Charles, W. There's no magic but maybe a mystery in what I experience with the sacred language and Traditional mass and Gregorian chant. And so are those of many of my schola members with whom I tried to share that experience.
OF Latin is a bridge betweem OF and EF for many people who are interested in traditional Mass or just the tradition of the Church. This all comes to the willing hearts, and the Church knows that. They are not enforcing it with the loud voice. I agree that beautiful music with secular languages is a good stepping stone for people who need them.

Michael O'Connor:

AFAIK nobody has come up with sound legal reasoning to explain the "never abrogated" in Summorum Pontificum. The 1962 Missal was in fact abrogated in law like all the others. The famed "Agatha Christie" indult applies only to the 1968 version of the Missal, not the 1962.

The only remaining explanation, one that we must reach reluctantly, is that Summorum Pontificum was an admission that the abrogation of approved orthodox liturgy is always ultra vires, i.e. against the constitution of the Church. That is to say, once suitable for worship, always suitable for worship; once indefectible, always indefectible. Likewise, a Pope could never abrogate a dogma duly defined by his predecessor, or uncanonize a canonized saint. All are exercises of the Petrine charism. But I'm sure I'm simplifying things.

They show up clutching rosaries, women properly veiled - looks a bit Muslim to me - are gun nuts waiting for an invasion, survivalists, and condemning anyone who worships at that pagan NO, etc.

As a Christian, you can't condemn rosaries and you can't condemn veils. As a Churchman, you can't condemn valid prudential political opinions, however weird they may be, as long as they are not objectively evil (i.e., pro-invading-Canada). As far as their vocal condemnation of the NO, if they are condemning the rite itself as intrinsically impious then they are heretics. If they are condemning the practice at your parish as impious, then that's an accusation that would need to be analyzed further.

Happy?

I suspect the Latin mass has a built-in limit to its growth.

At the EF Masses I attend, monarcho-libertarian distributists and distribu-libertarian monarchists are now decidedly in the minority. We still have plenty of Republicans, however, whom I sometimes find more annoying than the monarchists--at least the monarchists have a coherent ideology. I don't see any limit on the growth of the EF, because we keep attracting those normal families from the parish, and our numbers keep rising, whereas the total number of practicing Catholics keeps falling.

As for the MP and abrogation: note that it does not apply to the pre-1962 editions of the Missal; note also that there is silence about the 1965 amendments to the 1962 edition of the Missal. Et cet.This aspect of the MP was designed by the Pope to avoid reinforcing a positivist approach to the issue - he declared a fact into being rather than legislating a revival, as it were. It's a kind of legal fiction. Anyway, it has its limitations.

Oh, and one can sing ridiculous songs and dance around like pagans in the EF. You'd see that soon enough if the OF were abrogated tomorrow.

CharlesW said: "For now, at least, I don't see the majority of U.S. Catholics expressing any interest in it."

This hits the nail on the head, even if it's a glancing blow that goes on to dent the woodwork! Specific to our American culture, everything is about us. You can certainly see this in modernist congregations who go to such lengths for every member to be holding some one's hand at the Lord's Prayer. Really, it's like circling the wagons! We ARE THE Body of Christ, here inside these walls. Nothing else exists to us. We try very hard NOT to be aware that, simultaneous to OUR Mass, another congregation the other side of the world is celebrating THEIR Mass. This is where the concept of the modern Mass has come off the rails. All Masses are outside of time by the very definition of the Eucharist. We ALL are celebrating with each other worldwide, AS WELL AS with the other, much larger parts of the Church - the souls in purgatory and in heaven. That WE are so involved in our local culture that we can decide that we control all aspects of OUR Mass, and have no need whatsoever of expressing interest in anything else is so narrow and isolationist that it's downright scary! The United States is not, and has never been a "democracy". "Majority" is not the be all and end all of existence. And the Catholic Church has no characteristic of democracy - only in some parochial communities where the sheeple have not been taught about their own Church.

No one should be forced to attend Latin Mass any more than they should be forced to serve in the U.S. military via a draft system. But is there is no interest in this ME generation for Latin and good liturgy like there seems to be no interested in serving a few years of one's life to protect the liberty of all who even want to attend any Mass, then the slippery slope has just increased its decline!

Yes, I agree. For me, the 1960s were something to be survived! I hated every minute of it, including the 1.5 years I spent on a college campus. The only fond memories I have of "Woodstock" are actually from Woodstock, Illinois where I found a used 1966 Thunderbird convertible back in about 1973. I should never have sold it!

Linguam latinam nimis amo. Ritui Latinae adpertinet. Quoniam nunc Ritus Latina solum ea utitur--vivat, crescat, floreat!

If I implied or said anything else, forgive me.

I think the question really is, did the makers and implementers of the OF really mean to make a vernacular Mass, or to make a Latin Mass that could be celebrated in the vernacular at times?

I think the question really is, did the makers and implementers of the OF really mean to make a vernacular Mass, or to make a Latin Mass that could be celebrated in the vernacular at times?

The question is what did the Authorities whose authority established the new Rite of Mass think, not what the "makers" and "implementers" thought. You make it sound like Bugnini and the clown Mass people are the ones who count.

The Fathers of the Council are clear in what they were looking for. Paul VI did not mention the vernacular at all when he promulgated a "revision of the Roman Missal" for "the priests of the Latin Rite".

Can we all get a grip? The Novus Ordo was promulgated in Latin. What's with the baseless suspicions of rupturism? This is such a fruitless discussion.

I don't think the intent was de-Latinization. The original Novus Ordo was a Latin mass. But in practice, I don't even remember it being celebrated in Latin at the time. The first time I saw it, and for many years afterwards, it was always done in English. Some 20 years after it was promulagated, I witnessed a Latin NO. What happened between promulgation and implementation, is something I can 't answer. However, I am old enough to remember that after 1970, it was just understood that the vernacular would be used. Was there an edict to that effect from the bishops? If so, I didn't see it. In retrospect, I can say I don't know what the reason was.

As I understand it, abrogation of the Missal of 1962 would have prohibited its use absolutely. This was not possible, since old priests were given permission to continue to say that Mass; likewise, soon an indult was given for England, so it always remained legitimate under certain circumstances.

What is more puzzling, though, was the widespread prohibition of any Latin after the council. Sacrosanctum concilium gave bishops the authority to regulate the amount of vernacular, but it seems unlikely that the bishops of the council ever thought that they or their successors would take that authority to the extreme of saying that the vernacular must be used exclusively. There were many dioceses where even a motet could not be sung in Latin.

This was not the case, however, in my own diocese, and we continued to sing the Latin propers and ordinary; on ordinary Sundays, the priest's parts were sung in English, but we continued occasionally to sing Masses all in Latin except for the lessons. We have recently gone back to all Latin but the lessons for all the Sunday Masses as well.

The equating of the Latin Mass to the "new Mass" was operational from day #1 in the spring of 1965. Whatever the Council, way over in Rome, may have said or written, it was not made available to the laity until almost 10 years later. What DID happen was that our Pastor stepped up to the pulpit one Sunday morning and announced during the Sermon that this would be the last Latin Mass, and that something would be provided the next Sunday in English. Done! The "liberals" had gotten their way after years of underground fomenting in the Seminaries. And the good "conservative" people in the pews (aka "PIPs") took everything that came from the mouth of the priest as pure Gospel. No one complained, at least openly.

So calling the old Mass the Latin Mass, and the new Mass the vernacular, while totally incorrect, IS the perception (possibly intended) from the very beginning throughout the USA.

Even that doesn't have a simple answer though it seems.

Huh? Here was your question:

did the makers and implementers of the OF [A.] really mean to make a vernacular Mass, or [B. ] to make a Latin Mass that could be celebrated in the vernacular at times?

And the simple answer is B. They meant to make a Latin Mass that could also be celebrated in the vernacular.

...sorry... i always unsink a discussion when i have something to say... mea culpa. ^

I think it was a natural overrreaction to a situation that had been maintained and prolonged artificially and had thereby come under tremendous strain.

What I mean is, if the use of the vernacular had not become an ideological shibboleth during the Reformation, it's quite possible that the vernacular would have eventually made its way into the liturgy of the Roman rite. But the dam that was set up held out for a long time, but once broken, there was a flood.

I started attending Mass on Long Island (hardly the land of radicals: this was Nixon Country) in the mid-1960s. There was no Latin to be heard. Morever, there was not a single lament of its absence, though I realize that was not true in all quarters, but my experience is one I've compared with a lot of my peers over the years, and it's an overwhelming pattern. (When some traditionalists were noticed gathering in their own chapel in Uniondale, but anyone who took notice appeared to treat them as strange outliers.)

There were, however, audible expressions of relief. Now, I think of my father, who had served Mass for years as a young man in a German parish, and was proud of his ability to do the servers parts. Not even he lamented the passing of this, and he's no liturgical progressive. (He missed the clackers during Lent and other aspects of ceremonial that he was fond of, but these were not a big deal either.)

The Latin/vernacular issue was an utterly quiet revolution compared to the Friday abstinence changes. *That* was an issue a lot of people noticed and expressed opinions about ("what do you mean - one year I would have been sent to hell because I ate meat on Friday, and now I don't if I do?!!") (The shift on the Eucharistic fast was probably not as dramatic as what had occurred with regard to that in the 1950s) And the lead-up and follow-through to Humanae Vitae caused lots of commentary. But the shift to the vernacular was certainly not experienced as a widespread trauma or violent thing by most people in the pews.

And I write this with the requisite disclaimer that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Much of this is what I remember, too. There was an unspoken understanding that we didn't do mass in Latin anymore. Other than a handful of people, no one objected. Most seemed relieved it was gone. Our organist held on for some years and kept as much Latin alive as possible. Ours was a conservative parish, so I think we were the only ones in town holding on to any Latin. Women had never been allowed to wear pants at mass, so many of them were rejoicing that they now could. Some said it made kneeling easier.