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Bene, Vidi, ViciPope Benedict XVI brings back the old Latin Mass—but will Catholics embrace it?

By Andrew SantellaPosted Monday, July 9, 2007, at 5:27 PM ET

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Previously, Andrew Santella wondered why Catholics have stopped going to confession. After Pope John Paul II died, Daniel Engber explained how often Latin is used in the Sistine Chapel, and Dana Stevens parsed the Latin used by Fox News. Michael McGough looked at who owns the word Catholic.

Writing in Commonweal in 2000, Bill Shuter called the Tridentine Mass "a solemn rite of extraordinary power" that "may be re-enacted daily, but is no everyday action." Traditionalists prefer the power of Latin to what they see as the banality of the liturgy in English. And many Catholics associate the Latin Mass with the church's glorious heritage of ancient music and solemnity in worship—a heritage some say has been lost in the liturgical changes that have been enacted over the last few decades.

One of the most visible critics of the liturgical changes of the 1960s and afterward was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI. In his 2000 book, Ratzinger wrote of reformed liturgies: "Less and less is God in the picture. … [T]he 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." Such criticisms led most observers to assume that, as pontiff, he would make encouraging liturgical traditionalism a priority.

But for some progressive Catholics, even a limited comeback for the Latin Mass would spell a disturbing retreat to the inflexible hierarchies and what they see as the anachronistic services of the old pre-Vatican II church.

Though some of the thorniest issues the church has to contend with—the role of women in the church and priestly sexuality, to name just a couple—are not directly related to the liturgy, debates about the ways Catholics worship on Sunday mornings often produce the most heat and the greatest divisions. And coming to terms with changes in the Mass that followed the Second Vatican Council has, for some Catholics, taken decades.

In his book A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America, Peter Steinfels, who writes the weekly Beliefs column in the New York Times, called the post-council changes in liturgy "a kind of Copernican revolution in Catholic worship. The basic truths—the sun, the stars, Earth and other planets of the faith, were still there, by they were strikingly reconfigured."

Catholics who have attended a Tridentine high Mass, or "sung" Mass, complete with choirs, plainchant, and the attendant "smells and bells" ritual, know it can be a transcendent occasion. But, as Steinfels and others have pointed out, it's all too easy to romanticize the old Latin Mass. Many Catholic churches celebrated the so-called low Mass, with the priest quietly speaking his part at the altar in Latin and the congregation standing by silently—and too often, lifelessly. According to the Catholic News Service, even then-Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged in public statements that some aspects of the old low Mass left much to be desired.

Certainly, readier access to the Latin Mass would thrill the core of liturgical old-schoolers who have longed for its return. But how many mainstream American Catholics would be interested in attending a Latin Mass? Some of the largest and most passionate Catholic congregations I've seen have been in churches whose services have veered far from the pre-council standard and toward something more resembling an evangelical megachurch service: video screens, pop-influenced worship bands, a breezy informality in the pews.

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But ideological debates aside, perhaps the most practical—and unanswered—question is this: For four decades, Latin was largely neglected in the church (and in Catholic schools). How many Catholic priests—many of them, like me, having come of age after the reforms of the 1960s—could muster enough Latin to offer a convincing Tridentine service?

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Andrew Santella's essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and GQ.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

It happens I served mass for two years under the Latin Rite, from 1962 to 1964, and three when the English came in. Somehow, all of us 10 and 11 year old altar boys knew the translations of the prayers we memorized and recited without reference to texts during Mass, although when the English was adopted we were allowed to use cheat sheets, which lacked decorum.

Then in High School most of us had two years of Latin, at the end of which we were expected to be able to translate Caesar's Commentaries, and the better Latin students, of which I was not one, went on to read Ovid, Cicero and Virgil for the next two years, with a year of Greek as a bonus.

When it was time for my children to attend High School some twenty or so years later, it emerged that there are Catholic High Schools in which Latin is not taught, at all. So I said to one of the Priests, in all piety, during an Open House in one such school, "What happened to the "Roman" in "Roman Catholic?" He shrugged and smiled.

We just absolutely cannot afford to lose the mother tongue of our Church, of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and so many of the Church Fathers. You won't find the Greek Orthodox and the Jews dispensing their children from the discipline of their religious language, for the simple reason they appreciate the language itself is water to the root of faith.

The Latin is to the English as Poetry is to Prose - consider the "Ave Maria" - just how would you translate that particular jewel of Western European art, beautifully, into English?

Personally I would prefer a hybrid Mass of Latin and English, with the Greek "Kyrie" maintained as well, and hopefully many Pastors will see fit to bring their parishes up to a level of understanding at least small portions of the Latin Mass. Meanwhile, if you have a chance to attend a Latin Rite mass, you will find translations and instructions provided, and there will be no nonsense like talking in the pews, as if you're at a ballgame! The women folk should not forget to wear a hair covering of some sort, and most people take a little trouble to dress up. Enjoy!

--jerseypal

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Emotion transcends language. Passion transcends language. But flat out education does not. How can you make me know that Jesus loves me...that there is one true God...that I shouldn't be an alcoholic because the Bible says my body is a temple if you are speaking Latin to me and I only speak English? Church service - Bible reading - is about education in order that the Gospel should be spread and the world would come to know the Lord. At some point, beyond the beautiful music and smells and ceremony, there must be true connect and communication.

--tulipsandmusic

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I attend a Latin (Tridentine) Mass weekly at St. Patrick's in New Orleans. It always has quite a large and diverse attendance--it's not just old ladies but many people who were born during or after Vatican II.

Also, people need to remember that the Novus Ordo Mass (the one most of us have been attending since 1970) at the Vatican is celebrated mostly in Latin to this day. It is still the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Any Catholic priest anywhere has the right to celebrate a Novus Ordo Mass in Latin. (Incidentally, the "Latin Mass" isn't entirely in Latin but includes Ancient Greek and Aramaic as well.)

The homily (sermon) is and to my knowledge always has been in the vernacular. Few priests have the ability to preach in Latin, and what would be the point?

The Bible readings are usually done in the vernacular also, or else a translation is provided.

Also, Latin/vernacular missals have been around for hundreds of years. The Latin is on one page, the vernacular translation is on the facing page. They also usually include descriptions of what is happening and WHY at key points of the Mass, and the Bible readings/changeable prayers for individual Masses. It takes a couple of weeks to learn to follow along, but it is not hard once you get used to it. These missals are widely available used on Ebay and I think a company out of Metairie, Louisiana, puts out an inexpensive reprint of the 1960 St. Joseph Sunday Missal.

--Leeandra

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