Thank you for your interesting postings here. Unfortunately, it seems that nobody was able to answer your questions. Of course, a profound study of the liturgies is a subject few people have mastered, especially in the traditionalist realm with scarce resources in areas such as the classical and more so semitic languages.

For a very detailed study of the Roman Rite and it's developement, I can only recommend Josef Jungmann's SJ "Missarum Sollemnia" (the two volume set, not the abridged one!). I have never seen a better historio-liturgical tome in regards to the Latin Rites.

I have tried to research the origins of the Roman Rite Mmass, and even from Catholic sources it seems that in early Western Europe there were a few Rites in use, the Mozarabic, the Milan, the Gallican, the Roman. Across the board standardisation didn't occur until the Protestant reformation and the Popes needed a united front to oppose the Prots.
http://www.rosarychurch.net/history/western.html

This depends very much were you start "early Western Europe". From the extant sources, we can be relatively certain that there was great unity in the basic structure for celebrating the Eucharist till the 4th century. That is of course apart from the texts and prayers to be improvised (or prepared beforehand) by the priest or bishop, but this was the case throughout the Christian world ("Everyone should pray according to his capabilities", Apostolic Tradition, Dix. 19, instructions for the bishop).

The differentiation started in the 4th century, with the Church grown in numbers and structures, necessitating fixed formulas for the celebration of the Mass.
While the reasons were good and wholesome, and I don't even want to go further into the details of the various forms of liturgies in the Western Church, until the romano-frankish type became the new dominant and basic form of the Western (and Roman) Rite.
But in the end, with too great a decentralisation, the disadvantages of too many forms became obvious. Cardinal Hosius laments in the Tridentine Council, that it went so far as different Rites took place in the same Church, much to the scandalization of the laity (Concilium Tridentinum ed Soc. Goerres. VIII., 916-921).

The traditionalist reader might be scandalized himself when reading the works of the liturgical commission abusus missae, who went as far as to proof whether terms like hostia immaculata, the signs of the cross after consecration, the prayer of mixing (Fiat commixtio in Italian missals) as well as the offertory of Requiem Masses were questionable theologically.
In the end, though, several decretals were formulated, but each time a shorter one was asked for, becoming the Decretum de observandis et evitandis in celebratione missae (XXII. sess. 17th Sept. 1562).

In the same session 22, canon 8., the Latin language was pronounced to be the only rightful one for the celebration. In the beginning of the comission, several reasons were brought forward (such as the "holiness of the language"), but were purposely not added at last. Decisive was the dominance of Latin as written language as well as the protestant rejection of the same.

But the goal of the Tridentine Reforms was not solely, nor even mainly, to create a common front against Protestantism. It was to return to the uncorrupted beginnings of Eucharistic celebration, which you can read in every Tridentine Missal till this day:
"...emendatis atque incorruptis codicibus..." and brought the Missal to "ad pristinam sanctorum Patrum normam ac ritum".

While the goal was clearly set to reach to older type of urbano-Roman Mass, the short time and few people working could not create a completely revised Ordo. Instead, the Italian Missals or Missals secundum usum Romanae Curiae remained the decisive basis. But in some areas harsh measures and purifications were still carried out, like the deletion of the Marian insertions into the Gloria, already an old tradition at the time of the Council.


What one has to see is, and this seems to be ignored by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox alike, is the organic life of the Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ. The beauty and splendor of the Church could only grew to the enrichments of tradition, the writings of the Church Fathers East and West, Roman and Byzantine and even Germanic elements. This is what makes the Church always young and alive, through the influx of the Grace of it's head, Christ, as it is written: "I became all things to all men, that I might save all." (1 Cor 9,22)

This is what means "Catholicity": to take Revelation as a whole, and making the whole alive through the enduring spirit of revelation in the magisterial office of the Church.

Tradition, in the Protestant sense, can only be found in Sacred Writ. For the Eastern Orthodox, it is not much different, it lies in ancient texts and councils. But for Catholics, it lives now and today, in each new declaration of Dogma, for example, with each new Congregation or form of piety. From the secret of the tabernacle to devotion to the Heart of Christ, the Stations of the Cross, the Rosary. If one wishes to take to word of the Lord to the fullest, to follow him (Mt. 19,21), the whole scale of Church development is open to one. Living as a hermit in the desert or as a teacher in the city, the Church gives great freedom and guidance alike. The young children in Christo it gives milk and not food, as St. Paul in Corinth, the older ones choosing their meaning of Abba, Father, for themselves, as Augustine said: Love - and you may do what you wish. But everything, behind and in everything stands the written and unwritten instinctus fidei, φρovημα εκκληστiκov.

In this sense, a returning to the fontes of Christianity, while not forgetting the whole of tradition and continued Revelation in Magisterium of the Church, a simplification and returning the ancient Roman model is an organic process by the means of grace. This is the great exitus and redditus of God in the small area of liturgy.

Another question i have is about the Eastern Catholics. Traditional Catholics are always going on about Latin (a language i love and want to learn), and putting forward persuasive arguments as to why a universal language is appropiate and why the vernacular should not be used, but how does this square away with Russian Rite Catholics using Old Slavonic, Byzantine Rite Catholics using Greek, and other Rites using Syrian, Arabic, etc? How can Traditionalists make a convincing argument that Phillipino's cant worship in their vernacular? I mean Greek has just as long, (if not longer), and just as important history (if not more) as Latin. I mean the New Testament was Greek, the East (the capital of the Empire) spoke primarily in Greek.... So why just Latin?

Very valid observations. What the Tridentine Council observed, namely that Latin is the primary language of literature, is no longer an argument. And indeed, Latin is not the only liturgical language in the Catholic Church, even long before the 2nd Vatican Council. There is the Diocesan Rituals, and not only the old languages of the Orient and the Slavic ones you mention, but even modern languages, such as Romanian in the Byzantine Mass of the united Romanians.
But even inside the ancient Roman Mass, we have beginnings into the same direction. The Glagolithian parishes with their old Slavonic, in the 14th century we have testimonies of Missionaries celebrating in Greek, Armenian, the Tartar language, and in 1618 and 1631 Arabian and Georgian was permitted. Paul V. (sic!) even already allowed the use of Chinese in 1615, although this privilege was no longer granted in 1670. Till the beginning of the 20th century, there were Armenian parishes in Transylvania which used the Dominican(!) Rite in Armenian language.

In all these arguments, it just seems to me that the Orthodox are on the more sensible side. Allowing each nationality to worship in it's own tongue and according to their local particularities, allowing for unity in diversity in Rites and languages used to worship, and avoiding the crass standardisation and universalisation of Rome in the last few hundred years (esp. the last 50).

With the splits and differences of Orthodox Churches, I do not know if one can really speak of an allowance of some authority. And if you look at the persecutions of the old-Orthodox, they did not seem to be very sensible. Also, they strongly enforced the use of a single liturgy out of the variances of the Eastern Rites, effectively suppressing the others.

When you have Russian Orthodox emigre's in France sponsoring the creation of French Orthodox Church to revive the ancient Gallican Rite, and English Orthodox trying to revive the ancient York Rites, and the Milan Synod doing their part to revive the ancient Western Rites, then you know somewhere along the lines (everyone has different dates) Rome went off the rails, so to speak. We all agree that she has, the SSPX put the date at Vatican II, but for the Orthodox she went off the rails a littler further back in time....

A revival of Rites seems to me like the reanimation of a rotten corpse. These rites were meant to be celebrated in their time, but a revival is anachronistic and self-complacent, taking the whole organic development of the Church out of the equation.  
St. Peter, Rome, is a rock. It is in it's very nature not to go off the rails easily, and if it would, the whole Church must fall with it, as it is built on this firm ground. "He promises to found the Church, assigning immovableness to it, as He is the Lord of strength, and over this He sets Peter as shepherd." (St. Cyril, Commentary on Matthew)

Your comparison of the SSPX with the Eastern Orthodoxy is very interesting to me, but my status as a guest on this forum does not allow me to comment further on this subject.