The Folly of Excommunicating the SSPX

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Why the Ban on the Latin Mass?

 

Paul VI

Why did Pope Francis, or for that matter, Pope Paul before him, ban the Latin mass? 

With its many liturgies, in many nations, the mass is offered in any language you can think of, ancient and modern. Except in Latin, the traditional and official language of the church. How can that make sense?

Francis himself suggested that the Latin mass represented defiance of his authority; it was schismatic. But this is tautological: if he allowed the Latin mass, it would not be. He bans it because he bans it.

It is no challenge to the work of Vatican II: Vatican II never mandated mass in the vernacular. It expected Latin to remain the language of the mass. It was bishops’ conferences who took this step. It forms no part of the magisterium, no part of church doctrine.

Someone has said Francis’s ban came from the Italian bishops. They were alarmed that new priests all wanted to learn and serve the Latin mass. They foresaw, or saw, a shortage of priests for the standard “Novus Ordo.”

This sounds plausible. From the beginning, the “new mass” was not popular with the faithful in the pews. Popes John Paul II and Benedict opened it up again, and the problem recurred: faithful and lower clergy were abandoning the Novus Ordo and flocking to the Latin mass.

If the purpose of the church is to evangelize, if its mission is pastoral, if it listens to the works of the Holy Spirit, this should actually argue for encouraging the use of the Latin mass.

But Vatican II and the hierarchy introduced the Novus Ordo precisely for pastoral reasons: to make mass more popular, more accessible to the people. To admit the Latin Mass is still more popular is to admit failure.

Regardless of the motives of those who attend, in their own minds, the growth and spread of the Latin mass makes them look like fools. Fools and sellouts, shepherds following the sheep.

The hierarchy under Francis, or perhaps just Francis, have let their own interests supersede the interests of the church, of Jesus, and of suffering humanity.

I say this even though I am not, personally, drawn to the Latin Mass.

How About a Mass in Pig Latin?

 

Uneasy lies the head ...

There are rumblings of a coup in the Vatican.

That is surprising. There seems to be no legal means for unseating a pope. 

Nevertheless, discontent with Pope Francis has become quite open. Cardinal Pell, widely respected, has been revealed as author of a letter some months ago describing Francis’s pontificate as catastrophic for the church. Rumours are flooding in of a group of cardinals planning to oust him. Word is that Francis is isolated and has no friends in the curia, largely due to his penchant for individual and autocratic rule.

The flash point seems to be an also-rumoured upcoming crackdown by Francis on the Latin mass.

I am no special fan of the Latin mass. To me the mass is the mass, either way. But it also makes no sense to prohibit it. We allow masses in every other conceivable language—except Latin? How is that sensible, or doctrinally important? How is that the hill for Francis to die on? Especially since insistence on the vernacular mass has already caused one split in the church, the Society of St. Pius IX.

As it happens, having gone through various religion departments for my own education, I have some idea. Or my friend Xerxes, nominally a pillar of the United Church; he shows the same tendency. Among the ministerial elite of mainstream denominations, there is a sort of competition to see who can be most theologically transgressive. The great opponent becomes, not unbelief or immorality, but those who take traditional teachings too seriously.

Xerxes writes frequent columns against Biblical literalism; against those who have clear ideas about God; or who advocate conventional morality. He rarely rails against the ways of the world, only calling vaguely and blandly for peace, voting NDP, and giving to the poor.

A professor at Syracuse suggested in passing that an atheist would and should feel comfortable in the religion department. A major religious publisher considering my manuscript wanted to be sure that it was fully welcoming to atheists. The paper that attracted the most interest and admiration at a departmental conference was titled “So Meaning is Your Hangup?” Open rumour was that the author was in an adulterous relationship with her thesis advisor. “Rumour,” in that small department, is perhaps not the correct word.

This is what Pharisaism looks like. The problem with religion is that it imposes obligations on you, in matters of belief and conduct. If you are in the power elite, you don’t like to be constrained by anything. So once you rise to ministry, your chief opponent becomes the actual teaching you are charged with spreading. 

Some, like Cardinal McCarrick or Jimmy Swaggert, will simply continue to preach what they reject for themselves. These are the classic Pharisees. Some, like Xerxes or Pope Francis, perhaps more honestly, will instead devote their energies to undermining the faith. They will set up public services for Pachamama; they will hold “clown masses.” And they will attack on any premise those who continue to follow the faith: those who annoyingly quote the Bible, those who don’t embrace transgenderism or some other current moral fad, those who “judge,” those who want the Latin mass. Largely because they feel judged by them, and found wanting. How dare they act holier than their minister? Than the Pope? Who do they think they are?

Being Pharisees, they never stop to ask themselves who they, themselves, think they are.

Lamb O'God!

 

I note with surprise that the broadcast mass from the National Cathedral in Washington today included the Agnus Dei sung in Latin. This is the first time I can recall them doing it in Latin. Is this a subtle signal of defiance towards Pope Francis’s restriction on the Latin mass, or a signal of solidarity with traditionalist Catholics?

Getting Frank about Frank

 

It is a grim meditation, but it is obvious to me that Pope Francis, with his recent motu proprio restricting the Latin Mass, knows he is doing wrong. He titles it, “defenders of tradition’; it is an attack on a traditional form. He says it is for greater unity in the church—he cannot believe this. Restrictions on the Latin mass caused the most recent schism in the church, the splitting away of the SSPX. He says it is to give bishops full power to decide for their own dioceses, and he does this by requiring of them that any new requests to perform masses in Latin must be referred to Rome.

These are the hallmarks of the guilty mind: to claim to do the opposite of what you are doing, is a tacit admission that you know what you are doing is wrong.

So why is Pope Francis doing something he knows is wrong?

I think we must accept that he has been a bad man all along; a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

He just had half his colon removed in a three-hour operation that the Vatican tried to keep secret. He may know he is dying. 

When an unrepentant sinner dies, his instinct is to take the world with him: to do as much damage as he can on the way out. He does not want to be the only one suffering.

That is what this looks like: Francis wants to create a schism. He does not want to leave the church in good order for a successor.

Latin Doubleplus Ungood

 

Pope Francis has just issued new restrictions on the use of the Latin liturgy. Most strikingly, he will not allow it in any church.

Who else does it harm if some Catholics want mass in Latin?

Personally, I have no fondness for the Latin mass. I prefer to understand what is going on. I feel deeply uncomfortable at a Latin mass. But why drive others from the faith over such an irrelevant issue?

The church, after all, allows a variety of liturgies—Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Greek, Melkite, Maronite, Malabar. Why shoud the Latin mass, alone, be so restricted? And if there is something wrong with celebrating the Latin Mass, doesn’t that say that the liturgy of the Catholic Church was wrong for almost two millennia? 

This is hard to understand in any terms other than an exercise of raw power. Francis is not thinking of the interests of Catholics, or of the Church. He is thinking of how to punish those he views as his enemies inside the church.

Like so much Francis has done, this only spreads confusion and conflict.

Why I Do Not Miss the Latin Mass

Many of my generation and the generation before felt betrayed by the loss of the Latin Mass. I have never felt this way.

Today, for the first time in many years, I attended a Latin mass; and realized for the first time why.

It was beautiful; there is no doubt. Although well attended, it seemed mad the place was not packed to the rafters if only for the musical performance. Some claim the attendance at mass dropped off a statistical cliff right when the liturgy switched to the vernacular.

And it satisfied to discover that after so many years I still remembered some of the Latin.

But I will not be back.

When as a kid attending a Catholic school, I went to mass with my class, I would often start to feel faint and nauseous. I would have to sit bent over in the back. I felt embarrassed and did not know why.

Some of that feeling came back to me this Sunday.

It did as well the last time I attended a Latin mass, years ago now, but as an adult.

The vernacular mass, banal as it may be by contrast, feels much more comfortable.

I grew up attending the Latin mass. I also grew up in what the self-help groups somewhat euphemistically call a "dysfunctional family." Aside from the constant stress and strife, my parents, inevitably, presented themselves as Christian examplars, and their own opinions as theologically authoritative. God was on their side, and against me.

I was aware enough to realize that what they did and said was not compatible with the gospel or the catechism  I learned in school. Yet there was the chilling possibility that the official catechism was really just a cover story to fool outsiders, and they really did represent the heart of the church. Why not? In every other horror movie, Satanists perform black masses that are superficially strikingly like a Latin mass, with smoke and intonations, ritual movements, organ music and oddly discordant chant. Perhaps this was the reality. The Catholic Church was, then, a secret cult along the lines of that portrayed in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.

Because of this, the lack of clarity with Latin was disturbing. What were they really saying? Why could they not say it outright so that all could understand? Surely the Latin suggested an urge to conceal; they had something to hide. The thought never fully formed, until last Sunday, but I believe this was the incoherent suspicion behind my nausea.

The vernacular mass, to me, if only symbolically, brought needed clarity.

I really wonder, had the switch to the vernacular not come about around when it did, whether I would have been able to remain a Catholic. Friends of mine from similar Catholic backgrounds have ended up Muslim, or Buddhist; others, raised in other traditions, have escaped their tainted upbringing by becoming Catholic. Others, and probably far more, less happily, have become secularized or atheist, losing all the comfort and support of religion, most desperately needed by those who never had a real family.

It is no doubt of such family backgrounds Jesus spoke when he said, "but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."