The Latin Language in the Liturgy

One of the core issues in opposition to the Pauline Liturgical reform has been that “No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass”[i]. In this piece, I will attempt to elucidate and critique some of the reasons behind Paul VI's decision to move towards vernacular masses

He acknowledges the “the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin”[ii] and that it is “the speech of the Christian centuries”[iii] which brought “the prayer of our forefathers and our saints to our lips and gave us the comfort of feeling faithful to our spiritual past”[iv].Paul VI poses this; “We are giving up something of priceless worth. But Why?”[v], “The answer [he himself states] will seem banal, prosaic”[vi]. To avoid repetition I will analyse Paul VI’s reasoning concurrently as I present it.

He states his core principle of Liturgical reform “Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed”[vii]. I would agree, words without meaning are empty. However does this mean that the silken garments need to be discarded, to be trampled underfoot?

It is not wrong “that Catholics feel the need of a greater understanding of the sacred texts, from which they draw spiritual nourishment, and that they want to be more intimately involved in the action taking place in front of them”[viii]. It is their right and indeed obligation to understand the Catholic faith they profess. If the laity cannot understand what the prayers mean they will be robbed of great opportunities to unite themselves with the prayers of the Mass. This is the understanding of Prayer.

However, one must ask; is Latin even an obstacle? Paul VI states that as a result of the “greater simplicity of the ceremonies”[ix] “[t]he spiritual aspect [of the Mass] will be found to have greater richness”[x]. “If the divine Language kept [the Church] apart from”[xi] the people then it would be right and just to remove it. But did it? Archbishop Lefebvre, with a lifetime’s pastoral experience, stated “Union with God can be achieved as much by beautiful, heavenly music as by the general ambiance of the liturgical action: the sanctity and religious feel of the place, or it architectural beauty, or the fervour of the Christian community, or the dignity and devotion of the celebrant, or symbolic decorations, or the fragrance of the incense”[xii]. Simplifying the ceremonies has the opposite effect to enticing the laity to deeper spiritual communion. The laity “come away tired from a Mass which strives to bring itself down to the level of mankind instead of raising them to God”[xiii].

Is not the Pauline Mass robbing the Laity of their chance to Unite with God in the splendour of the Liturgy?Does not burdening the laity with the liturgy’s linguistic and semantic intricacies actually provide a barrier to true prayer, uniting one’s self with God? “If too much attention is given to the meaning of the words, they can even be an obstacle”[xiv].

The picture to the left is not merely for decoration. It quite proficiently answers the question I have just discussed. If I could choose a caption for this picture it would be ‘Susum Cordia’. The Mass is about raising your heart, not your mind, to God.

Paul VI states that his desired outcome for the new rite of Mass is that there will be “participation by every single one present, and an outpouring of spirit in communal charity”[xv] and with that “[t]he soul’s relationship with Christ and with the bretheren thus attains a new and vital intensity”[xvi]. With the Latin Tridentine Mass, every member of the faithful was free to participate as they required. If they wanted to actively assist with the prayers of the Priest they were able to by following the rite of Mass in their Missals, if they wanted to make private devotions which united them closely with God then they could. Now the faithful have had their sacred space intruded on by the so-called ‘active participation’. There is no longer any room for personality in the Mass. Perhaps it is a curious new form of authoritarian neo-Montanism; Rome wants every member of the faithful to think and feel exactly the same thing. With this Pauline Mass, however, what most people feel is nothing.

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[i] Pope Paul VI, Changes in Mass for greater Apostolate, Address to General Audience, 26-11-1969, Paragraph 8

[ii]  IBID

[iii] IBID

[iv] IBID, Paragraph 2

[v] IBID, Paragraph 9

[vi] IBID, Paragraph 10

[vii] IBID, Paragraph 11

[viii] Archbishop M. Lefebvre, Open Letter to confused Catholics, Chapter ‘You’re a Dinosaur’

[ix] Pope Paul VI, Changes in Mass for greater Apostolate, Address to General Audience, 26-11-1969, Paragraph 15

[x] IBID

[xi] IBID, Paragraph 12

[xii] Archbishop M. Lefebvre, Open Letter to confused Catholics, Chapter ‘You’re a Dinosaur’

[xiii] Archbishop M. Lefebvre, Open Letter to confused Catholics, Chapter ‘What they are doing to the Mass’

[xiv] IBID

[xv] Paragraph 16

[xvi] Paragraph 16

Popes celebrating the Tridentine Mass

Venerable Pius XII (R. 1939-1958)

Blessed John XXIII (R. 1958-1963)

Servant of God Paul VI (R. 1963-1978)

Albino Luciani, future
John Paul I (R. 1978)
(Picture not of Mass but taken before liturgical reforms)

Karol Wojtyła, future
Blessed John Paul II (R.1978-2005)

Joseph Ratzinger, future
Benedict XVI (R. 2005-) 

A brief apologia.

In my last article it may appear I am being disrespectful to Pope Paul VI. I wish to explicitly state I am not. I am firmly of the opinion that the Servant of God Papa Montini was a good man, both by virtue of his noble character and the Holy Office he occupied. I acknowledge fully the integrity and validity of his Papacy and Magisterium in the unbroken tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. I do however believe that while his pronouncements were valid, they were not sound. The decisions he made, especially regarding the Liturgy, were valid with the information and advice presented to him. However the advice and information presented were not necessarily, with the benefit of hindsight and retrospective theological discussion, correct. The Pontiff was not in error, but the pronouncements he made are flawed.

Abandoning the Altars

There is no denying the fact that Mass attendance in the post-Conciliar Church has plummeted. My question is thus; whose fault is it that Christ is left abandoned on the Altars?

I am going to be radical! I do not think it is the Laity’s fault, nor the fault of the Priesthood, not even the tenaciously erroneous Council’s Sacrosanctum Concilium. It is, quite simply, the fault of the Mass of Paul VI. My thesis is this; the Pauline Mass, promulgated in 1969, is so offensive to the Church, to Priests and Laity alike, that the Altars are left abandoned. 

Pope Paul VI

For generations, the faithful believed that Christ’s humiliation to the elements was enough for him to suffer and that the Church should raise their earthly liturgy to the highest language and art, but not the Modernists. No. Their ‘Cult of Man’ demanded further humiliation, to bring Christ that bit lower. Archbishop Lefebvre stated, the Modernists wanted the Eucharist “reduced to an everyday act, in commonplace surroundings, with commonplace utensils, attitudes and clothing”, and in the Pauline Mass they got what they wanted. Some further Lefebvre, the Pauline mass is “a Mass which strives to bring itself down to the level of mankind rather than raising [the laity] up to God”. The 1992 Catechism states "The Eucharist is 'the source and summit of the Christian life'", yet the Mass that the Church gives the laity today would have them not climb the mountain to reach the summit, to reach God, but have the mountain demolished so that God is dragged down to them.

The Pauline mass fails to elevate the people to God, rather it humiliates God and treats the Sacrifice like an everyday act. Saint Josemaría Escrivá said of the Mass in 1972 “Jesus has perhaps never been as badly treated as he is now in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar”. To any Catholic, with any sense of love for God, this Pauline Mass can only be offensive, therefore to preserve their sensibilities the laity keep, nay run away from the altar. 

Year of faith, year of foolishness? A warning for the Holy Father.

The Supreme Pontiff has decided that we shall soon have a ‘Year of Faith’ as a part of his programme of ‘ The new Evangelisation’; running from the 11^th October 2012 to the 24^th of November 2013. This year will begin on the day of the half-centenary of the Second Vatican Council. The key Theological features will be the teachings of Vatican II, the conciliar magisterium and the 1992 Catechism.

I have a question for the Holy Father; why are we glorifying the conciliar mentality that has damaged Holy Church more than Luther and Lenin combined?

Modernism and liberalism have infected the Ecclesia; an infection generated by the conciliar errors. As a result the Pews, the Seminaries and the Cloisters have never been so empty.

Perhaps this year would be better spent rediscovering the faith the Church once held? The new evangelisation is indeed a noble endeavour, to rejuvenate the Catholic Faith. No one can deny that the Church is in a perilous decline. We have to ask though, why does the Church need rejuvenating? It would be my opinion that the faith has been so withered, so wearied by a generation of modernism that naught but seismic endeavours, such as the ‘Year of Faith’, can rescue it from the brink.

This ‘Year of Faith’ can redemptive ignition for the Church, but to use it to enforce the conciliar errors would be foolishness in the extreme. Perhaps even fatally foolish. For once the errors become entrenched, no amount of encyclicals can eliminate them.