For the entirety of my life, Catholic Mass has been said in the vernacular. I've heard it in English, Spanish, Italian, and Croatian. My first exposure into the great mysteries and ideas of the Catholic Faith occurred during those times I heard a priest intone the solemn, lucid, and impassioned rubric of the liturgy in a language I could easily understand. I have no doubt that it's the same all over the world. Yet recently the Holy See published a Motu Propio which allowed and encouraged the celebration of Mass according to ancient and traditional Latin Rite. I noted this decision and reflected on it a bit in an earlier post.
I don't very well understand the transition between the Tridentine Mass and the Novus Ordo which established new rubrics and directed the use of vernacular language. Accounts of it differ; I gather that various dioceses instituted the changes in different ways. As far as the timeline, I'm fairly sure that latest revision to the Tridentine Rite was published by Pope John XXIII in 1962, and the Novus Ordo of Pope Paul VI appeared in 1969. Therefore, beginning with the 1970s Catholics learned, adjusted, and grew into Mass celebrated generally in their native language. However, I understand (from the documents of the Second Vatican Council) that churches were expected to continue using Latin in the new liturgy for the Ordinary, or the portions of the Mass that are said exactly the same way every time the Mass is celebrated. In that manner, the fathers of Vatican II meant to marry the tradition of the church with it's opening into modernity.
Nonetheless, it seems that shortly after the appearance of the Novus Ordo Latin had all but disappeared from post-conciliar Catholicism. The occasional Agnus Dei is still sung or spoken in Latin in more traditional parishes, but I encounter this rarely. When I questioned this as a young Church History student in high school, I received some strongly-worded responses, which discouraged further questioning. That, combined with the near-total dearth of Latin in America's liturgical landscape (and the pressing concerns of adolescence), drove any thoughts or questions on the ancient language out of my mind. I unconsciously adopted the view that using Latin in Mass was the mark of a conservative parish, one which secretly yearned for the pre-conciliar worship. Such parishes, apparently, were part of a large but disorganized secret society that looked with hostility upon the Novus Ordo and the new Catholic Church. I say apparently because I don't ever remember hearing such words or prejudices outright, but somehow I came to believe them. It was, I guess, the character of the Church as a whole--or certainly the character of the Churches I attended. When in literature and in the occasional memory of either parent I heard about the old rite, I was struck by an attitude of "it's so much better now." I learned, aghast, that the old Catholics were crazy: no meat on any Friday instead of just during Lent; fasting for 12 hours before Mass, confession required prior to Mass in order to accept the Eucharist, and so on. Yet behind my sanctimonious and self-righteous rejection of that kind of strict faith, there burned a light of Romanticism--a desire for a faith that held its adherents to such high spiritual and intellectual standards. Shortly after college, in fact, while becoming acquainted with the strict rules of the Marine Corps, I began to explore the old Ordinary in Latin.
It was a half-forgotten hobby of mine, memorizing ecclesiastic Latin. I loved the difficult words and the powerful, defined romance syllables. The language of Caesars, medieval Kings, Crusaders, and Missionaries seemed to breathe majesty in a way even the most moving opening prayers and prefaces of my Sunday worship couldn't replicate. It seemed appropriate, somehow, to speak and pray to a God beyond us all and beyond the "vale of tears" in a language nobler than our own. In Mass, whenever the Agnus Dei dropped the thrice-repeated phrase "Lamb of God" for substitutes like "Bread of Life," I would quietly whisper "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi" three times myself. So it was a subject of great interest to me when Pope Benedict XVI issued his Motu Propio Summorum Pontificum authorizing the celebration of old rite in full. And through I am maybe not quite prepared to enter into that formidable liturgy completely yet, I am eager to join in the submerged and fierce debate going on as to the worthiness of Pope John XXIII's 1962 liturgy.
For starters, I'll state that I understand the immediate appeal of Mass in a common language. The ceremony, which refers to and enacts the greatest mystery and event of the Catholic faith, the crucifixion, ought to be fully understood by all participants--especially the prayers that make up the Ordinary explicitly define the tenets of Catholic faith (the Kyrie, the Credo, and the Sanctus in particular). When the entire congregation can recite these parts and listen to the Canon in their native tongue, notably with their own faculty for understanding each word and interpreting it's context, they can theoretically participate more fully and comprehend their essential faith better. Additionally, the 1970 Missal (Novus Ordo) directs that the priest faces his congregation instead to facing the Altar (with his back to everyone else). This allows the priest to communicate directly to the congregation the mysteries he celebrates during the Mass. I think the intent of the changes was to make the Mass more personal and participatory, to more readily communicate via the structure of the liturgy a sense of community, of being a part of the body of Christ.
But it must be admitted that there have been some less-than-satisfactory effects of the Novus Ordo. The author Thomas Day memorably and amusingly catalogues some of them in his books Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste and Where have you gone Michelangelo? The Loss of soul in Catholic culture. The hyperbolic titles betray his considerable passion for this topic, but his observations are generally correct. First, the awe and majesty that accompanied a dead and imperial language, and which was entirely appropriate to the celebration of Mass, was literally lost in translation to a clear, almost colloquial vernacular. Also, notably, I think congregations can tune out their own language in Mass just as easily as they might tune out a radio advertisement. Second, in facing the congregation, there is the temptation for the Priest to slip into the role of "entertainer," feeling pressure (real or not) from his congregation to "perform" the Mass up to their satisfaction. Unfortunately, this additional complication to the ceremony tends to distract from the central mystery being celebrated under the priest's hands, allowing the congregation to focus less on the sacrament and more on the presentation of the sacrament, which (of course) partially defeats the purpose of recasting the sacrament in a common tongue.
Mr. Day argues that the old 1962 rite bypassed these issues. The priest, gorgeously robed in archaic clothing (the cassock, stole, and mantle), nearly disappeared into the ceremony. For the period of time he celebrated the Mass, he wasn't a particular priest, he was The Celebrant (capitals intended). Moreover, he didn't sit center-stage. That was where the altar was. He sat inconspicuously off to one side. When in front of the altar, he faced it, reinforcing by the choreography of the liturgy not only that attention was to be focused on the tabernacle within and not on him, but that he was the "leader of the faithful," leading them in a worship directed at something external (Christ). The only time and place where the priest faced the congregation was during the homily, given from the Ambo, which is traditionally removed the farthest distance from the altar that the sanctuary allows so as to maintain the sacred space about the altar and tabernacle.
Celebrating in Latin, though it might have been the vernacular in "Early Church" days, also acquired a ritualistic significance. As early as the Dark Ages Latin was spoke nowhere the church existed except perhaps the wealthier parts of Rome itself. Yet in holding on to the dead, imperial language the Church impartially aligned itself with none of it's constituent ethnic members. Whether Catholics in a particular place knew Sicilian, Italian, Greek, French, Spanish, or Gaelic, they all worshipped in the same language, and that told a world torn apart with war and vandalism more than anything else that the Church of Christ was open to all peoples. During Mission work later on in her history, the Church could plausibly claim that Native American (Central, South, and North) worship was worth the same as European worship for that same reason. But if the choreography of the Tridentine Rite and the "universal" language of Latin graphically demonstrated the Church's universality and true faith, they also were also called a barrier to understanding the liturgy itself.
I don't entirely agree. A barrier to understanding the liturgy? Not if they are willing to do a little research. I recently purchased a 1962 Missal with a section in it that, with Latin on one page and English on the other, walks the Mass attendee through the all the liturgical steps of the Mass, to the extent of detailing the small though symbolic gestures the priest makes with each liturgical phase of the celebration. Not only is it easy to follow, but the raw beauty and spiritual power of the Tridentine Mass (translated into archaic, majestic English) takes my breath away. Yet such a celebration has admittedly limited appeal. Children, for example, will probably not be eager to follow the small text of a missal through Church each Sunday. Nor will people who don't enjoy reading. And the Catholic Church correctly desires to reach these types of people as well. My joy of the Tridentine Rite is NOT worth more to God than the faith of a child (in fact, it's worth much less, as Jesus says in Matthew 18) or the piety of an non-literary man or woman. A friend of mine once told me "in order to lead someone somewhere, you must first go to where they are now." And so I think the Church was right to craft a liturgy that was more accessible (the vernacular) and more personal (priest facing the congregation). Therein Catholics with little time or inclination to pursue the detailed scriptural underpinnings of liturgy--or put another way, Catholics whose faith does not demand the explanation and demonstration of Tridentine Mass--could find spiritual sustenance and growth. After all--and as I said before--hearing each Sunday liturgy in my own language was my first introduction to the magnificent spiritual depths of Catholicism, an introduction which I might never have experienced if I had been hearing uncomprehendingly the hushed latin of the 1962 Rite.
Which brings me back to the debate. Some argue that the Tridentine Mass more appropriate and reverent, and correctly identify it's influence on great Saints and how it sustained the central worship of Catholicism through schism, scandal, and attack for five hundred years. Others argue that it reduces the faith to a dead worship of unhealthy focus on personal faith, suffocating the "body of Christ" under an impersonal and obscure ceremony. What has the vernacular brought us but irreverence? What has the Latin to offer but a Mass beyond our comprehension. I think there is a very simple answer. Tridentine Mass has a place in contemporary worship. It is truly solemn and beautiful, and encourages a deeply personal relationship with Christ in the Eucharist. It is not surprising to me that such Masses newly offered in my own diocese are well-attended. The Novus Ordo, however, has the chief place in our worship. Correctly celebrated, it opens the words of scripture and the truths taught by the Magisterium to Catholics in a heartfelt, understandable, and exhortational way. And there is no reason why each can't inform the other. Certainly the parts of the Mass that are most familiar, like the Ordinary and the Elevation, could be easily spoken or sung in Latin. Such a practice would reinforce their extraordinary nature and the Church's universality without affecting the congregation's understanding of those parts of the liturgy. And opening the Tridentine Mass to more participation, such as allowing the congregation to recite parts of the Ordinary or the Lord's Prayer with the priest (in Latin, of course) would encourage more Catholics to enter that deeply spiritual rite.
Bringing back Tridentine Mass as an option cannot but help increase the spirituality of Catholics, which cannot but result in their opening up to God and becoming better disciples and witnesses here on earth. In fact, now that it exists I encourage all Catholics to attend a Tridentine Mass just once to see what it's like. It does not diminish the Novus Ordo but enhances it, for the old rite is the foundation of the new and and understanding the former may increase appreciation of the latter. Latin Mass isn't a shameful secret of our past, an example of overbearing religiosity and hypocritical piety; it is the fruit of Catholicism's long and grace-filled struggle against the temptation of worldly power, the attacks of enlightenment atheism and reductionism, and the deadly indifference of modernity. It will bear fruit for us, too, if we allow it: in our prayer life, in our public worship, and most importantly in our collective public ministry.
