Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => SSPX Resistance News => Topic started by: SeanJohnson on September 06, 2019, 02:42:28 PM
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Received this in my email from the new priest:
Dear Faithful,
May God bless you all!
It is the custom for every low Mass at the Academy chapel to be a dialogue Mass. I understand there is a little confusion as to which prayers are to be recited by the faithful at such Masses.
This e-mail is just to clarify. The prayers recited by the faithful include:
- the responses said by the altar boys
- the commons of the Mass (i.e. Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei)
- the Domine Non Sum Dignus before the communion of the faithful
I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions.
In the Immaculate Heart,
Fr. Graziano
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How much time has to pass for something to become a custom? :(
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Received this in my email from the new priest:
Dear Faithful,
May God bless you all!
It is the custom for every low Mass at the Academy chapel to be a dialogue Mass. I understand there is a little confusion as to which prayers are to be recited by the faithful at such Masses.
This e-mail is just to clarify. The prayers recited by the faithful include:
- the responses said by the altar boys
- the commons of the Mass (i.e. Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei)
- the Domine Non Sum Dignus before the communion of the faithful
I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions.
In the Immaculate Heart,
Fr. Graziano
Dear Faithful,
One added clarification: the e-mail below should read that it is the custom for every public low Mass at the Academy chapel to be a dialogue Mass.
Thank you and God bless.
In the Immaculate,
Fr. Graziano
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Dear Faithful,
One added clarification: the e-mail below should read that it is the custom for every public low Mass at the Academy chapel to be a dialogue Mass.
Thank you and God bless.
In the Immaculate,
Fr. Graziano
Hi Sean,
Did you reply to his e-mail to ask for a clarification on "what custom?" as Dialogue Masses were not the custom in the USA, and it was not the custom in your SSPX chapel nor was it the custom in all he Catholic Church before 1930.
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Hi Sean,
Did you reply to his e-mail to ask for a clarification on "what custom?" as Dialogue Masses were not the custom in the USA, and it was not the custom in your SSPX chapel nor was it the custom in all he Catholic Church before 1930.
Hello Mr. G-
I was tempted to respond, but there really would be no point.
I am pretty sure his answer (which would be dictated to him from Chicago) would be something along the lines of, "It has been the custom at the Academy."
What people from other states might not know is that the chapel is on a separate property from the chapel, and the two are about 40 miles apart: The chapel is located in St. Paul proper, and the Academy is located about 40 miles to the north.
Apparently, this odd arrangement came about when a family who lived up north donated land for the academy, thus splitting the parish.
Ever since, there has been a dilemna for families: Should we locate near the chapel where weekly Mass will be, or up at the Academy where our children will go to school.
About 70% of the chapel's total population live closer to the school, as they chose to locate there to eliminate the driving burden (as we did).
Yet, they made the odd decision to have no regularly scheduled Masses at the Academy chapel (which is about the same capacity as the St. Paul chapel).
Consequently, the majority of parishioners are forced to brave the treacherous Minnesota winter (and the last couple years we have had snow in May, and 10+ inch snowfalls in April) to make 80-100 mile round trips (which, depending on road conditions, might take hours each way).
The rationale given is that the SSPX does not want to split the parish (WHY??), thereby burdening the parishioners.
And now this enforcement of "all low Masses being dialogue Masses" means that unless the people can take an active part, the SSPX won't say Mass (like in the Novus Ordo): You either sing or talk. No other option.
The SSPX is going to pound "active participation" = vocal participation into you one way or the other.
Rome is smiling.
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It is the custom for every low Mass at the Academy chapel to be a dialogue Mass. I understand there is a little confusion as to which prayers are to be recited by the faithful at such Masses.
This e-mail is just to clarify. The prayers recited by the faithful include:
- the responses said by the altar boys
- the commons of the Mass (i.e. Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei)
- the Domine Non Sum Dignus before the communion of the faithful
I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions.
In the Immaculate Heart,
Fr. Graziano
The dialogue mass is a novelty that never went anywhere in English speaking countries, but caught on in France. In the USA 23% of Catholics go to mass on Sundays, in France less then 4%. France is not a place to emulate. The dialogue mass is effeminate, it is likely one of the reasons that no men go to mass in France.
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The dialogue mass is a novelty that never went anywhere in English speaking countries, but caught on in France. In the USA 23% of Catholics go to mass on Sundays, in France less then 4%. France is not a place to emulate. The dialogue mass is effeminate, it is likely one of the reasons that no men go to mass in France.
Wasn't the dialog mass used in convents and monasteries of nuns?
Remote monasteries out in the country and on mountain tops do not have the luxury of small boys coming to serve Mass.
When I was in the monastery, the nuns would say the responses to the Latin Mass, and the nuns would chant all the hours of the Divine Office. We never had any altar boys.
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I found out Saint Mary's has dialogue Mass for the High School and started some of the grade school kids. Getting them ready for the switch over to Novus Ordo.
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I found out Saint Mary's has dialogue Mass for the High School and started some of the grade school kids. Getting them ready for the switch over to Novus Ordo.
Ditto at my chapel school.
It is likely done at all SSPX schools and as you state "Getting them ready for the switch over to Novus Ordo".
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Looking back at the Mass during persecutions even at homes or farm fields in USA, there weren’t dialogue Masses.
Dialogue Masses are distracting from prayer and can be mechanical.
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Wasn't the dialog mass used in convents and monasteries of nuns?
If memory serves—I cannot locate the specific docuмent at this moment—the original indult for celebration of Mass where the server's responses were voiced by the congregation was issued in the early 1920s by Pius XI to a specific convent. That is, it was a permission granted as an exception to a rule, and it was granted to cloistered religious, not to lay Catholics en masse. (As Pius XI celebrated Mass in dialogue form precisely twice in his life, he can hardly be said to have been an active proponent of the practice. Similarly, his predecessor, Benedict XV, used the dialogue form just once.)
The limited permission, however, was seized upon by liturgical "reformers" to such an extent that in 1922 the Curia's Congregation of Rites formally recommended against the use of congregational response and prefaced its remarks by saying, "Things that in themselves are licit are not always expedient."
The material linked here (https://dialoguemass.blogspot.com/) and here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/9u7t36mt4b7m246/DIALOGUE%20MASS%20BOOKLET.pdf?dl=0) may be found helpful.
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If memory serves—I cannot locate the specific docuмent at this moment—the original indult for celebration of Mass where the server's responses were voiced by the congregation was issued in the early 1920s by Pius XI to a specific convent. That is, it was a permission granted as an exception to a rule, and it was granted to cloistered religious, not to lay Catholics en masse. (As Pius XI celebrated Mass in dialogue form precisely twice in his life, he can hardly be said to have been an active proponent of the practice. Similarly, his predecessor, Benedict XV, used the dialogue form just once.)
The limited permission, however, was seized upon by liturgical "reformers" to such an extent that in 1922 the Curia's Congregation of Rites formally recommended against the use of congregational response and prefaced its remarks by saying, "Things that in themselves are licit are not always expedient."
The material linked here (https://dialoguemass.blogspot.com/) and here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/9u7t36mt4b7m246/DIALOGUE%20MASS%20BOOKLET.pdf?dl=0) may be found helpful.
First-year seminarians learned this in Fr. Iscara's Liturgy I class, in which he read from the (French-language) memoirs of Dom Lambert Beauduin (proto-liturgical modernist).
The latter helped organize experimental liturgical conferences in Assisi, Mont Cesar, Maria Laach, St. Michael's Abbey, and elsewhere, in which the new ideas were proliferated, and a subversive marketing plan to sieze indults from known modernist bishops like Cardinal Mercier (now coming back up to surface in the reign of Benedict XV, who suppressed the Sodalitium Pianum) was hatched.
In this way, the modernist experimenters/subversives would broaden their base, and expand their network, which safely hidden from the public eye by the monastic cloister and episcopal protection/sponsorship.
Hand missals with Latin-vernacular translations, dialogue, versus populum, and all manner of modernism were contrived from these monastic conferences, and placed under the protection of the modernist bishops, who in turn acted as liasons between the reformers and Rome, helping to create the fictitious impression that there was a groundswell of support for these innovations (as though that should have justified the non-Catholic liturgical movement, already modernist by 1920).
After learning all this, we would head off to the chapel every Saturday for....the Dialogue Mass.
Completely incoherent, but that's the way it was (and probably still is).
PS: I have often wondered if the SSPX thinks to have learned from the success of these subversive modernist liturgists, and emulated their plan with regard to their ralliement with modernist Rome (e.g., all the secrecy and Roman/diocesan networking, etc.).
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First-year seminarians learned this in Fr. Iscara's Liturgy I class, in which he read from the (French-language) memoirs of Dom Lambert Beauduin (proto-liturgical modernist).
The latter helped organize experimental liturgical conferences in Assisi, Mont Cesar, Maria Laach, St. Michael's Abbey, and elsewhere, in which the new ideas were proliferated, and a subversive marketing plan to sieze indults from known modernist bishops like Cardinal Mercier (now coming back up to surface in the reign of Benedict XV, who suppressed the Sodalitium Pianum) was hatched.
In this way, the modernist experimenters/subversives would broaden their base, and expand their network, which safely hidden from the public eye by the monastic cloister and episcopal protection/sponsorship.
Hand missals with Latin-vernacular translations, dialogue, versus populum, and all manner of modernism were contrived from these monastic conferences, and placed under the protection of the modernist bishops, who in turn acted as liasons between the reformers and Rome, helping to create the fictitious impression that there was a groundswell of support for these innovations (as though that should have justified the non-Catholic liturgical movement, already modernist by 1920).
After learning all this, we would head off to the chapel every Saturday for....the Dialogue Mass.
Completely incoherent, but that's the way it was (and probably still is).
PS: I have often wondered if the SSPX thinks to have learned from the success of these subversive modernist liturgists, and emulated their plan with regard to their ralliement with modernist Rome (e.g., all the secrecy and Roman/diocesan networking, etc.).
About Dom Lambert Beauduin from:
How Firm A Foundation: Leaders of the Liturgical Movement, (pp. 23–28) by Richard G. Leggett.
http://liturgicalleaders.blogspot.com/2011/10/lambert-beauduin-osb.html (http://liturgicalleaders.blogspot.com/2011/10/lambert-beauduin-osb.html)
"Heart and Soul of the Belgian Liturgical Movement
Beauduin’s nascent commitment to the liturgy came to flower during 1908–1910. Sometime prior to 1909, Beauduin was said to have burst into the class he was to teach and to have exploded, “I’ve just realized that the liturgy is the center of the piety of the church!” In 1909, Beauduin presented a paper on the liturgy at Malines and in November, the journal Questions liturgiques (later Questions liturgiques et paroissales) began publication with Beauduin as editor. In June of 1910, the first Liturgical Week was held at Mont César. The goal of the early liturgical movement was “to restore Christian spirituality [and] the means proposed was the restoration of the parochial High Mass on Sunday, with full participation.”
From 1909 until 1921, Beauduin was the heart and soul of the Belgian liturgical movement. Such activity was not welcomed in all quarters and Beauduin’s critics were many. In response to his critics, Beauduin wrote his only monograph, La piété de l’église (Liturgy, the Life of the Church, English edition, 1926), published on the eve of World War I. In a memorable chapter entitled “The Sad Consequences of the Present Condition,” Beauduin enumerates the results of the failure to maintain the liturgy as the center of true Christian piety: individualism, abandonment of prayer, deviations of piety, the secular spirit and the lack of hierarchical life. Later in the book, Beauduin gives his goals for the liturgical movement:
Behind these goals for liturgical renewal lay Beauduin’s own reflection on his experience of and attitudes toward the liturgy prior to his “awakening”:
You’ll excuse my frankness, but the missal was for me a closed and sealed book. And this ignorance extended not only to the variable parts [of the Mass], but even to the unchanging parts and principally to the canon . . . Even the great and perfect acts of worship, the principal end of the Mass, of participation in the sacrifice in communion with the body of the Lord, the spiritual offering of our good acts . . . in short, none of the great realities that the eucharistic liturgy constantly puts into act, nor one dominated my eucharistic piety. . . . Visits to the Blessed Sacrament had a more vital role in my piety than the act of sacrifice itself.
In 1921, Beauduin was appointed to serve as professor of fundamental theology at Sant’ Anselmo. These years saw the awakening of Beauduin’s awareness of the Christian East. He developed plans for a biritual monastery of Benedictine monks (to be located at Amay) who, by their knowledge and love of both Latin and Eastern rites, theology and piety, would serve as a witness to the East and foster eventual unity. By 1926, he had received permission to begin a monastery with five novices.
Within a month of opening its doors, Amay received canonical status from the Congregation for the Oriental Church. Irénikon, a journal devoted to the study of the Eastern church, began publication the same year. Beauduin’s vision of the unity of the church extended westward as well; contacts with Anglicans during World War I had quickened his interest in and participation (by correspondence) in the Malines Conversations. Opposition to his openness to Anglicanism and to his work at Amay (both from Benedictine superiors and curial officials) resulted in Beauduin’s eventual ecclesiastical exile from Belgium.
Exile from Belgium
It was during the period of Beauduin’s professorship at Sant’ Anselmo that his influence was transported to the North American continent. A young American monk, Virgil Michel, came to Rome to study. He quickly absorbed the teaching of Beauduin and was inspired to begin the liturgical apostolate on his return to the United States.
From 1931 to 1951, Beauduin was forbidden to return to Amay or Mont César or to enter Belgium. During this period, he served as a chaplain to two convents in France. He traveled widely and wrote frequently. In 1943, he was among the founders of the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique in Paris. In 1944, Beauduin renewed an old friendship with the papal nuncio to France, Angelo Roncalli (later John XXIII).
Beauduin’s exile ended in 1951 and he returned to the monastery he had founded (low located at Chevetogne). There he lived in an active retirement, despite the crippling effects of rheumatoid arthritis, until his death on January 11, 1960.
At his death, Beauduin knew that his vision slowly was coming to fruition. Chevetogne was thriving; Roncalli had been elected pope and called a council; the liturgical movement was alive and well on all fronts. Although Beauduin did not live to see it, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury would visit both the pope and the ecuмenical patriarch in 1960. Beauduin was, as his American biographer said, “a prophet vindicated.”
In that biography, Sonya Quitslund states: “Beauduin had an insatiable thrist for unity. At first envisaged in rather narrow lines and somewhat hesitantly, unity soon became the predominant passion of his entire life.” His commitment to liturgical renewal was part of this passion. In the liturgy, the faithful were united with one another, the congregation with the church and the church with Christ. Furthermore, Beauduin was aware that the purpose of the incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ and the descent of the Spirit was, and is, to lead humanity to the Father. Thus, unity with Christ in the liturgy serves to draw humanity closer to the one whom Christ called “Abba.” In this bosom, humanity would find its unity.
Beauduin’s contribution to the life of the church is substantial. Several of the journals he founded still are important means of research and communication. The monastery of Chevetogne continues to witness to Beauduin’s vision of ecclesial unity. The fullness of that vision still awaits its time."
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The Dialogue Mass is not and never was the custom of English speaking countries. This is all that an American has to say. We are required to know our own customs, so that we can discern change. A change like the Dialogue Mass can be a priest winging it, inventing his own thing, or a priest from another country doing it as it is done in his country, or a mix of both. We are not required to know what is done in every other country. If we changed the customs for every priest that comes to this country it would be chaos. Americans do not need to know anything about the Dialogue Mass one way or the other.
The Dialogue Mass is not and never was the custom of English speaking countries. This is all that an American has to say.
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The Dialogue Mass is not and never was the custom of English speaking countries. This is all that an American has to say. We are required to know our own customs, so that we can discern change. A change like the Dialogue Mass can be a priest winging it, inventing his own thing, or a priest from another country doing it as it is done in his country, or a mix of both. We are not required to know what is done in every other country. If we changed the customs for every priest that comes to this country it would be chaos. Americans do not need to know anything about the Dialogue Mass one way or the other.
The Dialogue Mass is not and never was the custom of English speaking countries. This is all that an American has to say.
More than this, it was not the custom anywhere in the world 100 years ago.
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I'm new to the notion of the dialogue Mass. At first mention, it's not comfortable to me, nor is it my custom. To be thorough, where can I read up on its history? I would like to know my customs and level of comfort are founded on the true culture of the Faith, and not protestant, anglican, english isms.
cz
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I'm new to the notion of the dialogue Mass. At first mention, it's not comfortable to me, nor is it my custom. To be thorough, where can I read up on its history? I would like to know my customs and level of comfort are founded on the true culture of the Faith, and not protestant, anglican, english isms.
cz
Here's a 5 minute presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGXmgWQ7WCo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGXmgWQ7WCo)
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Here's a book-length study, broken up into 75+ installments (this being the first):
https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f073_Dialogue_1.htm (https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f073_Dialogue_1.htm)
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More than this, it was not the custom anywhere in the world 100 years ago.
That is correct, it was a novelty invented in the 1920's. If the French really had been living the Faith, they would have kept their customs and rejected the novelty, and it would not even exist today.
What I said applies to every country including France:
The Dialogue Mass is not and never was the custom of English speaking countries France. This is all that an American a Frenchman has to say. We are required to know our own customs, so that we can discern change. A change like the Dialogue Mass can be a priest winging it, inventing his own thing, or a priest from another country doing it as it is done in his country, or a mix of both. We are not required to know what is done in every other country. If we changed the customs for every priest that comes to this country it would be chaos. Americans Frenchmen do did not need to know anything about the Dialogue Mass one way or the other.
The Dialogue Mass is not and never was the custom of English speaking countries France . This is all that an American a Frenchmen has to say.
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1- A Latin-English missal is not a bad thing no matter how it came about
2- A low mass with everyone speaking servers parts and common prayers is an abomination
3- You have to suck up foreign customs when you're stuck with a frog priestly congregation
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1- A Latin-English missal is not a bad thing no matter how it came about
2- A low mass with everyone speaking servers parts and common prayers is an abomination
3- You have to suck up foreign customs when you're stuck with a frog priestly congregation
Why vernacular translations of Mass were prohibited (eg., in hand missals).
After you are finished reading the reasons, consider what is implied in the modernists disregarding (without permission, initially) this prohibition (eg., in the translation of hand missals into the vernacular).
Note also that Adoremus is itself a BXVI-type “reform of the reform” outfit, and for that reason rejoices in some of the modernist rationale in overthrowing some of the traditional liturgical principles (eg., Luther’s request for the priest to say the Mass in a loud voice, as the SSPX has been doing for the last several years, etc):
Forbidden Translations?
A Brief History of How the Mass Came to Be Rendered in the Vernacular
By JEREMY J. PRIEST (https://adoremus.org/author/jpriest/)January 12, 2019
https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/ (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/)
“It’s the ‘Cadillac’ of all hand missals,” my friend told me, as we rode the bus in the early hours of a cold Sunday morning in Milwaukee. This was my first foray into the “Latin Mass,” and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Yet, I had a sense of the beauty of the Latin and I was glad to have the trusty Father Lasance New Roman Missal to help me understand what lay behind the veil of the melodious Latin chant I would hear. Ever since that Sunday, I’ve always had a love for hand missals—helping to enter more deeply into the Mass, prayerfully meditating on the words and uniting myself to Christ’s sacrifice as Christ makes the Church manifest at each Mass.
All this is why these words from Dom Prosper Guéranger’s opening volume of The Liturgical Year puzzled me: “In order to conform with the wishes of the Holy See, we do not give, in any of the volumes of our Liturgical Year, the literal translation of the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass; and have in its place endeavored to give, to such of the laity as do not understand Latin, the means of uniting, in the closest possible manner, with everything that the priest says and does at the altar.”[1] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn1)
What on earth was this about? Wasn’t it a good thing to have translations of the Mass texts in the hands of the laity so they can unite with “everything that the priest says and does at the altar”? How did it come about that the Holy See restricted literal translations of the Ordinary and the Canon of the Mass, as Abbot Guéranger indicates? And why today is there not only an English translation provided in the missal for the Mass of 1962 (the Extraordinary Form) but the Mass in the ordinary form is almost exclusively celebrated around the world in the vernacular? For a solution to these puzzles, it is important to piece together some Church history.
Vernacular History
It was in the face of the Protestant Reformation that the council fathers at Trent did not think the liturgy itself “should be celebrated in the vernacular indiscriminately” (DH 1749). Indeed, in the canons that followed the above statement in the decrees, the fathers of Trent went on to anathematize those Protestant Reformers who condemned the rubric of praying “part of the canon and the words of consecration…in a low voice” (DH 1759).
Luther himself was certainly in view here: “Would to God that [the priest] would shout [the words of institution] loudly so that all could hear them clearly, and, moreover, in the German language.”[2] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn2) For Luther, the words of institution, or Verba Solemni, are essentially proclamatory and should therefore “be heard by everyone in the attending congregation, so he calls for these words to be sung.”[3] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn3)
Following upon Luther, the seventeenth-century Jansenist movement asserted that just “as the Bible ought to be intelligible to all, so too should the liturgy. The Jansenists wished to supplement careful instruction with at least a partial translation” [4] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn4) and called for the use of “vernacular missals at Mass.”[5] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn5)
It is significant to note here that while the fathers at Trent did not think it opportune to celebrate the liturgy “in the vernacular indiscriminately” (DH 1749), they did not utterly condemn the practice in principle. Rather, Trent recognized that so many of the Protestant Reformers asserted the illegitimate nature of celebrating the Sacraments in Latin.
Speaking from Within
In the context of Trent and the centuries that followed, the insistence on the vernacular was most prominently tied to sentiments that were either anti-Papal or which denied Catholic teaching on the Sacraments and the Mass in particular. But in 1660, it was a wholly Catholic undertaking that made the first attempt within the Church to publish a vernacular form of the Mass. The Director of the Sorbonne, Joseph Voisin, “published a five-volume translation of the Missel romain, the text in Latin and French, with notes and commentary in French alone.”[6] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn6)
Though authorized by the vicars-general of Paris, the work was immediately condemned by the “the Assembly of the Clergy, the Sorbonne, and the Royal Council.”[7] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn7) Indeed, Pope Alexander VII “joined in with an astonishing brief of 12 January 1661, not only censuring the ‘son of perdition’ who had made the translation, but also ‘rejecting, condemning and interdicting all translations that may be made of the book of the mass.’”[8] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn8)
Another attempt to vernacularize the Mass came with the rise of Jansenism, a Catholic theological movement that soon became tainted with a neo-Protestant outlook, including a Calvinist view of man’s inherent depravity and an undue emphasis on predestination. Although Jansenism is most closely associated with its French proponents, the movement found its full flowering in the Italian region of Tuscany and, “chiefly owing to the anti-Papal policy of the Grand Duke Leopold, Jansenism became so strong [in this region] that the local Synod of Pistoia (1786) promulgated one of the most comprehensive statements of Jansenist positions that exist,”[9] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn9) advocating among other things for “a vernacular liturgy, and the government of the Church by synods and national councils.”[10] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn10) Nevertheless, even where this pseudo-Protestant or anti-Catholic sentiment was lacking, opportunities for the use of the vernacular were slowly adopted.
A Clear Mission
(http://sqmr968b5t2lik6w276dq4me-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/08-john-carrol-246x300.jpg) (http://sqmr968b5t2lik6w276dq4me-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/08-john-carrol.jpg)At the first Diocesan Synod of Baltimore held in November 1791, Bishop John Carroll (d.1815), allowed some use of English within liturgical celebrations: the Gospel was to be read in the vernacular on Sundays and feast days, followed by a sermon in English, and vernacular hymns and prayers were recommended.
Some opportunities for the use of the vernacular in relation to the liturgy opened up in mission lands. In 1615 the mission to China brought forth the permission of Pope Paul V “to celebrate mass in Chinese.”[11] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn11) Indeed, in “1631, full vernacular privileges were granted to missionaries in Georgia for the celebration of Mass in either Georgian or Armenian. On the other side of the Atlantic in the region around modern-day Montreal, Jesuit missionaries received permission from the Holy See for use of the Iroquois language in the liturgy. At the first Diocesan Synod of Baltimore held in November 1791, Bishop John Carroll (d.1815), allowed some use of English within liturgical celebrations: the Gospel was to be read in the vernacular on Sundays and feast days, followed by a sermon in English, and vernacular hymns and prayers were recommended, as well. In 1822, Bishop John England of Charleston, South Carolina, edited the first American edition of the Roman Missal in English.”[12] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn12)
Thus, Trent’s recognition that the “Mass contains much instruction for the faithful” and her concern that “the children beg for food but no one gives to them” (DH 1749), gained greater weight in mission lands, even as use of the vernacular in Europe remained contested.
But even in Europe, the Church was warming to the idea of the vernacular in liturgy. Particularly effective were the arguments of Archbishop Colbert of Rouen, “who taught in a pastoral that the ancient mode of celebrating Mass in the language of the people was the fittest means to prepare the minds of the congregation for participation in the sacrifice.”[13] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn13)
Colbert’s arguments were defended by Pope Benedict XIV, who “in 1757 authorized vernacular translations” of the Bible, “provided they were approved at Rome and contained explanations by orthodox scholars.”[14] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn14) However, with the advent of the Jansenist Synod of Pistoia (1786) and the French Revolution (1789), a more cautious approach to the vernacular in relation to the liturgy came to the fore. Indeed, as “late as 1851 and again in 1857, the Holy See refused to allow liturgical translations in the vernacular, even as a tool for the laity in greater appreciation of the Mass.
Rite of Passage
All of that changed exactly twenty years later when, in 1877, the same Pope Pius IX (1846–78) who forbade vernacular translations, completely reversed his decision, allowing any bishop to authorize a translation and the use of vernacular missals by the laity.[15] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn15)
(http://sqmr968b5t2lik6w276dq4me-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/08-guaranger-219x300.jpg) (http://sqmr968b5t2lik6w276dq4me-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/08-guaranger.jpg)Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875) wrote in his opening volume of The Liturgical Year (1841): “In order to conform with the wishes of the Holy See, we do not give, in any of the volumes of our Liturgical Year, the literal translation of the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass.”
Pope Leo XIII followed this by “silently [omitting] the ban on translation of the mass into the vernacular” with the 1897 “edition of the Index of Prohibited Books.”[16] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn16) In this way, Leo XIII allowed hand missals to be published “on the ordinary imprimatur basis according to the judgment of each bishop.”[17] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn17) It is at this point that we can see a slow movement toward the proliferation of hand missals containing a translation of the Mass into the vernacular, including the Canon and Dominical words of the Mass.
As many in the Liturgical Movement pushed toward the use of the vernacular in relation to the liturgy, some insisted on not merely the use of vernacular missals, but “use of the vernacular” even “in the celebration of the august eucharistic sacrifice” (Mediator Dei, 59). However, since the situation confronted by Trent had changed and “since no Catholic would now deny a sacred rite celebrated in Latin to be legitimate and efficacious,”[18] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn18) a way was opened for the Second Vatican Council to decree that “since the use of the mother tongue [i.e., the vernacular], whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36).
Several years later—on the eve of the move to the vernacular in the Novus Ordo—Pope Paul VI complemented the sentiments previously quoted from Dom Guéranger (above). Paul said, the understanding “of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more.”[19] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn19)
Vernacular Solus?
Having taken a cursory look at how the ban on vernacular translations of the Mass came about—and then evaporated—we are brought back to our original query: whywas there a ban on vernacular translations of the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass? In the face of much post-Reformation catechesis and apologetics with regard to the nature of the Eucharist, why not have vernacular translations of the basic texts of the Mass?
After our current experience of fifty uninterrupted years of vernacular usage, let me speculate that perhaps this reticence to give a literal translation of the Ordinary and the Canon was rooted in the good of both guarding and revealing the mystery. In 1978 and again in 1999, Joseph Ratzinger, “to the annoyance of many liturgists,” argued “that in no sense does the whole Canon always have to be said out loud.”
(http://sqmr968b5t2lik6w276dq4me-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/08-pope-paul-vi-300x300.jpg) (http://sqmr968b5t2lik6w276dq4me-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/08-pope-paul-vi.jpg)“Understanding of prayer,” said Pope Paul VI in a November 26, 1969 address, “is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more—particularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech.”
In contradistinction to Luther’s assertions above, Ratzinger writes, “It is no accident that in Jerusalem, from a very early time, parts of the Canon were prayed in silence and that in the West the silent Canon—overlaid in part with meditative singing—became the norm. To dismiss all this as the result of misunderstandings is just too easy. It really is not true that reciting the whole Eucharistic Prayer out loud and without interruptions is a prerequisite for the participation of everyone in this central act of the Mass.”[20] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn20)
Indeed, Paul VI remarks—in the very same address on the eve of the implementation of the Novus Ordo—“the silences” in the Novus Ordo “will mark various deeper moments in the rite.”[21] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn21) Ratzinger concludes this plea for silent participation in the Canon by an appeal to experience that goes beyond words:
“Anyone who has experienced a church united in the silent praying of the Canon will know what a really filled silence is. It is at once a loud and penetrating cry to God and a Spirit-filled act of prayer.
Here everyone does pray the Canon together, albeit in a bond with the special task of the priestly ministry. Here everyone is united, laid hold of by Christ, and led by the Holy Spirit into that common prayer to the Father which is the true sacrifice—the love that reconciles and unites God and the world.”[22] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_edn22)
While I continue to appreciate the gift of that “Cadillac” of hand missals on that cold Sunday morning in Milwaukee all those years ago, I can all the more appreciate the gift and task of language and its limited ability to unite us to the mysteries celebrated in the liturgy. Perhaps what was being fought for in limiting literal translations of the Canon and the words of institution into the vernacular was a deep reverence and awe for the mystery that lies beneath the words. But such a topic is itself perhaps best left in silence to be taken up for another occasion.
[1] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref1) Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Tr. L. Shepherd (Dublin: James Duffy & Sons, 1870), 13.
[2] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref2) Martin Luther, “Sermon on the Worthy Reception of the Sacrament, 1521,” in Luther’s Works, Vol. 42: Devotional Writings I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 42 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 173.
[3] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref3) Robin A. Leaver, Luther’s Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications, ed. Paul Rorem, Lutheran Quarterly Books (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 180.
[4] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref4) John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, vol. 2, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press Inc., 1998), 429.
[5] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref5) James Hitchcock, History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 333.
[6] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref6) John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, vol. 2, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press Inc., 1998), 45.
[7] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref7) John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, vol. 2, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press Inc., 1998), 45.
[8] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref8) John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, vol. 2, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press Inc., 1998), 45.
[9] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref9) F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 867.
[10] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref10) John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, vol. 2, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press Inc., 1998), 665.
[11] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref11) Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450–1950, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press Inc., 1994), 112.
[12] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref12) Keith F. Pecklers, Liturgy: The Illustrated History (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press; Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012), 168.
[13] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref13) William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary (New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 1887), 502.
[14] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref14) John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, vol. 2, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press Inc., 1998), 200.
[15] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref15) Keith F. Pecklers, Liturgy: The Illustrated History (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press; Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012), 168.
[16] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref16) Owen Chadwick, A History of the Popes, 1830–1914, ed. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 361.
[17] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref17) Keith F. Pecklers, Liturgy: The Illustrated History (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press; Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012), 168.
[18] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref18) The Roman Missal: Renewed by Decree of the Most Holy Second Ecuмenical Council of the Vatican, Promulgated by Authority of Pope Paul VI and Revised at the Direction of Pope John Paul II, Third Typical Edition. (Washington D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011), 22: GIRM §12.
[19] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref19) “Address of Pope Paul VI to a General Assembly, November 26, 1969,” in James Likoudis and Kenneth D. Whitehead, The Pope, the Council, and the Mass: Answers to Questions the “Traditionalists” Have Asked, Revised Edition. (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2006), 337–338.
[20] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref20) Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 215.
[21] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref21) “Address of Pope Paul VI to a General Assembly, November 26, 1969,” in James Likoudis and Kenneth D. Whitehead, The Pope, the Council, and the Mass: Answers to Questions the “Traditionalists” Have Asked, Revised Edition. (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2006), 338.
[22] (https://adoremus.org/2019/01/12/forbidden-translations-a-brief-history-of-how-the-mass-came-to-be-rendered-in-the-vernacular/#_ednref22) Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 215–216.
(https://sqmr968b5t2lik6w276dq4me-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Priest-Jeremy_w.jpg)
Jeremy J. Priest
Jeremy J. Priest is the Director of the Office of Worship for the Catholic Diocese of Lansing, MI, as well as Content Editor for Adoremus. He holds an STL from the Liturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, IL. He and his wife Genevieve have two children and live in Grand Ledge, MI.
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Being able to follow along on your hand missal is now modernist? I can't understand how denying the faithful the ability to read a translation of Latin text is somehow akin to wanting a vernacular liturgy.
The fact is that the faithful were woefully ignorant of the faith, with Trent the eagerness was to stop Protestant theology from entering the Church. What it effectively did was further divorce the faithful from liturgical life, so much so that Pius X not only lamented the ignorance of the faithful but the disjointing of the Sunday cycle which the reforms obviously did nothing to repair making the problems worse.
To say that the laity have no right to even read a Latin/English hand missal is a bit much
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Being able to follow along on your hand missal is now modernist? I can't understand how denying the faithful the ability to read a translation of Latin text is somehow akin to wanting a vernacular liturgy.
The fact is that the faithful were woefully ignorant of the faith, with Trent the eagerness was to stop Protestant theology from entering the Church. What it effectively did was further divorce the faithful from liturgical life, so much so that Pius X not only lamented the ignorance of the faithful but the disjointing of the Sunday cycle which the reforms obviously did nothing to repair making the problems worse.
To say that the laity have no right to even read a Latin/English hand missal is a bit much
If you read the article I provided, it shows a persistent trend among subversive liturgists agitating for this innovation, and little by little wearing down the popes, from the time of Luther, onward.
We can see that the concept of “active participation” is Protestant in origin, and absolutely never endorsed by St. Pius X, as some construe (the phrase does not appear in the official version his encyclical).
As for the myth of the woefully ignorant Catholics, deprived by their Church of knowledge, one need only compare the quality of faith between pre-liturgical movement Catholics, and our “enlightened” moderns (who demonstrate more ignorance today that in perhaps any other generation in Church history), despite the vulgarization of the sacramental rites (and manuals).
This historical revisionism was nothing more than a disingenuous pretext for rebels to institute their Lutheran principles.
As for the alleged spiritual benefits of the hand missal, one need only compare the sanctity and saints of the pre-liturgical movement to realize the “benefits” are largely illusory.
The vulgar hand missal May have benefit for second-rate scholars who can’t read Latin, but drawing the reader more deeply into the mysteries of the Mass than private devotions? The evidence by comparison suggests otherwise.
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The vulgar hand missal May have benefit for second-rate scholars who can’t read Latin, but drawing the reader more deeply into the mysteries of the Mass than private devotions? The evidence by comparison suggests otherwise.
Did any Pope ever say that it is wrong to use a missal? Did any Church Father or Council say it?
Though I would agree that one can be better drawn into the mysteries by private devotions and uniting one's prayers with the priest at Mass, rather than reading along in the missal in the vernacular. But that's not always easy. The mind does tend to wander at times, for some of us.
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Did any Pope ever say that it is wrong to use a missal? Did any Church Father or Council say it?
Hi Meg-
Not to use a missal, but to use a vernacular translation, yes.
Some of those condemnations are listed in the article I provided above.
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Hi Meg-
Not to use a missal, but to use a vernacular translation, yes.
Some of those condemnations are listed in the article I provided above.
Thanks; I'll read through the article.
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John McFarland wrote to me, and wanted me to make a "correction" in this thread.
I agree with Mediator Dei, and I've given my opinion on the Dialogue Mass several times. I don't have time to re-hash the same subjects every year or two. I have a life.
Here is John McFarland's contribution:
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Apropos of the recent Cathinfo anathemas comments regarding the dialogue Mass, may I suggest that you read the attached excerpt from Fr. Iscara's Q&A in the current Angelus, which makes quite clear that Pius XII was a supporter of the dialogue Mass.
'Can I fully participate at Mass by praying my rosary or doing my spiritual reading?
'The question has been already magisterially answered by Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei.
'First of all, “the faithful should be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity, and that not in an inert and negligent fashion, giving way
to distractions and daydreaming, but with such earnestness and concentration that they may be united as closely as possible with the High Priest, and together with Him and through Him let them
make their oblation, and in union with Him let them offer up themselves” (Mediator Dei, §80).
'In consequence, “they are to be praised who with the idea of getting the Christian people to take part more easily and more fruitfully in the Mass, strive to make them familiar with the Roman Missal, so
that the faithful, united with the priest, may pray together in the very words and sentiments of the Church. They also are to be commended who strive to make the Liturgy even in an external way a sacred act in which all who are present may share. This can be done in more than one way, when, for instance, the whole congregation in accordance with the rules of the Liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the different parts of the Mass, or do both, or finally in High Masses when they answer the prayers of the minister of Jesus Christ and also sing the liturgical chant” (Mediator Dei, §105) (emphasis added).
'The chief aim of these methods of participation is “to foster and promote the people’s piety and intimate union with Christ and His visible minister and to arouse those internal sentiments and dispositions which should make our hearts become like to that of the High Priest of the New Testament” (Mediator Dei, §106).
'Nonetheless, “many of the faithful are unable to use the Roman Missal even though it is written in the vernacular—nor are all capable of understanding correctly the liturgical rites and formulas. So varied and diverse are men’s talents and characters that it is impossible for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers, hymns, and liturgical services. Moreover, the needs and inclinationsof all are not the same, nor are they always constant in the same individual. Who then would say, on account of such a prejudice, that all these Christians cannot participate in the Mass nor
share its fruits? On the contrary, they can adopt some other method which proves easier for certain people, for instance, they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ or perform other exercises of piety or recite prayers which, though they differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them” ' (Mediator Dei, §108).
Obviously answering of the priest had to be in Latin. This is what nuns and altar boys did for centuries before Mediator Dei. This is what the faithful did in dialogue Masses in the U.S. before the roof caved in.
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John McFarland wrote to me, and wanted me to make a "correction" in this thread.
I agree with Mediator Dei, and I've given my opinion on the Dialogue Mass several times. I don't have time to re-hash the same subjects every year or two. I have a life.
Here is John McFarland's contribution:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apropos of the recent Cathinfo anathemas comments regarding the dialogue Mass, may I suggest that you read the attached excerpt from Fr. Iscara's Q&A in the current Angelus, which makes quite clear that Pius XII was a supporter of the dialogue Mass.
'Can I fully participate at Mass by praying my rosary or doing my spiritual reading?
'The question has been already magisterially answered by Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei.
'First of all, “the faithful should be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity, and that not in an inert and negligent fashion, giving way
to distractions and daydreaming, but with such earnestness and concentration that they may be united as closely as possible with the High Priest, and together with Him and through Him let them
make their oblation, and in union with Him let them offer up themselves” (Mediator Dei, §80).
'In consequence, “they are to be praised who with the idea of getting the Christian people to take part more easily and more fruitfully in the Mass, strive to make them familiar with the Roman Missal, so
that the faithful, united with the priest, may pray together in the very words and sentiments of the Church. They also are to be commended who strive to make the Liturgy even in an external way a sacred act in which all who are present may share. This can be done in more than one way, when, for instance, the whole congregation in accordance with the rules of the Liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the different parts of the Mass, or do both, or finally in High Masses when they answer the prayers of the minister of Jesus Christ and also sing the liturgical chant” (Mediator Dei, §105) (emphasis added).
'The chief aim of these methods of participation is “to foster and promote the people’s piety and intimate union with Christ and His visible minister and to arouse those internal sentiments and dispositions which should make our hearts become like to that of the High Priest of the New Testament” (Mediator Dei, §106).
'Nonetheless, “many of the faithful are unable to use the Roman Missal even though it is written in the vernacular—nor are all capable of understanding correctly the liturgical rites and formulas. So varied and diverse are men’s talents and characters that it is impossible for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers, hymns, and liturgical services. Moreover, the needs and inclinationsof all are not the same, nor are they always constant in the same individual. Who then would say, on account of such a prejudice, that all these Christians cannot participate in the Mass nor
share its fruits? On the contrary, they can adopt some other method which proves easier for certain people, for instance, they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ or perform other exercises of piety or recite prayers which, though they differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them” ' (Mediator Dei, §108).
Obviously answering of the priest had to be in Latin. This is what nuns and altar boys did for centuries before Mediator Dei. This is what the faithful did in dialogue Masses in the U.S. before the roof caved in.
Wait a minute:
John McFarland is going to defend the dialogue Mass by citing the Pope who suppressed the true Holy Week??
:barf:
Does John McFarland have any papal sources recommending the dialogue Mass prior to Benedict XV (assets scrambling)??
So, no pre-liturgical movement history anywhere in the church.
PS: This series will be quite enlightening regarding the dialogue Mass: https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f073_Dialogue_1.htm (https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f073_Dialogue_1.htm)
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John McFarland wrote …. This is what the faithful did in dialogue Masses in the U.S. before the roof caved in.
The faithful in English speaking countries didn't do the Dialogue Mass. The modernists tried to push it, but it never caught on. If it had caught on like in France, this discussion would not be happening, and likely less than 4% of Catholics in the USA would be going to mass, like in France.
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Wait a minute:
John McFarland is going to defend the dialogue Mass by citing the Pope who suppressed the true Holy Week??
Be fair, Sean.
Chez CathInfo, micturating on John McFarland is such a widely practiced participatory sport that I should not be surprised at the announcement of its own World Cup (World Pissoir?) Finals. Even so, in the interest of preventing or at least restricting hooliganism among the sport's participants and fans, I urge that Rule 1 in the proposed handbook specify that would-be micturators be required to accurately state what enormity Mr. McFarland has committed before the line judge or referee gives the bladder-emptying process the go-ahead.
On the basis of this proposed rule, Sean, you should certainly have held your water, for there is no resemblance between the quoted sentence and the content of Mr. McFarland's remarks (which, not so incidentally, clearly begin below the dashed line in Matthew's comment). Those remarks were offered in evidence for one claim only: that Pius XII was "a supporter of the dialogue Mass," whatever assertions to the contrary were made, here or elsewhere, by others. That his claim is adequately evidenced by the citation from Mediator Dei is pretty plain to me—more's the pity, say I.* If a more careful reader can show me that the situation is otherwise, I shall listen with attention.
(An aside: I am sure that if you or anyone else here asks him nicely, John McFarland will be happy to say something forthright that will stimulate jubilee quantities of urine sitewide! A further aside: To use Matthew's apt words, "I've given my opinion on the Dialogue Mass several times." Like Matthew's, my opinion is to be found in the archives. Hint: it's anything but supportive.)
For Mr. McFarland's thoughts on these and other matters, interested readers need only search through CI's laudably full archives. (He wrote quite a lot before he got the boot.) Those readers who are especially fond of circuмlocution should be alerted, however, that they will find that "Come on, now, tell us what you really think" are words no one, friend or foe,** ever uttered in Mr. McFarland's general direction.
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* All the more reason to recall the wise words of the Congregation of Rites (1922): "Things that in themselves are licit are not always expedient." Still, even from a casual reading of the encyclical's quoted matter, one should see that not participating in a Dialogue Mass and not wishing to participate in a Dialogue Mass are nowhere depreciated or deprecated. This is something to draw comfort from.
** An admission against local interest: Out here in the real world, I have been the former for about 55 years.
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... the whole congregation in accordance with the rules of the Liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the different parts of the Mass, or do both, or finally in High Masses when they answer the prayers of the minister of Jesus Christ and also sing the liturgical chant” (Mediator Dei, §105) (emphasis added).
'The chief aim of these methods of participation is “to foster and promote the people’s piety and intimate union with Christ and His visible minister and to arouse those internal sentiments and dispositions which should make our hearts become like to that of the High Priest of the New Testament” (Mediator Dei, §106).
Here is the subjective qualifier of the Dialogue Mass "answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner" The ones I have heard were not very "orderly and fitting" in their manner and thus according to the Pope, would not qualify.
If the "chief aim of these methods of participation is to foster and promote the people’s piety" then distraction of the Dialogue Mass has failed the goal in which the Pope intended.