I am of the opinion that some of the more extreme TLM folks are already in schism. Prof K may already be there.

There has been a lot of hysteria from similar Trad groups but until something actually happens, I wonder how they know what will come from Pope Francis? Do they have inside spies? Did the Mormon angel appear to them with golden tablets and reveal all? Or are they just excessively paranoid?

Time will tell.

Drop this Friday? I guess we will have to wait and see.

The popes have never claimed any authority over eastern liturgies. The patriarchs and bishops couldn't change it without a Pan Orthodox council. It will never happen since they can never agree on anything.

I don't think the Trads could be Protestant in the sense that Luther and Calvin were. At worst, they could go into schism. Pius X folks already did that.

I don't think the Trads could be Protestant in the sense that Luther and Calvin were.

Protestant with a small p, perhaps?

Mark,

If the two rites don't propose the same faith, by definition, the defective one is the Ordo of Paul VI.

You propose a very strained reading of the terms Ordinary and Extraordinary. Pope Benedict didn't say "Ok., it can be celebrated by those who are too old or too stubborn to accept the truth " ... or anything like it. In fact, he said that priests should offer the Mass in the Extraordinary Form even if the faithful don't ask for it.

When you are more committed to the TLM than you are to full communion with the Catholic Church, something is wrong.

Something is indeed wrong, but it isn’t the people who love the TLM.

If the pope were to abrogate the TLM tomorrow and it suddenly became illicit everywhere, I would not only fully support, but encourage people to continue attending TLM’s, consequences be damned. We are dealing with a papacy that breaks from tradition, not tradition breaking away from the papacy, which is how the story is currently being spun.

I repeat: it is modern Rome breaking from the past, not traditional Catholics who break from Rome. Rome separates itself from its own foundations. Ultramontanists scare fence-sitters away from tradition as being disobedient. MUCH better to be disobedient to a pope who is not in communion with tradition than to obey said pope and break from tradition which carries farrrrrrrrrrr greater weight. I see this situation akin to latæ sententiæ excommunications: the doing of the act in itself demonstrates a split. In this case the one doing the splitting is the pontif, not the PiPs attending TLMs or even the priests performing them even when asked not to by pathetic ordinaries.

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Spot on ServiamScores, thank you.

I will add that those TLM-goers who refuse to attend a Novus Ordo, as opposed to those that are also fine with attending a Novus Ordo in addition to the TLM, are precisely the ones who realize that it is not only about TLM vs Novus Ordo. The Catholic Faith is more than just the Mass - although obviously the Mass contains one of the most central aspects of the Catholic faith and is probably the most visible representation of it in some ways. But the Catholic faith is a whole package; the liturgy, yes, but also a lifestyle and a tradition going back 2000 years. And thus it is NOT any sort of "sola liturgia" are you are trying to cleverly make it out to be. Those who attend the TLM may have their faults (as we all do) but by and large, they only desire to live the Catholic faith and worship at the Catholic Mass, as was done for centuries. They do not deny any of the traditional Catholic teachings yet are excoriated for simply desiring the centuries-old expression and living of the Catholic faith, while others who are clearly heterodox or outright heretical are given a pass and let alone.

And if you want to claim that TLM Mass goers do deny any Catholic teachings on the grounds that they supposedly deny the authority of the Pope, well, then that would really be part of the crux of the matter, wouldn't it...but I will just say that I think you would find that traditional faithful Catholics would be the most ardent and grateful supporters of the papacy if the one filling the position didn't show himself to be their enemy.

Bottom line is, as ServiamScores pointed out, traditional Catholics did not and do not make any split or "schism" - how can you say that when what they do is simply what had been done until Rome decided to turn the life of the Church upside down? When such drastic changes are made to centuries of tradition, it is the burden of the one making the changes to show that he is not being schismatic, not the ones who simply hold to what was taught to them and their fathers and their fathers, etc. Maybe Summorum Pontificum will be outdated by the end of this week if the rumors are true - but what Pope Benedict said about the traditional Mass (what was once holy and sacred cannot suddenly become bad and unholy) is easily applied to the whole package of the traditional expression of the Catholic faith. Benefit of the doubt is most aptly applied to tradition in the Catholic faith, not novelty.

Oh, hey, I recognize Martin Luther

Oh the irony of this comment! Since we're talking about the Liturgy...surely you are aware that much of what Luther, Cranmer and all of the Protestants originally did to, or stripped from, the Mass was implemented with the Novus Ordo Missae? In light of this fact, this is most certainly not an issue of "traditionalists" falling into Protestantism, it is an issue of Rome herself falling into the same errors that the Protestants did/do with regards to thr liturgy, which of course has implications on what ones believes about Catholicism as a whole.

Seems to me the conflict in France was about TLM priests refusing to celebrate the Chrism Mass with their bishop. It is hard to follow their reasoning on this one since the Chrism Mass is not a mass to be said by a solitary priest. Will it turn out those priests shot themselves in the foot?

Oh, hey, I recognize Martin Luther’s argument.

1) The liturgy was originally that of the apostolic tradition, given by Jesus himself, and generally fantastic.
2) Lately we’ve got these bad popes who are doing their own thing and the liturgy has been perverted and corrupted.
3) I know what real tradition is, and what the real, authentic, traditional liturgy is.
4) I’m going to do that no matter what, separate myself from the Pope, and feel good about doing what’s actually traditional, and it’s the Pope’s own fault for having abandoned tradition.

Gamba, I confess this made me chuckle rather more than upset me. Unfortunately, I believe you woefully incorrect on this point.

Luther split and "made himself his own pope" and immediately changed things. You cannot possibly claim that maintaining the tradition as it was handed on is even remotely equivocal to what Luther did—which was NOT maintain what was handed on but CHANGE.

The man was a filthy wretch by the end, who spouted all sorts of evil things that are recorded for time-immemorial in his collected works. Why anyone would choose to follow such a depraved man is a mystery to me.

Simply saying, "I am not going to change from what has always been done, when we know the pope is changing things he shouldn't" is wholly different from, "I don't like what the pope is doing so I'm going to do something completely different to suit my tastes [that is NOT rooted in pre-existing liturgical praxis]"

_____________
I am reminded of the stunning plea (there's video of it floating around on YT) made by Lefebvre at one of his later public masses where he essentially says [paraphrasing here]:

"How can it possibly be that I am the one being called schismatic? If, even two years before the council, I had tried to say mass in the vernacular, facing the people, with all the abominations we see now, I would have been excommunicated as a heretic! And yet mere months after the council, they decry me as a radical and schismatic for doing what we have always done for centuries!"

It is a very convincing argument in his favor.

I am simply saying that the people who continue to have Mass the same way that centuries upon centuries of Catholics had it all across Europe, are not the ones one can accuse of schism. If St. Alphonsus walked in the door, or St. Francis de Sales, or St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. John of the Cross, or St. John Marie Vianney, or____, or____, etc. which Mass would they say? Your honor, I rest my case. No matter what PF says (and don't get me started on Quo primum) the TLM will forever be valid. It is THE rite of the roman church.

I recently had a priest ask me what church teaching I most struggled with. While I make an assumption here, I believe he was expecting me to say something like "contraception". I could see the very clear look of surprise on his face when I replied that what bothers me most is our apparent 180º turn on the death penalty; I utterly fail to see how something could be deemed licit by pope after pope, and even the angelic doctor himself, as a perfectly legitimate (if extraordinary) penal action for the greater good, and suddenly, POOF! not any more!

That's not how authentic development of doctrine works, folks. You don't get to literally reverse course and say something completely contrary to centuries of tradition and formal church teaching and call it dogma and (literally) re-write the catechism. nopety, nope nope. (and the same goes for the liturgy)

What troubles me greatly about the OF is just that which Serviam hints at above. If any number of saints (or even Joe Schmo the peasant) from Charlemagne until 1960 walked in on the NO as it is celebrated 99% of the time, they would without question think they had stumbled upon some sect of heretics celebrating a heretical rite. Yes, I know the N.O. is valid and not heretical, but the above remains true regardless.

Trenton, I couldn't agree more.

I was praying one day and realized that if St. Theresa of Avila walked in this very moment, she would shriek in horror and what we had done to her church. Then I thought about St. Alphonsus (I love his sermons) and felt honestly convicted that he would fashion a cord and start whipping people out.

The moment my mass wasn't the same one as the great saints was a very dark day for me. Like you, I believe it valid/licit and I believe Christ truly present, but I think it a gross injustice thrust upon us.

Gamba, fair, but it's still not quite the same. For starters I don't believe any of his initial fight with rome was about liturgy. Or at least, it was primarily about liturgy. Didn't that come later? Also, as you put it correctly, he separated himself from the pope. I think people who cling to the TLM aren't separating themselves from the pope. I think he is separating himself from them. I don't know a single normal person who is happy about being separated (if this is actually true) from the pope. Everyone wishes it were not so; I don't know of anyone who revels in the idea. Most find it utterly terrifying (myself included). But again, I don't feel like we ran away from home and said, "screw you, dad!". I feel like dad left mom (or at best is in an abusive relationship) and we are scrambling to survive the best we can. Big difference.

Serviam, the Missal of Paul VI was a revision of that of Pius V, at least that’s how the Church sees it, I frankly don’t care that a few one off commentators disagree with the Church on that.

Continuing with the saints, what about the Apostles? The Early Martyrs? Augustine? John Chrysostom? Did they worship in the TLM? No. Lord knows how much the Mass changed between their day and the High Middle Ages, but that happens when you have something that’s nearly 2000 years old.

Gamba’ observation of the resemblance of Luther is interesting, but I think an even better comparison might be the Old Catholics. As the Holy Father mentioned a few months back, 100 years or so adrift from Rome resulted in some interesting things, like ordaining women and blessing same-sex marriages, and they thought THEY were the trads back then.

Some of the things in the NO the Trads rail about are rather trivial and a bit silly. The NO faces the people. Although it doesn't have to face the people, those true to tradition would say the priest and the people should face east. That is tradition and many TLM masses face here, there, and anywhere. What else has changed that causes the Trads such angst. Prayer I is so similar to the Roman Canon there is hardly any difference. I remember all the flap about pro multis, which agreed, was incorrectly translated. That was fixed in the 2010 translation but we all knew what was meant anyway so it all came down to argument for the sake of argument. Vestments were simplified. Good, they needed to be. Altars were so encumbered with useless wrappings, you could hardly see them underneath all the junk. That needed simplification, too. The biggest legitimate differences I see are music and the current over-emphasis on sermons. Unless the priest actually has something to say that teaches doctrine or illuminates scripture, he shouldn't talk for the sake of talking - but they sadly do. Music went to pot and that is blatantly obvious. Not that most parishes ever put all that much money into music and made it any kind of priority. Most still don't. It is cheaper to let a bunch of amateur guitarists play than hire degreed and competent organists. Better training of priests in liturgy and music could certainly help out there. Many can barely chant these days.

If the two rites don't propose the same faith, by definition, the defective one is the Ordo of Paul VI.

Is an assertion posing as a hypothetical, and is patently as well as demonstrably false.

From Summorum Pontificum:

Art 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the lex orandi (rule of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. The Roman Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V and revised by Blessed John XXIII is nonetheless to be considered an extraordinary expression of the same lex orandi of the Church and duly honoured for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s lex orandi will in no way lead to a division in the Church’s lex credendi (rule of faith); for they are two usages of the one Roman rite.

It is therefore permitted to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal, which was promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as an extraordinary form of the Church’s Liturgy.

Both liturgical forms celebrate and express the same faith. The exact same faith.

And, no, there isn't a document that explicitly uses the word "priority" about the Novus Ordo, but the whole history of what happened in the Church from Sacrosanctum Concilium to the promulgation of the new Missal, to Benedict referring to the Novus Ordo as the normal and ordinary liturgical form in the Church, leads to the true conclusion that the Novus Ordo does have priority in Catholic liturgical life, meaning it is to be considered the preferred, normative, expected, default liturgical form going forward even though the older form is still permitted. That's also what is meant by the liturgical reform is irreversible.

If Pope Francis contributes anything to the discussion and understanding of the relation between TLM and NO, between EF and OF in whatever document he is expected/rumored to promulgate, I hope he clarifies and legally encodes that although the two liturgical forms celebrate and express the same faith, and although both may be celebrated, the NO/OF is to be preferred as the standard liturgical form in the Roman Catholic Church because the liturgical reforms of Vatican II brought about a new, reformed, default set of liturgical rites in the Church while perhaps not abandoning what preceded it entirely. That should entail that all Catholics, ordained and lay, are expected and might be legally required to celebrate the Novus Ordo at least part of the time, while no Catholic is expected to celebrate the TLM at all.

Catholics who would refuse to abide by a directive to celebrate the Novus Ordo at least some of the time could, I think, be said to have a Protestant-like mentality of rejecting Church authority since Vatican II because they will be rejecting the Church's path of liturgical reform.

Mark, you keep making that claim over and over that the laity must attend and the clergy must celebrate the OF, but there is absolutely no legislation to support that claim, and at the end of the day it is simply your opinion. Hardly binding on all the faithful.

I'm not saying it's currently a requirement for Catholics to attend the NO. I think it's a correct attitude and practice to have in the post-conciliar Church, but it's not legally required.

I hope Pope Francis makes it a requirement because it's needed in order to reign in the separatist, Vatican II-rejecting attitudes that have developed in some TLM-exclusive parishes and religious communities, and to establish in a clear, indisputable way that no TLM-preferring Catholic would be able to deny that the NO is the preferred set of liturgical rites in the Church and there's no going back from Vatican II's liturgical reforms.

They are currently permitted to celebrate the TLM exclusively, yes. However, if they do so because they reject Vatican II's liturgical reforms in principle, they are doing so in bad faith and are not in full communion with the Church.

If they do so because, while accepting Vatican II's liturgical reforms in principle, they don't have a reverent NO Mass to attend or for another good reason they prefer the TLM, that's okay.

But if in principle they would refuse to celebrate or attend a NO Mass, or if they believe the NO is defective or invalid, there's an underlying set of problems behind that stance that show a refusal to be in full communion with the Church, which has authoritatively established a new set of default liturgical rites.

Church authority needs to clarify these things in a legislative way, in my judgment.

Mark,

Actually, it's a hypothetical.

We know for a fact that the older form of the rite proposes the faith, whole and entire, and we know that proponents (including yourself) of a "nice for historical study, but not useful today" approach insist that there is something in the deposit of faith which is newly present in the Missal of Paul VI (for why else would one be required to celebrate it as proof of orthodoxy) which is not present in the older form.

A Franciscan can not be compelled to use the Dominican Rite. Why? Because he's not a Dominican. Can a Dominican be compelled to use the Roman Rite? Also, no. Why? Because the Dominican Rite is included in a grandfather clause from the 1500s. Accepting the rite of Paul VI as valid does not compel one to celebrate it.

The host and benediction thing is crazy, and does seem to be a sort of denial of the validity of the OF.

On "ordinary" and "extraordinary", I think the terms should be understood in reference to the OF and the EF liturgies in a similar way that they are understood in reference to ministers of Holy Communion.

In the Novus Ordo, clergy are the ordinary ministers of Holy Communion and laity may be installed as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, but only if necessary and by way of exception. If there are sufficient clergy (ordinary ministers) to distribute Holy Communion, then lay (extraordinary) ministers are not to be used; in fact, using lay extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion unnecessarily, when there are sufficient clergy, is a liturgical abuse.

That means clergy are the preferred, normative, normal, default, standard, expected ministers of Holy Communion. Laity may distribute Holy Communion, but that is not the preference nor standard of the Church.

I think the terms "ordinary" and "extraordinary" as used by Pope Benedict XVI in Summorum Pontificum about the post-conciliar and pre-conciliar liturgies, respectively, should be understood in a similar way.

The ordinary form of the Church's worship is the post-conciliar liturgy: the preferred, normative, normal, default, standard and expected liturgy in the post-Vatican II Church. The extraordinary form is permitted by way of exception to the norm and is not to be generally preferred but may be personally preferred as long as such personal preference doesn't in principle exclude the ordinary form of the liturgy, which is now the Church's standard liturgical form. Exclusive participation in or celebration of the EF might be a de facto refusal to accept the OF in principle; not necessarily, but could be.

The comparison is not perfect, but I think it aptly gets at how the relationship between the NO and the TLM should be understood in the Church which, since Vatican II, has reformed the liturgy while permitting the unreformed liturgy to still be celebrated.

“ and the structure of the Mass as found in the Trent Missal is closer to more ancient forms of the Mass than the Missal of Paul VI is to the Missal of Pius V.”

Citations please

Tomjaw, re the saints, you’ve implicitly proved my point, the saints celebrated the form of the Eucharistic celebration according to the Church’s authorized norms at the time of their Earthly lives, even Escriva. The Apostles worshiped according to a Eucharistic form handed down by Christ, those from the mid-1500s to the mid-1900s worshiped according to the Mass of Pius V, and now according to that of Paul VI. In the coming decades and centuries the Church will canonize plenty of saints who primarily or exclusively worship/ped according to the Pauline Missal (looking at you Carlo Acutis), because that’s just how time rolls.