by Fred Moleck
Latin Rite Mass Revisited
Maybe six weeks ago, the TableTalk column “Latin Rite Mass 2006” dealt with the implications of permitting the celebration of the Latin rite. At that time, much of the Vatican “scuttle” reported that Pope Benedict XVI was ready to grant permission to any priest to celebrate the Latin rite Mass anytime he wanted do.All the sources close to the Vatican felt that the permission would be announced at any minute.
That didn’t happen.
In fact, it seems the permission is a top priority secret in the Roman Curia. If anyone knows anything about the permission’s status, they are not telling.
(Don’t you love ecclesial intrigue in the mode of The Da Vinci Code?)
What I listed were some of my concerns of such permission or yet one more document on rubrics from Rome.
In that TableTalk, I expressed practical concerns such as the placement of the altar, Mass scheduling, and high Mass and low Mass.
Well, I was pleased to see in John Allen, Jr.’s article in the World spot in the November 24 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, “Political, Practical Fallout Possible from Latin Mass Ruling.”
In his article there are a few sentences on why it would be really great if the permission were granted.
There are many more observations made on why that wouldn’t be such a good idea.
Allen cites a statement by Archbishop Gerard Defois of Lille, France, which appeared in Le Figaro:
. . . the problem lies not with the older Mass but “in the worldview of those who often proclaim themselves its defenders” [particularly in] “their refusal of an adaptation of the church to modern society” and “their integralist vision of the Gospel of Christ, which confuses the reign of God with that of human beings.
In the concluding section in Allen’s article are six questions posed by Viatorian Father Mark Francis on what would happen if the permission became official.
Francis observes that “there’s a pretty vast set of implications here that have not yet been adequately thought out.”
His statement has to win some prize in the art of understating a possible quagmire whose dimensions are enormous.
One problem that Francis describes is the lack of familiarity of the rites and rubrics by Catholic priests. Do funerals, weddings, and baptisms fall under this permission?
He looks to the requirements for a “low Mass” and “high Mass.” What repertory would be used?
My personal delight—and its almost fiendish—is that Francis’s list is like part 2 of the concerns I raised in “Latin Rite Mass 2006.”
Incidentally, that column was published some five weeks before this one.
Please make an effort to read the whole article in the November 24 issue of the National Catholic Reporter and begin immediately prayers for the rescue of the Vatican II church.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net