Letter to the Editor: Both Forms Of Mass Will Benefit

Published: September 27, 2007

To the Editor:

Anyone participating in the current discussion of Pope Benedict’s apostolic letter on the liturgy should read it first. It makes clear the pope is not “bringing back the Latin Mass” or replacing “the Mass of Vatican II.”

The old form in the Missal of 1962 never went away. It continued in place. The new form was introduced in whole by Pope Paul VI after he viewed three or perhaps four demonstrations of variants behind closed doors in the Vatican. …

Both now have equal status as two forms (not two rites) of the same Mass. … Also, both forms are Latin in their officially approved texts. … As the new form arrived, the old form quickly became ensnarled by Vatican politics involving French separatists resistant to the new … (and) encumbered by burdensome regulations from the Vatican and the national bishops’ conferences.

That is the situation Pope Benedict now attempts to resolve with his letter. Interestingly, the Catholics of England and Wales greeted the letter with a Solemn Mass at Westminster Cathedral and a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. The reaction in the United States has been somewhat muddled.

Some good-hearted people are even suggesting the re-emergence of the old form will drive away the young, who will find there only a “nice opera.”

Hmmm. Opera audiences in the United States, it should be pointed out, are growing by leaps and bounds, mostly as a result of young men and women filling the seats.

And, oddly, large numbers of young people have over the years been attracted to the old form of the Mass, in churches across the country, especially where effort has been made to provide it with full solemnity. The parish of St. John Cantius in Chicago is a splendid example. …

Joseph M. A. Ledlie, Atlanta