Tridentine mass soon to return?

I welcome the news that Pope Benedict XVI will soon be allowing Catholic churches to hold Tridentine masses.

A Washington Post report last Friday said:

“Pope Benedict XVI has drafted a document allowing wider use of the Tridentine Mass, the Latin rite that was largely replaced in the 1960s by Masses in English and other modern languages, a church official said yesterday.

“The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the pope told colleagues in September that he was writing the document “motu proprio,” a Latin phrase for on his own initiative, and that it was in its third draft.

‘”There will be a document, it will come out soon, and it will be significant,” the official said. Benedict “will not let this be sidetracked,” he added.”

It is not exactly surprising. The Pope has always been known as conservative. An Agence France Presse report said as far back as 1989, he wrote that reform of the liturgy “has become even more distant from what was intended by Vatican Two. We have a liturgy that has degenerated into a show, in which there is an attempt to make religion interesting with the help of fashionable follies and seductive moralizing maxims.”

I couldn’t agree more.

For the past ten years, I have been attending masses at the beautiful hillside Our Lady of Victories church of the Society of Saint Pius X at No. 2 Cannon Road in New Manila, Quezon City.

The SSPX is Roman Catholic congregation founded by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in Switzerland in 1970 to train traditional priests and keep the traditions of the Church opposing the drastic reforms decided by Vatican II (1962-1965 Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican) which was considered a major undertaking to make the Roman Catholic Church relevant to modern times.

One of the major reforms introduced by Vatican II was the change in the church liturgy. The Second Vatican Council called for the “full, conscious, active participation” of the laity in the Mass. As a result, the new Sunday Mass has three readings from Scripture, instead of two, and some may be done by lay people. The priest usually faces the congregation and must give a homily each Sunday; in the Tridentine Mass, the priest faces the altar, with his back to the congregation, and a sermon is optional.

While the Tridentine Mass contains only one version of the Eucharistic prayer – the moment when Catholics believe the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ – the new Mass offers nine additional versions.

The mass at Our Lady of Victories Church brings me back to my childhood days where women wore veils and communion was received at the altar communion rail, kneeling, and only from the priest. The whole ceremony, including the music, is solemn and glorious.

I follow the mass in Latin through my missal. No problem with the sermon (delivered by the priest facing the congregation) because it is in the language understood by the congregation. Sometimes it’s in English and sometimes, in Tagalog.

I was led to the SSPX in the 1992 by a friend in Paris. We used to attend mass at St. Nicholas du Chardonnet at the 5th arrondissement in the center of Paris, where six Sung masses are celebrated back to back Sundays.

The history of the occupancy of SSPX of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet is as controversial as the Society’s beginnings. In 1977 the growing number of “traditionalists” decided to take over the church and expelled the priests who were celebrating the New Mass (Novus Ordo). City authorities didn’t approve of it but SSPX was never expelled because it was decided that the public order resulting from an expulsion would be higher than that resulting from the illegal occupation.

Last Friday’s news report said “The change might, however, help to heal a rift between the Vatican and followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a French prelate who bitterly opposed the Second Vatican Council’s decisions. Benedict has reached out to Lefebvre’s followers, signaling that he would allow them to use the old Mass in return for their recognition of his authority.”

This supports what SSPX had been saying that that contrary to claims by some sectors that the Lefebvre’s followers have been excommunicated, “the regular negotiations still going on between the Holy Father and the Society of St. Pius X are proof that this Society has neither given way on Doctrine nor broken off with Rome.”

The SSPX insists that Archbishop Lefebvre was not among those excommunicated by Rome for consecrating four bishops without permission from the Pope. (He had to do it because he knew he was not going to live long and Rome was sitting on his petition to consecrate the bishops he had trained according to “traditional ways of the church.”)

The AFP report said the expected papal decree “threatens to complicate the life of the church.” It quoted Archbishop Robert Le Gall of Toulouse warning that “bi-ritualism would be difficult to manage. It would exacerbate differences between modernists and traditionalists and discourage those who had worked hard to develop a theology of the Mass.”

I agree it would not be easy. But Pope Benedict’s reaching out to them should make the traditionalists reassess their rigidity, especially their belief that theirs is the only way to salvation.

Much as I find the Tridentine Mass a more conducive form of worship I don’t think it’s the only way acceptable to God.

Nevertheless, I look forward to attending a mass in a neighborhood church with the priest setting the solemnity of the celebration with “Introibo ad altare dei” as he approaches the altar.