I wonder, though: why can we not have orthodox belief and worship, AND a more pastorally sensitive Church.

Pope Benedict’s Great Restoration

Pope Benedict XVI prays during a mass at Saint Bartolomew Basilica in 2008. (Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/Pool/Reuters)

A decade ago today, he revivified the Mass of the Ages. Ten years and a few months ago, I met Bill Buckley when he invited me to his home. It was just a few weeks after his wife, Patricia, had died, in May 2007. We talked about Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard, because I couldn’t help my contrary nature even then.

We talked about a film, The Lives of Others, which Buckley told me was the greatest film he had ever seen. By the end of the conversation, he discovered that, like him, I was a devotee of a certain religious rite. He invited me to the Traditional Latin Mass at St. Mary’s in Stamford that afternoon. We were members of this lonely fraternity of souls, a group that we didn’t know was about to grow much larger.

Ten years ago today, Pope Benedict XVI issued a document that vindicated the arguments that Catholics like Buckley and me had repeated in safe company for years: that the Latin Mass that was common to almost all of Western Catholicism for centuries was never abrogated.

It is so difficult to explain to young Catholics the fugitive feeling of attending a Traditional Latin Mass before the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year in this millennium. I had been doing so for just five years. Latin Mass communities were detested by bishops and cardinals, most of whom believed it was their life’s mission to modernize a defective Church. It also marked one out for scorn from most who considered themselves conservative Catholics. They called us disobedient schismatics. We often deplored them in return for the personality cult they built around the papacy of John Paul II. (In truth, our side of this dispute did and still does have cranks in its ranks.)

These years shaped in me a deep distrust of ecclesiastical persons in the Church. I made a study of periods of apostasy in the Church and kept reminding myself of the words of St. John Chrysostom that “the road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.” The child-abuse scandal didn’t surprise traditionalists. In some ways, we thought it proved our point about the depth of corruption in the Church. It was obvious to Traditionalists that, in many dioceses, it was better for a priest to rape children or carry on an active sex life with other adults than to say the Latin Mass for people like us, “the crazies.” I learned, in my heart, a notion Thomas Aquinas expressed in Scholastic doctrine: that the blessed in heaven must enjoy the torment of the wicked in hell.

Loyalty to the liturgical books of 1962 was slightly more common among political conservatives than among others. It was a trait shared by Buckley and Patrick Buchanan, and also by libertarian Thomas Woods and Gladden Pappin, who writes for American Affairs. Nor was it just political scribblers who found themselves attracted to “the TLM.” The new rite of the Mass was almost instinctively detested by real literary giants, who saw it as a banal substitute for a ritual whose words and forms had been shaped by the great ages of faith.

Simon Tolkien recalled his grandfather’s displeasure with modern “worship” in the Catholic Church: “I vividly remember going to church with him [J.R.R.] in Bournemouth. He was a devout Roman Catholic and it was soon after the Church had changed the liturgy from Latin to English. My grandfather obviously didn’t agree with this and made all the responses very loudly in Latin while the rest of the congregation answered in English. I found the whole experience quite excruciating, but my grandfather was oblivious.” Evelyn Waugh intuitively sensed the bizarre intellectual alliance that informed the making of the new rite of the Mass; it was slipshod scholarship paired with a facile desire for revolution: “There is a deep-lying connection in the human heart between worship and age. But the new fashion is for something bright and loud and practical. It has been set by a strange alliance between archaeologists absorbed in their speculations on the rites of the second century, and modernists who wish to give the Church the character of our own deplorable epoch. In combination they call themselves ‘liturgists.’”

Waugh’s son Auberon stopped going to Mass and likely lost his faith, feeling that the modern Church had almost no connection to the faith of his father. Modern Masses appeared to him to be “kindergarten assemblies.” It wasn’t just Catholics who were distressed by the replacement of their rites. Agatha Christie petitioned Pope Paul to keep the old rite alive in England: “The rite in question, in its magnificent Latin text, has . . . inspired a host of priceless achievements in the arts — not only mystical works, but works by poets, philosophers, musicians, architects, painters, and sculptors in all countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture as well as to churchmen and formal Christians.”

The opponents of the old Mass are still well-represented in the Church, especially in the universities that retain the name “Catholic” yet never reflect on how their schools turn out so many disillusioned men and women. They still rage at the old Mass, and at Pope Benedict for what he did to re-legitimize it. These so-called theologians remind one of the French intellectual Alain Badiou, in that they insist that all legitimate intellectual exercise must be carried out in fidelity to some great “Event.” For Badiou, the event was Communist revolution, and Mao the only true intellectual. For these so-called theologians, the “Event” was the Second Vatican Council — the Council itself, not the texts it produced, which are of secondary importance.

This Event created a new church, in need of a new intellectual party of adepts. But their methods are sloppier and shallower than Badiou’s. These theologians greet every novel utterance of a pope or a Church document as a new revelation that “develops” previous Church teaching. In their parlance, development means the opposite of what it did to John Henry Newman. He meant further articulation; they mean “obviate or overturn.” Their words, like the liturgy they prefer, are a self-referential clamor.

I am not a particularly devout man. I am inconstant and have numerous vices, which are easy to name. I attend the old Mass, in part, because it respects me as a sinner. And ten years on, I can only thank Pope Benedict for giving legal sanction to this august rite that unites me again with my coreligionists, from scribblers like Buckley and inconstant men like Waugh to all the saints and angels; this Mass where before the awful moment at which the bell is rung and the the sacrifice of Calvary breaks through into the present, all clamor disappears into silence.

Rather, it condemns the idea (and those that hold it) that the vernacular or the audible voice are absolutely necessary. Remember, heresy is often found in adhering to a position to such an extreme as to entirely reject the alternate positions (free will vs. divine election, audible vs. silent, vernacular vs. sacred language, etc...). It is both sloppy and inaccurate to say that Trent condemns the use of language intelligible to the people:

While the Mass is, in fact....

ye can't blame 'balkanisation' on the vernacular mass

not understand any more than in your home parish

...little more than...,

...has to be deliberately caused.

Understanding the text is important, otherwise it becomes little more than a magic show with the sorcerer muttering incantations.

That being said, Vatican II had in mind the laity would understand and be able to respond in both Latin and the vernacular.

54. In Masses which are celebrated with the people, a suitable place may be allotted to their mother tongue. This is to apply in the first place to the readings
and "the common prayer," but also, as local conditions may warrant, to those
parts which pertain to the people, according to tho norm laid down in Art. 36 of
this Constitution.

Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or
to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to
them.

And wherever a more extended use of the mother tongue within the Mass
appears desirable, the regulation laid down in Art. 40 of this Constitution is to be
observed.

40. In some places and circumstances, however, an even more radical
adaptation of the liturgy is needed, and this entails greater difficulties. Wherefore:
1) The competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, must,
in this matter, carefully and prudently consider which elements from the traditions
and culture of individual peoples might appropriately be admitted into divine
worship. Adaptations which are judged to be useful or necessary should when be
submitted to the Apostolic See, by whose consent they may be introduced.

2) To ensure that adaptations may be made with all the circumspection which
they demand, the Apostolic See will grant power to this same territorial
ecclesiastical authority to permit and to direct, as the case requires, the
necessary preliminary experiments over a determined period of time among
certain groups suited for the purpose.

3) Because liturgical laws often involve special difficulties with respect to
adaptation, particularly in mission lands, men who are experts in these matters
must be employed to formulate them.

36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.
2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the
administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be
of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended.
This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the
prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down
separately in subsequent chapters.
3. These norms being observed, it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical
authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to decide whether, and to what extent, the
vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is,
confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this
authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same
language.
4. Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the
liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority
mentioned above.

There really is not much of an excuse for congregations not understanding what is going on in Latin. I can follow Latin masses quite well, and I am Eastern. Why are Latins not taught to do the same? It can't all be because of ineffectual teachers, but has to be deliberately caused.

This state of affairs was indeed deliberately caused. There is no other explanation than that those who came home from the council cared not a whit for what it said but only wanted to erase the culture they had inherited and replace it with one that they stitched together out of whole cloth.

One would hope they were better instructed and educated in the mass than is the case today

On the other hand, when abuses go not corrected but blessed by changing the law [the most recently obvious example is the changing of the Mandatum on Maundy Thursday, but there's no shortage of others] and when bishops, who are (at least de jure) moderators of the liturgy understand their jobs to include the banning of chant, Latin and all sorts of good things the Council required, I'm hard pressed to blame the abusers.

Trent wasn't the only council in the west. There have been others. Vernacular liturgy is legitimate, and has been promulgated by competent Church authority. Get over it.

1. to make known by open declaration; publish; proclaim formally or put into operation (a law, decree of a court, etc.).

2. to set forth or teach publicly (a creed, doctrine, etc.).

SC is an older document and much has changed since, for good or ill.

1. sound; just; well-founded:a valid reason.

2.producing the desired result; effective:a valid antidote for gloom.

3.having force, weight, or cogency; authoritative.

4.legally sound, effective, or binding; having legal force:a valid contract.

5.Logic. (of an argument) so constructed that if the premises are jointly asserted, the conclusion cannot be denied without contradiction.

6.Archaic. robust; well; healthy.

66. The proposition asserting that "it would be against apostolic practice and the plans of God, unless
easier ways were prepared for the people to unite their voice with that of the whole Church"; if
understood to signify introducing of the use of popular language into the liturgical prayers,—false,
rash, disturbing to the order prescribed for the celebration of the mysteries, easily productive of many
evils.

1. according to law; lawful: the property's legitimate owner.

2. in accordance with established rules, principles, or standards.

3. born in wedlock or of legally married parents: legitimate children.

4. in accordance with the laws of reasoning; logically inferable; logical: a legitimate conclusion.

5. resting on or ruling by the principle of hereditary right: a legitimate sovereign.

6. not spurious or unjustified; genuine: It was a legitimate complaint.

7. of the normal or regular type or kind.

CHAPTER VIII. On not celebrating the Mass every where in the vulgar tongue; the mysteries of the Mass to be explained to the people.
Although the mass contains great instruction for the faithful people, nevertheless, it has not seemed expedient to the Fathers, that it should be every where celebrated in the vulgar tongue. Wherefore, the ancient usage of each church, and the rite approved of by the holy Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all churches, being in each place retained; [Page 158] and, that the sheep of Christ may not suffer hunger, nor the little ones ask for bread, and there be none to break it unto them, the holy Synod charges pastors, and all who have the cure of souls, that they frequently, during the celebration of mass, expound either by themselves, or others, some portion of those things which are read at mass, and that, amongst the rest, they explain some mystery of this most holy sacrifice, especially on the Lord's days and festivals.

The Vatican has turned liturgy, for the most part, over to the bishop's conferences. They don't need permission since they already have jurisdiction and responsibility.

You are one of those who advances this justification.