! That's just it ... when various liturgical committees got their encouragement from the Vatican commissions responsible for the "renewal" of the liturgy, most parishes had the high altars torn out and thrown away, and replaced them with the more common table-altar you'll see today. There is no tabernacle on the altar anymore.
Where did it go?
It's different from parish to parish. I've seen parishes where the high altar was left untouched and a new table-altar was simply installed several feet in front of it - in which case the tabernacle is still on the high altar, but the priest celebrates the Mass with his back to it. In many, many other parishes, the tabernacle has been moved out of the sanctuary altogether and put in a private "prayer chapel" somewhere else in the building.
I've heard my share of horror stories about this; people who go into parishes and can't even find the tabernacle, people who have found the tabernacle stuffed off in some tiny room on the side where it's not even clearly labeled - it's the old "Jesus in the broom-closet" syndrome.
Ok, so the tabernacle is gone, and the priest now faces the people.
Right. He is much more in the position of "entertainer" now, because he spends the entire Mass facing the people, having to look at them, having to engage them. It makes for a very uncomfortable situation sometimes! I mean, what would you do if someone suddenly dropped you on center stage, in front of 250 people?
Panic!
Exactly. So these priests get all nervous, and they deal with nervousness like most people do: they try to make jokes, they get innovative, they try to get the laity to get more involved so the pressure isn't solely on them.
Which leads to the next point: the New Mass has been completely overrun with laity. In the Old Mass, the priest had a special and unique role to play, which corresponded to the dogmatic fact that a consecrated priest has a sacramental power which the laity does not possess. That's dogma - and the Old Mass emphasized this by creating a distinction between priest and laity.
What kind of distinction are we talking about, though?
For example, the priest was the one who proclaimed the Word of God in the readings; he confessed his sins before God before the people did in the liturgy; and he alone was permitted to handle the Eucharist.
In the New Mass, a layperson handles the reading from the Old Testament and the Epistles (the Gospel reading is still reserved to the priest), as well as the responsorial Psalm, the people and priest make a common confession of sins, and the Eucharist can be distributed by "Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist."
So the laity have a more active role to play in the worship - so what?
It's eroding the dogma. Today's priests much more resemble a non-Catholic minister who merely "presides" over the assembly; he's more of a facilitator than he is the anointed representative who offers sacrifice to God. And since more and more priests are taking a "day off" in the middle of the week, you have the situation in some parishes where the congregation still gets together on a week day and has a "communion service," where they have a few readings and then a layperson distributes pre-consecrated hosts.
That's odd. So they really don't need the priest at all, do they?
Well, they do - but only to do the consecration. What's really dangerous in all of this is that women are getting the idea from the New Mass that they can be ordained as priests - there's quite a movement among feminist Catholics to get the Vatican to reverse its ruling on women's ordination.
What's causing the confusion?
Because in the New Mass, women can do just about everything else! They can lead the Psalms, they can read the Old Testament and Epistle readings, and they can distribute communion right along-side the priest. I once attended a "communion service" in which a woman retrieved the hosts from the tabernacle, brought them back to the altar, elevated the host for the congregation to see, and recited the Ecce, Agnus Dei prayer ("Behold the Lamb of God, etc.") - and the congregation dutifully responded with the "Lord, I am not worthy ..." Talk about skating on thin ice!
So the architecture changed, the outward gestures changed - what else?
The prayers. If you compare the Old Mass to the New Mass, you'll find that there is hardly a prayer in the Old Mass that didn't get either re-written or dropped from the liturgy completely.
What was the point?
I can't say - it's awfully difficult to judge motive. All I can do is point to the end product and say, "this is not quite right." I will say this: one of the phrases in the council's decree on the Liturgy explicitly said that the liturgy had to be revised in order to "foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ." (Sacrosanctum Concilium, par. 1)
So it's not out of line or reading into things to say that the changes made to the Mass were specifically made for ecumenical reasons - to break down barriers between Catholic and Protestant worship styles.
Now that's interesting. How do you change a Catholic Mass so that it doesn't offend Protestants anymore, when the Mass itself is so distinctly Catholic?
That's just it - you remove the parts that make it "distinctly Catholic."
But how can you? The thing that makes the Mass so Catholic is that it pretends to turn bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. You can't get rid of that.
You can do everything but. In the case of the New Mass, what they did was to re-write or remove any prayers that were too explicit with regard to the nature or purpose of the Mass.
Nature and purpose?
Right. The nature of the Mass more or less means that Jesus is substantially present in the Eucharist, and the purpose of the Mass is that it is a propitiatory sacrifice offered to God in order to atone for sins. In fact, this is explicitly spelled out in one of the prayers in the Old Mass. The priest prays:
Sounds pretty Catholic to me.
It is. But this prayer no longer exists in the New Mass. It was dropped completely from the liturgy and replaced with this:
That still sounds pretty Catholic, talking about this bread becoming the "bread of life."
But what does that mean? It certainly doesn't have to mean anything about a propitiatory sacrifice, and it says absolutely nothing about atonement for sins or the benefits that this sacrifice bestows upon both "the living and the dead."
Still, I would have a problem using that prayer in a Protestant service.
Others have not. Bugnini (the head of the commission that created the New Mass) records in his book The Reform of the Liturgy that the Protestant Taize Community asked for permission to use one of the Eucharistic Prayers drawn up for the New Mass before it was even released to the public.
Wait, you lost me. How did the Taize Community even find out about the prayers?
Because they were there as observers when the Consilium was doing its work. Again, Bugnini records that there were six Protestant observers who attended the various meetings: Rev. Canon Ronald C. Jasper, D.D. (Anglican), Rev. Dr. Massey H. Shepherd, Jr. (professor at Church Divinity School), Professor A. Raymond George (Methodist), Pastor Freidrich Wilhelm Kunneth (secretary of the Commission for Worship and Spiritual Life at Geneva), Rev. Eugene L. Brand (Lutheran), and Brother Max Thurian, subprior of the Taize Community. (see Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990], p. 200)
And these Protestants had something to do with helping to create the New Mass?
Bugnini swears they didn't, that they were only there as observers - although he does admit they were asked their opinions concerning the cycle of readings. But the fact that they were even there shows that there was an ecumenical dimension to the whole thing. Probably the most damning admission came from the philosopher Jean Guitton, an observer at the Second Vatican Council and a close friend of Pope Paul VI.
This is what he said in a radio debate:
That is a rather damning admission, I'll give you that.
I don't think they're trying to hide it anymore, honestly. They're proud of the fact that they've Protestantized the Mass to the point where certain Protestant communities are no longer uncomfortable with it.
So is that your main gripe with the New Mass - that it no longer offends Protestants?
That's not quite how I would put it! The reason it offended Protestants to begin with is because it so clearly portrayed, by word and by gesture, the dogmas of the Catholic Faith; if it doesn't do that anymore, then there's a serious problem internally, because the way a man prays is what determines his belief system.
I think you're giving a bit too much credit to the liturgy - don't you think the official teachings of the Church or the Pope are what determine how Catholics believe?
Not as effectively as the liturgy, and believe me, the popes of yesteryear knew this full well.
For example, Pope Pius XII wrote, "In the sacred liturgy we profess the Catholic faith explicitly and openly ... The entire liturgy, therefore, has the Catholic faith for its content, inasmuch as it bears public witness to the faith of the Church." (Mediator Dei, 47)
He went on to say, using a slightly different wording, exactly what I just said a moment ago about prayer determining belief. These are his words:
His predecessor, Pope Pius XI, knew this truth as well. When he wanted to impress on the faithful the doctrine and teaching concerning the Social Kingship of Christ, he didn't just issue an encyclical on the subject - he instituted a liturgical feast that commemorated the Kingship of Christ.
This is what he says about how the liturgy influences belief:
So when the primary prayer of the Church, namely, the Mass, is so drastically altered that it - how did Guitton put it? - removes, corrects, or relaxes what is "too Catholic, in the traditional sense, in the Mass," and deliberately intends to "get the Catholic Mass ... closer to the Protestant Lord's Supper," then it only follows that the beliefs of the faithful are going to undergo a gradual-yet-definite change as well.
But you just showed me from one of the prayers that the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is still in the Mass - remember, "it will become for us the bread of life?"
Those words most certainly do not state the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation. Would it come as a shock to you that the Anglican community includes this very prayer, nearly word-for-word, as an optional "preparation prayer" in its liturgy?
That would be rather surprising.
Then consider yourself surprised. The prayers of the New Mass are sufficiently imprecise that they do not require a Catholic interpretation; they may be able to be understood in a Catholic sense, but that would require that the person hearing them already be a Catholic with a good understanding of his faith. If he's a new-comer to the faith, there is no reason why he should interpret these prayers in an exclusively Catholic way. In the Old Mass, it was pretty clear what was going on and why.
You mentioned earlier something about the "gestures" in the Mass as well as the prayers.
Yes, that's right. You can start just by looking at the orientation of the priest and congregation. As I said, in the Old Mass, the priest and congregation looked in the same direction - towards God, towards Jesus in the tabernacle. Now the congregation looks towards ... a man. The priest. Our new pope, when he was known as Cardinal Ratzinger, said that this new arrangement signifies the new idea about the Mass - that it is primarily a "community meal."
But he roundly criticized this viewpoint, and rightly so - what he says here is absolutely correct, and indicates part of the problem, the wrong-headed ideas that are being spread and absorbed about the Mass:
So in other words, it's become more humanistic.
That is exactly what it has become. The Sacrifice of the Mass has become a community meal that has the function of uniting the community together, and as a meal, it becomes a less-important afterthought in the liturgy. This is why the reception of Holy Communion is preceded by so much human-to-human interaction in the New Mass - the priest speaking primarily to the people, the lectors reading to the people (often indulging in over-the-top dramatics to make the readings more exciting), the congregation holding hands during the Our Father, the "handshake of peace" ritual that takes place - incredibly - right after the consecration of the bread and wine.
That's the one moment in the Mass when it becomes clear where the focus lies. Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, has just descended and made Himself substantially present on the altar, and what does the celebrant do? He invites everyone to "share with one another the sign of peace," and off they go, shaking hands with each other, hugging each other, sometimes meandering all across the aisles to greet the people across from them.
Where's the focus? It's on the people. It's on the community. Jesus just came into the room, but ... hang on, I have to go say hello to all my friends and wish everyone "peace," so that we all get a nice warm feeling before we go share this meal together.
And I take it that this sort of thing doesn't happen in the Old Mass?
Absolutely not. During the prayers surrounding the consecration, the consecration itself, and the prayers that come after the consecration, there is near-total silence in the church so that the faithful can recollect themselves and prepare to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.
You go to the New Mass, and the first thing you notice is that you don't have 15 free seconds to pray in silence, to prepare your heart for that monumental moment when you will be united with the Divine Redeemer.
Well, don't you think it's a good thing that there's more of a sense of community in the New Mass? It sounds like maybe that aspect was missing from the Old Mass.
It's a false sense of community, because it is community based on humanism, on a purely natural level; there's more of a sense of community in the Old Mass, precisely because everyone is united in a common action - thoughts and attentions are directed towards God, and the entire service has Him for its object.
There's so much "community" in the New Mass that it's actually a distraction and a nuisance, unless you came there to celebrate Man.
And this is, according to you, the effect of the New Mass?
It is. Everything is directed at Man; Man takes center stage. In many, many parishes now, the tabernacle is gone from the sanctuary, and the "presider's" chair has been set up in the middle of the sanctuary instead. So, quite literally, Man has de-throned God in the New Mass.
So it really isn't about Latin at all, is it?
Well, like I said, Latin is an important element, but it's certainly not the most important point.
Now that you mention it, though, the issue of Latin does more-or-less touch on the major issues we're discussing.
Latin was considered a "sacred" language - again, not because it in itself is somehow more holy than, say, Swahili or Japanese, but because it was hallowed by so many centuries of Church usage. Therefore, it didn't matter so much that the rank-and-file layman couldn't understand the language; that wasn't the point of the Mass.
I know that's hard - very hard - to understand in this day and age when the Ego reigns supreme, and Man's foremost concern in worship is that it should "minister to me," or "what I get out of church," but that just wasn't the concern in the Catholic Church in ages past. The more important question is, "what is God getting out of this service from me?"
So you didn't understand the Latin? So what? You knew what was going on (generally speaking) at the altar; you knew the priest was offering a sacrifice on your behalf to God the Father; you could revel in the mysterious silence and engage in contemplative prayer, and direct your thoughts to God.
The point was, even if you didn't understand the language, God did, and this service was all about Him, not about you. That's a healthy lesson that Modern Man would do well to learn today.
But now? It's all about Man. If he doesn't understand what's going on, then hey, stop everything - we'll reconstruct the whole liturgy and tailor-make it to fit your needs.
All of this is very interesting. But, if you're a "pre-Vatican II Catholic," does that mean you don't accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council?
Don't "accept" them? I don't know that I would go quite that far.
Well, ok, but you've obviously got some issues with the council, right?
I have issues with the way it's been interpreted by liberals in the Church, and with the way it's been applied to the Church by those same liberals.
So you're saying the council didn't really change anything of the Church's teachings?
Oh boy ... this is another can of worms altogether. Let's put this discussion off for a bit and we'll come back to it later, alright?
Good enough.
Yes, it's a parish that only celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass.
What's so important about having the Mass in Latin? Is English really so evil?
It has nothing to do with English. Latin is important for a couple of reasons: first, it's been universally recognized as the language of the Church for centuries; second, because it has been the "ecclesiastical language" for so long, it has become a sort of sacred tongue of sorts - you hear Latin, you think "Catholic Church"; third, because it was so universally used within the Church, it stands as a very powerful sign of the Church's unity - it used to be that you could walk into a parish anywhere in the world, Denmark, Switzerland, Africa, China, wherever, and you could assist at the Mass. It was the same everywhere. Now that everything is in the vernacular, you can't do that; you can't see that visible sign of unity anymore. What you see instead looks more like the Tower of Babel. And finally, because Latin is a "dead language" which is not subject to change or development, it is the perfect language for the Church to use when expressing doctrine - because the doctrine cannot change either.
It just seems a bit extreme - refusing to go to any of the parishes in the diocese just because they say the Mass in your own language.
Well, wait a second. Latin is important, don't get me wrong. But ultimately, it's a peripheral issue. Even if all the priests in my diocese started saying the Mass in Latin, I still wouldn't go to any of them.
Ok, now I'm confused. What is the issue, then?
The New Mass changed a lot more than just the language in which it was celebrated! The whole form of the Mass changed, so that it now breathes an entirely different spirit - the whole tenor has changed.
Go on ... be specific.
Just look at the externals - for example, even architecture itself used to point you right to the Eucharistic Presence of Christ. The rows of pillars leading up the side aisles would draw your eyes right to the main high altar, which was right in the middle of the sanctuary wall; in the center of the altar, and just above it on the wall, was a crucifix whose very angles (especially the downward-pointing "V" shape created by the figure of Christ on the Cross) pointed you to the focal point of the sanctuary: the tabernacle, in which was reserved the Blessed Sacrament.
Yeah, I can see that. Interesting.
Yes! And then when the priest would come out with his altar servers, the first thing he would do is stand at the foot of the stairs leading up to the altar and begin confessing his sins, facing the tabernacle. Except for a few points during the Mass, he would maintain this posture and position of prayer: facing Jesus in the tabernacle, and addressing all his prayers in that direction. The priest and the people were united in that respect - all facing the same direction, all pointed towards their common Love.
And they don't do that anymore?
When's the last time you were at a Catholic Mass?
Oh ... I don't know, probably not since I was a kid, sometime in the early 60s
Yeah, right before everything changed. Well, check it out for yourself sometime. The priest comes out for Mass now and the first thing he does is talk to the people. In the Old Mass, the first words out of the priest's mouth (not counting the sign of the cross) were "Judge me, O God." Now the first words from the priest (again, not counting the sign of the cross) are "The Lord be with you!"
As far as the architecture goes, he really can't face the altar anymore, because the altar has been moved off the wall and brought closer to the people. The priest now stands behind the altar and faces the crowd for the duration of the Mass.
But he's still facing the tabernacle ...
No! That's just it ... when various liturgical committees got their encouragement from the Vatican commissions responsible for the "renewal" of the liturgy, most parishes had the high altars torn out and thrown away, and replaced them with the more common table-altar you'll see today. There is no tabernacle on the altar anymore.
Where did it go?
It's different from parish to parish. I've seen parishes where the high altar was left untouched and a new table-altar was simply installed several feet in front of it - in which case the tabernacle is still on the high altar, but the priest celebrates the Mass with his back to it. In many, many other parishes, the tabernacle has been moved out of the sanctuary altogether and put in a private "prayer chapel" somewhere else in the building.
I've heard my share of horror stories about this; people who go into parishes and can't even find the tabernacle, people who have found the tabernacle stuffed off in some tiny room on the side where it's not even clearly labeled - it's the old "Jesus in the broom-closet" syndrome.
Ok, so the tabernacle is gone, and the priest now faces the people.
Right. He is much more in the position of "entertainer" now, because he spends the entire Mass facing the people, having to look at them, having to engage them. It makes for a very uncomfortable situation sometimes! I mean, what would you do if someone suddenly dropped you on center stage, in front of 250 people?
Panic!
Exactly. So these priests get all nervous, and they deal with nervousness like most people do: they try to make jokes, they get innovative, they try to get the laity to get more involved so the pressure isn't solely on them.
Which leads to the next point: the New Mass has been completely overrun with laity. In the Old Mass, the priest had a special and unique role to play, which corresponded to the dogmatic fact that a consecrated priest has a sacramental power which the laity does not possess. That's dogma - and the Old Mass emphasized this by creating a distinction between priest and laity.
What kind of distinction are we talking about, though?
For example, the priest was the one who proclaimed the Word of God in the readings; he confessed his sins before God before the people did in the liturgy; and he alone was permitted to handle the Eucharist.
In the New Mass, a layperson handles the reading from the Old Testament and the Epistles (the Gospel reading is still reserved to the priest), as well as the responsorial Psalm, the people and priest make a common confession of sins, and the Eucharist can be distributed by "Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist."
So the laity have a more active role to play in the worship - so what?
It's eroding the dogma. Today's priests much more resemble a non-Catholic minister who merely "presides" over the assembly; he's more of a facilitator than he is the anointed representative who offers sacrifice to God. And since more and more priests are taking a "day off" in the middle of the week, you have the situation in some parishes where the congregation still gets together on a week day and has a "communion service," where they have a few readings and then a layperson distributes pre-consecrated hosts.
That's odd. So they really don't need the priest at all, do they?
Well, they do - but only to do the consecration. What's really dangerous in all of this is that women are getting the idea from the New Mass that they can be ordained as priests - there's quite a movement among feminist Catholics to get the Vatican to reverse its ruling on women's ordination.
What's causing the confusion?
Because in the New Mass, women can do just about everything else! They can lead the Psalms, they can read the Old Testament and Epistle readings, and they can distribute communion right along-side the priest. I once attended a "communion service" in which a woman retrieved the hosts from the tabernacle, brought them back to the altar, elevated the host for the congregation to see, and recited the Ecce, Agnus Dei prayer ("Behold the Lamb of God, etc.") - and the congregation dutifully responded with the "Lord, I am not worthy ..." Talk about skating on thin ice!
So the architecture changed, the outward gestures changed - what else?
The prayers. If you compare the Old Mass to the New Mass, you'll find that there is hardly a prayer in the Old Mass that didn't get either re-written or dropped from the liturgy completely.
What was the point?
I can't say - it's awfully difficult to judge motive. All I can do is point to the end product and say, "this is not quite right." I will say this: one of the phrases in the council's decree on the Liturgy explicitly said that the liturgy had to be revised in order to "foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ." (Sacrosanctum Concilium, par. 1)
So it's not out of line or reading into things to say that the changes made to the Mass were specifically made for ecumenical reasons - to break down barriers between Catholic and Protestant worship styles.
Now that's interesting. How do you change a Catholic Mass so that it doesn't offend Protestants anymore, when the Mass itself is so distinctly Catholic?
That's just it - you remove the parts that make it "distinctly Catholic."
But how can you? The thing that makes the Mass so Catholic is that it pretends to turn bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. You can't get rid of that.
You can do everything but. In the case of the New Mass, what they did was to re-write or remove any prayers that were too explicit with regard to the nature or purpose of the Mass.
Nature and purpose?
Right. The nature of the Mass more or less means that Jesus is substantially present in the Eucharist, and the purpose of the Mass is that it is a propitiatory sacrifice offered to God in order to atone for sins. In fact, this is explicitly spelled out in one of the prayers in the Old Mass. The priest prays:
Receive, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this spotless host, which I ... offer unto Thee ... for my own countless sins, offenses and negligences, and for all here present ... [and] also for all faithful Christians living and dead, that it may avail both for my own and their salvation unto everlasting life.
Sounds pretty Catholic to me.
It is. But this prayer no longer exists in the New Mass. It was dropped completely from the liturgy and replaced with this:
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.
That still sounds pretty Catholic, talking about this bread becoming the "bread of life."
But what does that mean? It certainly doesn't have to mean anything about a propitiatory sacrifice, and it says absolutely nothing about atonement for sins or the benefits that this sacrifice bestows upon both "the living and the dead."
Still, I would have a problem using that prayer in a Protestant service.
Others have not. Bugnini (the head of the commission that created the New Mass) records in his book The Reform of the Liturgy that the Protestant Taize Community asked for permission to use one of the Eucharistic Prayers drawn up for the New Mass before it was even released to the public.
Wait, you lost me. How did the Taize Community even find out about the prayers?
Because they were there as observers when the Consilium was doing its work. Again, Bugnini records that there were six Protestant observers who attended the various meetings: Rev. Canon Ronald C. Jasper, D.D. (Anglican), Rev. Dr. Massey H. Shepherd, Jr. (professor at Church Divinity School), Professor A. Raymond George (Methodist), Pastor Freidrich Wilhelm Kunneth (secretary of the Commission for Worship and Spiritual Life at Geneva), Rev. Eugene L. Brand (Lutheran), and Brother Max Thurian, subprior of the Taize Community. (see Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990], p. 200)
And these Protestants had something to do with helping to create the New Mass?
Bugnini swears they didn't, that they were only there as observers - although he does admit they were asked their opinions concerning the cycle of readings. But the fact that they were even there shows that there was an ecumenical dimension to the whole thing. Probably the most damning admission came from the philosopher Jean Guitton, an observer at the Second Vatican Council and a close friend of Pope Paul VI.
This is what he said in a radio debate:
The intention of Paul VI with regard to the liturgy, with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy ... But what is curious is that Paul VI did that to get as close as possible to the Protestant Lord's Supper ... But I repeat that Paul VI did everything in his power to get the Catholic Mass, beyond the Council of Trent, closer to the Protestant Lord's Supper ... I do not think I am wrong to say that the intention of Paul VI, and of the new liturgy that bears his name, was to require of the faithful a greater participation at Mass, to make more room for Scripture, and less room for all that some would call "magic", others substantial, transubstantial consecration, and for what is of Catholic Faith; in other words, there was with Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax what was too Catholic, in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist Mass. (Broadcast by Radio-Courtoisie, 61 bd Murat, 75016 Paris, December 19th, 1993; quoted in Rev. Br. Gerard, "Abbey Newsletter", The Christian Order, October 1994, p. 454)
That is a rather damning admission, I'll give you that.
I don't think they're trying to hide it anymore, honestly. They're proud of the fact that they've Protestantized the Mass to the point where certain Protestant communities are no longer uncomfortable with it.
So is that your main gripe with the New Mass - that it no longer offends Protestants?
That's not quite how I would put it! The reason it offended Protestants to begin with is because it so clearly portrayed, by word and by gesture, the dogmas of the Catholic Faith; if it doesn't do that anymore, then there's a serious problem internally, because the way a man prays is what determines his belief system.
I think you're giving a bit too much credit to the liturgy - don't you think the official teachings of the Church or the Pope are what determine how Catholics believe?
Not as effectively as the liturgy, and believe me, the popes of yesteryear knew this full well.
For example, Pope Pius XII wrote, "In the sacred liturgy we profess the Catholic faith explicitly and openly ... The entire liturgy, therefore, has the Catholic faith for its content, inasmuch as it bears public witness to the faith of the Church." (Mediator Dei, 47)
He went on to say, using a slightly different wording, exactly what I just said a moment ago about prayer determining belief. These are his words:
... whenever there was question of defining a truth revealed by God, the Sovereign Pontiff and the Councils ... have not seldom drawn many an argument from this sacred science of the liturgy ... Similarly during the discussion of a doubtful or controversial truth, the Church and the Holy Fathers have not failed to look to the age-old and age-honored sacred rites for enlightenment. Hence the well-known and venerable maxim, "Legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi" - let the rule for prayer determine the rule of belief ... But if one desires to differentiate and describe the relationship between faith and the sacred liturgy in absolute and general terms, it is perfectly correct to say, "Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi" - let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer. (Mediator Dei, 48)
His predecessor, Pope Pius XI, knew this truth as well. When he wanted to impress on the faithful the doctrine and teaching concerning the Social Kingship of Christ, he didn't just issue an encyclical on the subject - he instituted a liturgical feast that commemorated the Kingship of Christ.
This is what he says about how the liturgy influences belief:
For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact, forever. (Quas Primas, 21)
So when the primary prayer of the Church, namely, the Mass, is so drastically altered that it - how did Guitton put it? - removes, corrects, or relaxes what is "too Catholic, in the traditional sense, in the Mass," and deliberately intends to "get the Catholic Mass ... closer to the Protestant Lord's Supper," then it only follows that the beliefs of the faithful are going to undergo a gradual-yet-definite change as well.
But you just showed me from one of the prayers that the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is still in the Mass - remember, "it will become for us the bread of life?"
Those words most certainly do not state the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation. Would it come as a shock to you that the Anglican community includes this very prayer, nearly word-for-word, as an optional "preparation prayer" in its liturgy?
That would be rather surprising.
Then consider yourself surprised. The prayers of the New Mass are sufficiently imprecise that they do not require a Catholic interpretation; they may be able to be understood in a Catholic sense, but that would require that the person hearing them already be a Catholic with a good understanding of his faith. If he's a new-comer to the faith, there is no reason why he should interpret these prayers in an exclusively Catholic way. In the Old Mass, it was pretty clear what was going on and why.
You mentioned earlier something about the "gestures" in the Mass as well as the prayers.
Yes, that's right. You can start just by looking at the orientation of the priest and congregation. As I said, in the Old Mass, the priest and congregation looked in the same direction - towards God, towards Jesus in the tabernacle. Now the congregation looks towards ... a man. The priest. Our new pope, when he was known as Cardinal Ratzinger, said that this new arrangement signifies the new idea about the Mass - that it is primarily a "community meal."
But he roundly criticized this viewpoint, and rightly so - what he says here is absolutely correct, and indicates part of the problem, the wrong-headed ideas that are being spread and absorbed about the Mass:
In reality what happened was that an unprecedented clericalization came on the scene. Now the priest - the "presider", as they now prefer to call him - becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy. Everything depends on him. We have to see him, to respond to him, to be involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing. Not surprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the "creative" planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to ... "make their own contribution". Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by the human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a "pre-determined pattern". 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 ... [in past times] it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession toward the Lord. They did not close themselves into a circle; they did not gaze at one another; but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us. (Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2000], pp. 79-80)
So in other words, it's become more humanistic.
That is exactly what it has become. The Sacrifice of the Mass has become a community meal that has the function of uniting the community together, and as a meal, it becomes a less-important afterthought in the liturgy. This is why the reception of Holy Communion is preceded by so much human-to-human interaction in the New Mass - the priest speaking primarily to the people, the lectors reading to the people (often indulging in over-the-top dramatics to make the readings more exciting), the congregation holding hands during the Our Father, the "handshake of peace" ritual that takes place - incredibly - right after the consecration of the bread and wine.
That's the one moment in the Mass when it becomes clear where the focus lies. Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, has just descended and made Himself substantially present on the altar, and what does the celebrant do? He invites everyone to "share with one another the sign of peace," and off they go, shaking hands with each other, hugging each other, sometimes meandering all across the aisles to greet the people across from them.
Where's the focus? It's on the people. It's on the community. Jesus just came into the room, but ... hang on, I have to go say hello to all my friends and wish everyone "peace," so that we all get a nice warm feeling before we go share this meal together.
And I take it that this sort of thing doesn't happen in the Old Mass?
Absolutely not. During the prayers surrounding the consecration, the consecration itself, and the prayers that come after the consecration, there is near-total silence in the church so that the faithful can recollect themselves and prepare to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.
You go to the New Mass, and the first thing you notice is that you don't have 15 free seconds to pray in silence, to prepare your heart for that monumental moment when you will be united with the Divine Redeemer.
Well, don't you think it's a good thing that there's more of a sense of community in the New Mass? It sounds like maybe that aspect was missing from the Old Mass.
It's a false sense of community, because it is community based on humanism, on a purely natural level; there's more of a sense of community in the Old Mass, precisely because everyone is united in a common action - thoughts and attentions are directed towards God, and the entire service has Him for its object.
There's so much "community" in the New Mass that it's actually a distraction and a nuisance, unless you came there to celebrate Man.
And this is, according to you, the effect of the New Mass?
It is. Everything is directed at Man; Man takes center stage. In many, many parishes now, the tabernacle is gone from the sanctuary, and the "presider's" chair has been set up in the middle of the sanctuary instead. So, quite literally, Man has de-throned God in the New Mass.
So it really isn't about Latin at all, is it?
Well, like I said, Latin is an important element, but it's certainly not the most important point.
Now that you mention it, though, the issue of Latin does more-or-less touch on the major issues we're discussing.
Latin was considered a "sacred" language - again, not because it in itself is somehow more holy than, say, Swahili or Japanese, but because it was hallowed by so many centuries of Church usage. Therefore, it didn't matter so much that the rank-and-file layman couldn't understand the language; that wasn't the point of the Mass.
I know that's hard - very hard - to understand in this day and age when the Ego reigns supreme, and Man's foremost concern in worship is that it should "minister to me," or "what I get out of church," but that just wasn't the concern in the Catholic Church in ages past. The more important question is, "what is God getting out of this service from me?"
So you didn't understand the Latin? So what? You knew what was going on (generally speaking) at the altar; you knew the priest was offering a sacrifice on your behalf to God the Father; you could revel in the mysterious silence and engage in contemplative prayer, and direct your thoughts to God.
The point was, even if you didn't understand the language, God did, and this service was all about Him, not about you. That's a healthy lesson that Modern Man would do well to learn today.
But now? It's all about Man. If he doesn't understand what's going on, then hey, stop everything - we'll reconstruct the whole liturgy and tailor-make it to fit your needs.
All of this is very interesting. But, if you're a "pre-Vatican II Catholic," does that mean you don't accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council?
Don't "accept" them? I don't know that I would go quite that far.
Well, ok, but you've obviously got some issues with the council, right?
I have issues with the way it's been interpreted by liberals in the Church, and with the way it's been applied to the Church by those same liberals.
So you're saying the council didn't really change anything of the Church's teachings?
Oh boy ... this is another can of worms altogether. Let's put this discussion off for a bit and we'll come back to it later, alright?
Good enough.
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