Salieri, how very sad, and how very true. I find myself in much the same position. It's a tale I seem to hear more and more of these days.

There's not really one way to do it, which is one of its weaknesses. In a general sense, the goal seems to be making the N.O. conform to S.C. and aiming to reflect Tridentine heritage as much as possible within the rubrics. In my experience this has resulted in an increased use of propers, chant versions of ordinaries, higher quality hymnody, all-male altar parties, increased or exclusive use of Latin, use of tridentine ceremonial where there rubrics allow for it or are ambiguous, use of nice vestments, clergy singing their parts, ad orientem, etc. I would hazard to say the N.O. in Latin as it is offered at Cantius on Sunday mornings is the ideal of the RotR approach. It's the Platonic form of RotR in my opinion lol.

Edit: I would say too, though, that RotR proponents often desire a reform of the N.O. itself which would ideally move it closer to something like the '65 or the Ordinariate form. This is highly idealistic though.

A shame, really. I remember reading Crouan's Liturgy Betrayed many years ago, and found it quite erudite, even if I didn't agree with all of his conclusions. Hopefully, he'll end up following the example of Fr. Kocik.

@smvanroode
In England, compare http://latin-liturgy.org with https://lms.org.uk

In France, https://www.unavoce.fr with https://www.nd-chretiente.com and https://www.proliturgia.org/index.html

You could look at membership / Quality of website / Facebook likes / google ratings. That may answer some questions you have.

At our parish, RotR (and I'm not claiming that our pastor thinks in these terms) is essentially: make the liturgy as beautiful and traditional as possible. Onwards, upwards. Chant? (vernacular or latin) great. Renaissance polyphony (vernacular adaptations or latin, or english reformation that is still orthodox) great. Antiphons? great. Hymns that are adaptations of the propers, great. Latin ordinaries during penitential seasons, great. It's a start. Other more dignified ordinaries than what is pushed out by the major publishers? Yes, please. (We are using Olbash's Mass in Honor of Our Lady, Star of the Sea at the moment.)

In other words: just... make it better. Leave it better than you found it. Restore what you can, where you can. We aren't trying to "TLM-ize" our parish... we are just trying to make the liturgy resemble, insofar as we can and people will accept it, traditional liturgy. We are still confined by the new missal, but much of the old praxis is either implied or certainly congruent with it, so we lean that way.

Obviously, this has to happen by degrees and you can't lurch quasi-tlm overnight (which, IMHO, is THE standard for roman liturgy but that's a discussion for another day). For instance, I recently transcribed the traditional Pater Noster into english (ie- the approved translation but sung as closely as possible to the traditional tone). We are going to live with that for a good long while, and then hopefully by next Advent, we can sing the real Pater, and it will be a smooth transition since the people will already be familiar with the proper melody. Similarly, I've transcribed Credo III more closely to the original than that which is in the back of the missal. We will add that in this Lent.

In these roundabout ways we are trying to teach people the traditional forms of piety and praxis, but in a (hopefully) seamless way. We are trying to offer them music that is truly universal, rather than "american, 1970-80's vintage" which is so common.

We are making headway too. Visitors regularly remark that they are pleased by our masses; they enjoy hearing music they don't get to hear at their own parishes. Many parishioners (some, rather surprising!) have come to me to voice their support. Others have told me that they traveled during the holidays and were very relieved to come back home to our parish where the liturgy was reverent—something that was lacking during their escapades. I've had parents tell me that even their small children have remarked the difference, stating, "the music isn't as good as we have at our church". I don't say any of this to sound triumphant; just to show that hearts do respond, with patience. Not all, but enough to make it worth it.

When I start feeling this way (which is an understandable place to be,) I find this quote attributed (probably apocryphally) to Mother Teresa helpful: "What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. [...] In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

Here is Fr Hunwick’s timely take on priestly control of the mass, pertinent at this point to the discussion: http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2022/01/prescription-in-liturgy-1.html?m=1
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2022/01/prescription-in-liturgy-2.html?m=1

The N.O. is an exercise in clericalism

It's absolutely impossible to completely remove the character of a priest from the rites he celebrates, new or old. But with the new rite, it's nearly irresistible to elevate the preferences of a priest to the level of a cult of personality.

It's absolutely impossible to completely remove the character of a priest from the rites he celebrates, new or old. But with the new rite, it's nearly irresistible to elevate the preferences of a priest to the level of a cult of personality.

Even with the old rite a new pastor could radically upend things. He could replace the chants of the Graduale with psalm tone propers, to save time. He could demand a steady diet of the Missa de Angelis and ban all other Mass Ordinaries. He could get rid of incense at the Missa Cantata, because it makes people cough. He could replace the Sunday Sung Mass with a low Mass (maybe with popular hymns for those who like a bit of music). As many have pointed out before, the relatively high aesthetic and liturgical quality of celebrations of the old rite today is largely a function of its niche character. Were it the only rite on offer, we Catholics would certainly find ways to make it vulgar (as we did prior to the Council).

"Let's make the N.O. as reverent as possible... add Latin, polyphony, chant, etc., etc... "

why the conniptions? why not just celebrate the TLM? It's all beautiful, has been honed over centuries and is all there in black and red (white).... What, mind you, is so valuable about the N.O. that one would want to keep any of it anyways? ... and what is so distasteful about the TLM that one would rather celebrate a 'sacralized' NO instead?

'Reform of the Reform' was probably originally meant to be an enrichment of the NO, not a disingenuously named stepping stone backwards. With the vernacular(s) one has the advantage of adding Orlando Gibbons, Bach and Rachmaninoff to the rest of the patrimony, and instead of being required to add the Boosey & Hawkes "Amen" to Stravinsky's Ave Maria, 'a patio for my classical Ionian temple', one has the choice of singing the original Bogoroditse Dievo. From a purely musical perspective, anyone who would prefer Rossini psalmtone propers to The American Gradual is surely part of the problem.

Because Vatican II called for a reformed liturgy and the TLM is not that liturgy.

True, but what the Latins have today is not exactly what Vatican II called for, either.

Ultimately, RotR could probably be boiled down to:

“Doing what VII actually asked for, in continuity with the well-established tradition that preceded it.”

Saying the mass promulgated by Paul VI in actual accord with the missal is comparably rare. There’s a reason Cantius is called a “unicorn mass”. Restoring the propers (option i in the GIRM!) and singing Latin ordinaries (Jubilate Deo booklet, anyone??) will already radically “re-form” the overwhelming majority of masses around the world.

@tomjaw

My point was simply that there are all sorts of things musicians and others might implement that could be undone by a new pastor, even in the old rite. Particularly if it were the only rite on offer, priests who don't like fancy ceremony or who do like schlocky music would still impose their preferences on congregations.

On the contrary, it seems that in the Novus rite, almost since its inception, the choice to use Latin language has been rare, and frequently excluded by authorities. Even though the typical books were published in Latin originally. (I understand that this latter practice may have come to an end.)

If one observes the evolution of a religious rite over time, not legalistically but rather sociologically, one may understand more clearly its content and meaning. On this view, for example, the Novus rite does not embrace the idea of a sacred language, nor of ritual music. What is sung is popular spiritual songs in the vernacular. The few exceptions are regarded as anomalous by the majority of worshippers. And also by the majority of Novus clergy, which is why it's quite right to expect that anomalous uses of Latin chants instead of the normal vernacular hymns, of of anomalous ceremonial taken from a different rite (Roman sacred language, or maybe Byzantine prostration, etc) would be eliminated on change of clergy.

Of course, nothing in the Novus ritual books (Sacramentary/Missal, missallette, hymn book, etc) prescribes Latin, and neither does the original papal Constitution, for all that it was published in Latin, prescribe Latin for ritual use. On the contrary Pope Paul explicitly cherished the “varietas linguarum” which the rite has subsequently normalized.

The Novus rite is not the Roman rite, for this and numerous other clear reasons.

I have been a parishioner in three different large churches, which currently (or pre-covid) have 7, 7 & 5 Masses of Sunday. Those numbers are the same or greater than in the 1950s. In the 1950s one of these Masses at each church would have had full Gregorian propers, now one of the Masses at each church has full Gregorian propers, absolutely no change. What has changed is that now several of the other Masses have song, some in Latin, and often a cantor, whereas in the 1950s they would all have been missae lectae.

We were particularly fortunate in having Cdl Heenan at Westminster from 1963, before the first changes, to 1975 after the NO had been implemented in 1973. His policy throughout was that every parish have at least one Sunday Mass in Latin. That was because he saw a pastoral need, the same motive as getting an indult for the TLM1967.

In response to Chris G-Z:

1) The Council Fathers lied: Latin wasn't to be maintained, after all. No they didn't lie.
2) The Consilium betrayed the Fathers of the Council: Bugnini says that there's no cause to continue the use of Latin. Yes Bugnini did betray at least where the Fathers were at the time they voted that ALTHOUGH he had built in some wiggle room in the text as is clear.
3) Pope Paul decided the Council Fathers were wrong and changed their instructions (or, overrode them). Rather he trusted Bugnini who also lied to him about the unanimity of the consilium members as Bouyer has testified in his memoirs. And that was the basis for him "overriding" ( technically maybe not given the "wiggle room " above but I will grant it) some of the letter and most of the spirit of what the Fathers voted on. But he did promulgate it and had the authority to do so no matter what trads disordered by their understandable emotions may think.
4) The Mass as celebrated ostensibly using the Rite promulgated by Pope Paul VI is NOT the Mass the Council Fathers asked for. See above. Pope Paul VI was not bound in his ultimate judgement or detailed implementation by the Council or Consilium. Sorry folks. He was only bound by not promulgating something in "grave error" - something substantially contrary to the faith. Of course, this is the very charge of an increasing number of trads and where they show themselves to be in grave danger of moving more closely to impairing their full communion with the Church. For with this they begin to call into question the indefectibility of the Church. Moreover, if a Pope can do this in his ordinary magisterium or his ordinary governance of discipline, then the protection afforded by his charism of infallibility in the exercise of his extraordinary magisterium is undermined. Many who believe this to have happened are asking themselves if they should just go Eastern Orthodox. And indeed that would seem a logical conclusion for such folks who have reached such an extreme conclusion. By the way, I think the N.O.is in many ways very shoddy and with an unreasonable and undesirable plethora of optionality - but I do not think even in its shoddiness/excess optionality (as long as not abused) can it be said that it has "objectively destroyed" peoples faith. If that is the case, then a terrible neglect of one's spiritual life must be the root cause.
5) God betrayed His people, and lied to them. (Consider this as ridiculous). So considered. Ridiculous
6) The Reform of the Reform is merely trying to enact what the documents (of Paul VI and of the Council Fathers) decreed should take place. Absent a Papal or Conciliar reform of the reform , I would say yes, a rather sporadic and provisional reform of the reform. But probably need a Papal or Conciliar Reform to fundamentally reform what Paul VI promulgated - at least if we want consistency across dioceses or even within them.

Something not often mentioned is that the bishops at Vatican II had familiarity with the old rite. The bishops now, for the most part, don't have that. Even with the best of intentions they would have great difficulty using it as an ideal or basis from which to begin any reforms.

@rich_ebough, my problem with the sociological argument is that I find it a straw man. On the one hand, yes, I agree: one has to keep the actual souls in the pews in mind when making changes. Changes to parish liturgical life don’t exist in a vacuum and they have real effects on real people.

But the problem, as I see it, is actually one of the will. Will on the part of pastors to bring proper liturgy to fruition, and will on the part of the people to humble themselves to a liturgy that may be less to their liking and more to God’s.

There are plenty of examples of parishes living much more closely to the acknowledged ideal. There is no genuine impediment to implementing similar masses elsewhere apart from will power and catechesis.

One cannot make the claim that a mass with Latin propers is beyond the scope of ordinary people or beyond the scope of the novus ordo missæ as there are living examples to the contrary.

And spiritual concerns trump sociological ones (at least if you want to get to heaven).

You cannot look at a crime ridden ghetto and say, “sociologically speaking, people just prefer to be gunned down in the streets and join gangs.” Such a statement is cohesive if you only frame it as a sociological observation. But man was never meant to live this way. It is a deformation of the way mankind was actually intended to thrive.

Man is called to something more, as is the liturgical life of the Church.

The impediment that exists is the people that want NuReligion. Care Jesus only goes so far with people who are convinced you are wrong.

I agree that "a mass with Latin propers is [not] beyond the scope of ordinary people or beyond the scope of the novus ordo missæ as there are living examples to the contrary" - my parish is one of those "living examples" and I sing at such a Mass every week. And it's great to hear about a parish doing more chant.

So I'm not givng up the ship. But sometimes the Nu-churchers aren't willing to find a new home, no matter the will power or catechesis.

“For goodness’ sake… Why don’t they just find another church home? There are thousands of nominally Christian churches that already embrace all their ideals.”

Because they love the Church.

And by that, I mean that they love the Institution.

One can find any amount of groups whose beliefs overlap with your own, but as far as having the ecclesial infrastructure and organization, with the power to implement changes on such a massive scale - the Catholic Church is still front runner in that regard, despite whatever recent setbacks she's recently undergone. You may agree with everything the Unitarians believe, but they don't have the same social standing to affect change that Catholicism does.

Michael Davies mentioned this in his writings on the famed Jesuit George Tyrrell. Tyrell was faced with the same question, and his response was that he found the Catholic Church the best suited to affect these sort of progressive changes - for the better, of course! (It never ceases to amaze how vying for power in the social arenas of life can so effortlessly take on the persona of 'philanthropic reform'.)

And by that, I mean that they love the Institution.

I have quoted my Episcopalian friend before who told me, "I don't believe any of that. I just love the ritual and find it comforting."

Nihil,

There's nary a Trad alive who doesn't gleefully tune in to that pawplerized, truncated, vernacular Christmas Mattins service they put on every year at the younger of England's two Universities.

Perhaps you miscounted, by one?