Here are several interesting items concerning the Traditional Mass, the new Mass and Vatican II, that seemed worth capturing in a post.
The first is from an interview with Mons. Domenico Bartolucci, Maestro Perpetuo of the Sistine Chapel under five Popes, posted on Rorate Caeli blog. There is still a lot of life in this 82-year-old priest:
To tell the truth, I have always and without interruption celebrated [the Traditional Latin Mass] since my ordination … on the contrary, I sometimes found it difficult to celebrate according to the modern rite, even if I never said so.
I beg your pardon, but the reform [of the Mass] was done by arid people, arid, arid, I repeat it. And I knew them. As for the doctrine, Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli himself, once said, I remember it well: “How come that we make liturgists who know nothing about theology?”
... Look here, to defend the old rite is not the same as being a worshipper of ancient times; it is to be “eternal”. You see, when one gives the traditional mass names like “Mass of Saint Pius V” or “Tridentine” one is wrong, it makes it seem as if it is a mass belonging to a certain epoch. It is our Mass, the Roman universal Mass, valid everywhere and in all times, a single language spoken from the Oceania to the Arctic’s.
The second item is from another lively octogenarian priest in Rome who has recently written a book about Vatican II. The whole article by Brother André Marie can be found at Catholicism.org:
Monsignor Gherardini laments a “misguided ecumenism, in search of what unites, rather than of what divides. … We entered into a new spirit of conciliation, adaptation, resignation, wary of other people’s preconditions, almost as though we believed, perhaps without admitting it, that the truth was on the other side. Should somebody ask me whether modernism was ultimately let into the very fabric of the Council’s documents to the point that the Fathers themselves were infected by it, my answer would be yes and no. ...My answer is also yes, because modernistic ideas still can be found in several Council documents, notably in Gaudium et Spes, and a few prominent Council Fathers were openly sympathetic to old and new modernists.
The third item is about some pleasant reforms to the unpleasant Novus Ordo Mass. It seems that the American bishops are bowing to Pope Benedict's will and righting the incredibly wrong and scandalous translation foisted on the masses almost 40 years ago. Excerpts of the new translation, due out next year, can be found at the USCCB website.
The greatest fix, and most welcome, is the restoration of Our Lord's words in the consecration of the wine, "for you and for many." Other corrections include the Gloria (major restoration), the Creed (I believe, not "we"), and the Domine, non sum dignus ("my soul shall be healed"). The latter is interesting given that the new rite suppressed the term "soul" according to then-Bishop Joseph Ratzinger in 1977.
The final issue regards the ever-lurking "reform of the reform," from an article on the Rorate Ceali blog:
In today's (Aug 22, 2009) edition of Italian daily Il Giornale, religious journalist Andrea Tornielli brings the news that several "propositiones" approved by the plenary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (reserved session held on March 12, 2009) regarding several reforms of the new Mass of Paul VI. The Cardinals and Bishops members of the Congregation voted almost unanimously in favor of a greater sacrality of the rite, of the recovery of the sense of eucharistic worship, of the recovery of the Latin language in the celebration, and of the remaking of the introductory parts of the Missal in order to put a stop to abuses, wild experimentations, and inappropriate creativity. They have also declared themselves favorable to reaffirm that the usual way of receiving Communion according to the norms is not on the hand, but in the mouth.
As to where this is all leading, Tornielli recently published some letters of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who in 2003 wrote of his desire to have one Roman rite:
Nevertheless I believe that in the long term the Roman church once again must have only one Roman rite. In practice, the existence of two official rights would be difficult for bishops and priests to ‘manage.’ The Roman rite of the future should be one, celebrated in Latin or in the vernacular, but completely in the tradition of the rite that was handed down to us. This could include some new elements that have been experienced as valid such as the new feasts, some new prefaces for Mass, an extended lectionary — with more choices than before, but not too many — a ‘oratio fidelium,’ that is, a fixed litany of intercessions that follow the ‘Oremus’ before the offertory, which is where it had been placed.
Does "one Roman rite" mean that the Traditional Latin Mass is going to be merged (synthesized) with the modern Mass? How will it accommodate the "litany of intercessions that follow the ‘Oremus’ before the offertory?" If a synthesis occurs, could the Traditional Missal actually be banned?
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