www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Ecclesia Dei mandates the Gregorian Latin Mass in all parishes.

According to a updated translation @ the NLM blog, "the Holy Father would like the Gregorian Rite in all parishes "

james

Well, from what my friend told me, the South-East Asian bishops have written to the Pope telling the Pope that they will not endorse the Traditional Latin Mass for the simple reason that a lot of Malaysians don't even understand English well enough to mandate the use of an English-Latin missal. They made mention of this during their ad limina visit recently.

However, this should only mandate a slight change in the rubrics; allowing the traditional Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular.

Why don't they use a Malay-Latin missal, or whatever language they choose?

Do whatever was done before Mass was allowed in the vernacular, right? I might be wrong, but it doesn't seem like rocket science. I bet the rules don't have to be changed.

As good as this news is, I can already hear the down side to it. In some parishes you'll have people saying "I don't know why we have the mass in Latin, when only a handful of people go to it" To which my reply will be, "I don't know why we still have mass in the vernacular when it coincided with people leaving the church in droves"

It's my understanding that the Malay are mainly Muslim. The Catholics in Malaysia are from Chinese background, and there are Latin-Chinese Missals, that's not a problem.

I think this is not a valid reason.

Or, perhaps, "I don't know why we have the mass in English, when nobody pays any attention to the words, anyway."

After viewing the Divine Liturgy today at the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec (very dignified, very "participatory", even thought the venue, as the Archbishop mentioned, was not as good as a true Byzantine parish or cathedral), and in spite of only "understanding" the English and French words, I was left with the same feeling of "fulness" as when I attend the EF of the Roman Rite -- words (except for the priests) aren't really necessary!

Michael

If one understands that the Divine Liturgy moves the hearts of the faithful to repentance through metanoia, and then towards thanksgiving (Eucharist) and theosis, then no matter what liturgical language is used (Latin, Greek, Arabic or Slavonic), God does work through the Priest so that we can share in the Holy Mystery. I have been to Divine Liturgies in Romanian, Serbian, Greek, Church Slavonic, and in Arabic. Through prayer, I understood the movements and the actions of the priest, so that I was a full participant.



Exactly. Another excuse to avoid Latin at any cost and to delay the inevitable if at all possible. Of course, time will tell. A future pope may reverse this whole procession toward the Latin and revert back to the NO. I pray not.

Come Lord Jesus and save us.

I often wonder what would have happened if instead of a new Mass, the old one was moved to the vernacular a bit at a time.



I've ended up at Masses in Spanish a couple of times, and (except for the Homily :), wasn't at a loss, even with my limited Spanish.

When in Amsterdam for a conference, I stumbled upon a Roman Catholic church--about the last thing I would have expected. It hadn't been "updated"--it still had the altar rail, and even the pulpit a third of the way into the church.

Anyway, I recognized the cadence up front, and realized it must be the Rosary, and that likely meant Mass was following shortly, and I stuck around.

I was amazed that I could follow one sentence of Dutch, yet be completely lost by the next . . . but I sure recognized the mass.

Oh, and they still used the altar rail, too . . .

On the other hand, I'm not sure I would have reacted the same way if the first Divine Liturgy I stumbled into hadn't been in English. It wasn't just the reverence, but the way the complete faith was stated that knocked me over.

hawk

No... Unfortunately, most Chinese are not Catholics. The Chinese community only makes a fraction of the Catholic community. Most Catholics in Malaysia are Tamil-speaking. In addition to them, there are also indigenous Malaysians like the Kadazans, Bidayuhs, Melanaus who are also Catholic. These indigenous Malaysians who live in the remote areas of Malaysia speak no Malay nor English.

Hawk,

Sure it wasn't SSPX? LOL. But seriously.

Alexis

Hawk - from your description of the Church and the Mass you attended in Amsterdam, it is at least possible that this was an Old Catholic church. Interesting.

Fr. Serge

Could this church be found through an online search?

Believe it or not, but Amsterdam has a stable community of orthodox Catholics. There are even four churches in Amsterdam alone that regularly offer the Novus Ordo in Latin, plus a TLM community. Surely there are Catholic churches in Amsterdam that are thoroughly Catholic in look, feel and reality.

It is the Old Catholics of the Little Church in Utrecht who have liberalized to the point of no return. They are now down to just 1,000 churchgoers and another 4,000 non-practicing believers.

You and Alex have both made my heart skip a beat . . .

But it's couldn't have been SSPX--the language was definitely Germanic. And' I'm pretty sure that it said "Roman Catholic," not "Catholic" on the outside.

I took a whole bunch of pictures; I'll try to see if they're currently on any of my computers.

hawk

EM:

Not to be involved in "one-up-manship," but this sort of treatment of the laity has gone on much longer than just recently. Three of my family--all devout Catholics--were denied final ministrations by a parochial vicar because he "didn't touch dead people." Incidentally he knew more than the doctors attending them in the emergency room--they hadn't been pronounced dead at the time he was called, arrived, and turned and left. In each case he didn't even bother to stay and comfort the relatives in attendance or even offer to pray with them. The years were 1982, 1984, and 1987, and the town was a small on in northwest PA.

The pastor flatly said he didn't visit hospitals, homes, or nursing homes. People could either deal with the lay people or do without.

BOB