H/T to Cafeteria is Closed for this one. Cardinal Sean O’malley speaks about the Motu Propio on his blog. Here is a clipping from that post:
They shared with us the Motu Proprio and the Holy Father’s letter explaining it. We also had an opportunity to read the Latin document. We each commented on that, and then the Holy Father came in and shared some of his thoughts with us. The Holy Father is obviously most concerned about trying to bring about reconciliation in the Church. There are about 600,000 Catholics who are participating in the liturgies of the Society of St. Pius X, along with about 400 priest.
The Holy Father was very clear that the ordinary form of celebrating the Mass will be the new rite, the Norvus Ordo. But by making the Latin Mass more available, the Holy Father is hoping to convince those disaffected Catholics that it is time for them to return to full union with the Catholic Church.
So the Holy Father’s motivation for this decision is pastoral. He does not want this to be seen as establishing two different Roman Rites, but rather one Roman Rite celebrated with different forms. The Motu Propio is his latest attempt at reconciliation.
In my comments at the meeting I told my brother bishops that in the United States the number of people who participate in the Latin Mass even with permission is very low. Additionally, according to the research that I did, there are only 18 priories of the Society of St. Pius X in the entire country. Therefore this document will not result in a great deal of change for the Catholics in the U.S. Indeed, interest in the Latin Mass is particularly low here in New England.
In our archdiocese, the permission to celebrate the Latin Mass has been in place for several years, and I granted permission when I was in Fall River for a Mass down on the Cape. The archdiocesan Mass is now at Immaculate Mary of Lourdes Parish in Newton. It is well attended, and if the need arises for an extension of that we would, of course, address it.
This issue of the Latin Mass is not urgent for our country, however I think they wanted us to be part of the conversation so that we would be able to understand what the situation is in countries where the numbers are very significant . For example, in Brazil there is an entire diocese of 30,000 people that has already been reconciled to the Church.
Lack of Interest?
So Cardinal O’Malley seems to believe that the Pope only wanted American Bishops there to see what it’s like in other countries?? I say, Poppycock! The issue of the Tridentine is very significant to Catholics in America. While Cardinal O’Malley’s statements might be true about the number of people who partcipate in the Latin Mass when contrasted with the numbers who partcipate the New Mass, he doesn’t take into account the lack of accessibility and the lack of convenience the Tridentine Mass suffers.
What should be measured, is the amount of interest in the Tridentine which could very well be significant in America. In recent years we have seen that the Tridentine attracts large crowds whenever and wherever it makes a “brief” or first-time appearance: For example here. Also, recent statistics show a steady growth of interest in the Tridentine — take, for example, the stats which Colleen Carrol put forth in her book, “The New Faithful”:
- “Time Magazine reported in 1999 that the number of U.S. Catholic dioceses hosting the traditional Latin Mass had risen from 6 in 1990 to 131 in 1999, and more than 150,000 people attended them weekly. The article attributed the increase largely to “Gen-x interest” and quoted several young Mass-goers who were ‘part of a retro-revolt amongst U.S. Catholics.” (page 4)
- “In 1997, Fr. Willard Jabusch wrote a commentary piece for the Jesuit magazine America about the conservative bent of young Catholics. He discussed what he had seen as a priest who oversees Catholic campus ministry at the University of Chicago. Among other trends he had witnessed in the past decade, Jabusch noted student interest in the Latin Mass, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and the early Church Fathers, as well as, in the words of one young convert - ‘a church that will not be shifting under my feet.’ ” (page 81)
Clearly, over the years since the end of the Second Vatican Council there has been an increased interest in the Tridentine, especially amongst the younger generation. In San Diego, California where I somewhat regularly attend the Tridentine Mass, I have seen it grow siginificantly since I first stepped foot there in 1997. Today they have two Masses on Sundays, back then they had one.
Tridentine a means to influence the current liturgy
Finally, as Gerald had mentioned on his blog, Cardinal O’Malley fails to mention that Pope Benedict is no fan of the ordinary missal. And one of the reasons of the Pope for the Motu Propio is also to influence the new Mass; to get it back on track. Pope Benedict, before his Papacy, said,
“What happened after the Council (Vatican II) was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came the fabricated liturgy.”
And also:
: “We do at least need a new liturgical consciousness, to be rid of this spirit of arbitrary fabrication. Things have gone so far that Sunday litugy groups are cobbling together the liturgy for themselves. . . . The most important thing today is that we should regain respect for the liturgy and for the fact that it is not to be manipulated.”
So we know that the Pope is not happy with the state of the New Liturgy from the quotes above as well as numerous others. Again, not that the new liturgy itself is “wrong”, but that its implementation has been hijacked. Cardinal O’Malley’s blog post seems to suggest a lack of openness to the coming Motu Propio — implying, in my opinion, that Catholics of the United States can safely ignore this Motu Propio since it largely does not concern us due to lack of interest and that it is only an interest in other countries… One can only hope and pray that the Bishops of America will be receptive of the Motu Proprio and give the Tridentine as Karl Keating once stated, “a fair test”. To supress it further, I think would be a great disservice to the Church and disobedient.
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