Bill Murray on the Latin Mass
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Excerpt from The Guardian interview:

    His parents were Irish Catholics; one of his sisters is a nun. This conspicuous religion adds to his broad church appeal (there’s a citation from the Christian Science Monitor on his golfing memoirs). You don’t need to ask if his faith is important to him. He talks about how 19th-century candidates risk not getting canonised because the church is keen to push ahead with the likes of John Paul II and Mother Teresa. “I think they’re just trying to get current and hot,” he smiles.

    One new saint he does approve of is Pope John XXIII (who died in 1963). “I’ll buy that one, he’s my guy; an extraordinary joyous Florentine who changed the order. I’m not sure all those changes were right. I tend to disagree with what they call the new mass. I think we lost something by losing the Latin. Now if you go to a Catholic mass even just in Harlem it can be in Spanish, it can be in Ethiopian, it can be in any number of languages. The shape of it, the pictures, are the same but the words aren’t the same.”

    Isn’t it good for people to understand it? “I guess,” he says, shaking his head. “But there’s a vibration to those words. If you’ve been in the business long enough you know what they mean anyway. And I really miss the music – the power of it, y’know? Yikes! Sacred music has an affect on your brain.” Instead, he says, we get “folk songs … top 40 stuff … oh, brother….”
    Thanked by 7Steve Q Spriggo ClergetKubisz Ben_Whitworth WICatholic bonniebede ZacPB189
  • rollingrj
    Posts: 345
    This is in a similar vein to what comedian Jimmy Fallon once said in a 2012 interview:

    http://www.catholicvote.org/bad-liturgy-is-not-a-victimless-crime-just-ask-jimmy-fallon/
    Thanked by 1teachermom24
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    And it would mean a whole lot more if either of them went to any of the Latin Mass offerings available anywhere near them, ever.
    Thanked by 2sergeantedward Spriggo
  • rob
    Posts: 148
    True.

    A sad, but common excuse among persons of his age: the Faith is not as I remember it as a child, so I shall abandon it.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    At the same time, we should acknowledge that many in any generation leave or lessen the practice of their faith during young adulthood. To many persons of that era, the changes were too abrupt, seemingly contradictory, to the point of genuine confusion and scandal. Many talk of feeling like the rug was pulled out from under them.

    I remember a lady, prob about 65 years old, who came to hear our Choristers (youth choir) sing a few years ago. She sought me out after mass, in tears, and told me about how she had sung the same chants as a girl. She came to love singing her prayers to God- her words. Then, as a teen, the choir program at her school was canceled overnight. She remembered the new pastor as harsh and uncompromising. Folk groups, no choirs and no chant allowed. She wandered in her faith journey and thankfully she came home to the Church.

    Others aren't there yet. They feel a sense of betrayal and confusion, some a sense of "well it doesn't seem that important anymore". They are our family members, close friends, strangers who start with, "I grew up Catholic, but then everything changed". They deserve our welcome, and our pastoral care. They deserve us to carefully, charitably, get our liturgical praxis on track.

    Pray for Bill Murray, and others in a similar place. And hey, who's to say he's not going to mass with lots of Latin somewhere?
    Thanked by 5CHGiffen Adam Wood ryand Andrew_Malton canadash
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    MaryAnn, you said it all, and you said it so well. Thank you!
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    some a sense of "well it doesn't seem that important anymore".


    This.

    I know a number of people who were raised Catholic (post-conciliar) or who are just seeking God in a general way, who, if exposed to the church without the folky sing-a-longs and the sense that it doesn't really matter anyway, would have hearts on fire for God and his church. These people love God as it is, but have no understanding, a misrepresentation, or an outright resentment toward his church, because of how they experienced it growing up (those who were Catholic) and/or from what they gather from whatever life has taught them about "what Catholicism is."

    If it makes any sense, I get the sense that they have a sense that it's just not important.

    I can't blame them. I got lucky to be exposed to the more beautiful side of things, and all I can really do is invite them along. I am convinced that these wandering believers, if they were to attend the TLM or a properly celebrated OF, would find some of what they're seeking, and perhaps feel a sense that maybe this matters after all.

    What Murray and Fallon describe is the post-conciliar circus making them feel like it didn't. That, and that Latin and sacred music make it seem like it does.

    Can't argue with that.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Over at PTB our aging confreres Rory Cooney and Todd Flowerday did make some salient observations that are very similar to those of MACW, namely it's more about how each of us filters our opinions at various chronological periods of our lives, what I call the Piaget Effect up close and personal. Getting old allows some of us to molt and shed stuff that really doesn't matter much to us personally anymore, while coming to terms with what does and how to best share that So, what used to rile us, only presents itself as humor or folly now.
    I would think that we can choose to believe that metaphysically we can regard our very selves as creatures trapped on a hamster wheel, or as creatures travelling on another kind of sphere. For perspective and joy, I choose the latter concept. Then I can bring my honesty to the ritual aspect of the journey with humility. And isn't humility itself a most worthy object?
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