Tridentine rite returns

In April, I wrote about the likelihood that Pope Benedict would relax restrictions on the celebration of the Tridentine Mass, and my concern that this move would mark an even greater lurch to the right in an already conservative Church.

As expected, the announcement was made a few days ago. This version of the story in The Guardian sets out some of the issues, including the worries of those of us interested in interfaith dialogue, especially in relation to Judaism.

There is another, slightly more sympathetic article in the British Catholic paper The Tablet, the online version of which I subscribe to. (I’m not sure whether the article link above will work, you may have to register to read it. This is free, and The Tablet is well-written and not too narrow in its views.)

The article talks about Pope Benedict’s assurances that the re-introduction of the Tridentine Mass is a low-key thing, it won’t make much difference, it will be purely voluntary, we should all stay cool about it. (I’m paraphrasing. Obviously.) And then we read this:

…if lay people who want to attend Tridentine Masses find that their bishops “cannot provide this type of celebration,” they are encouraged to inform the Vatican. Likewise, bishops who favour the Tridentine Mass, but cannot find priests who are able or willing to celebrate it, are also urged to seek the Vatican’s “advice and help”. The Ecclesia Dei Commission – the office set up in 1988 to help heal the rift with the schismatic Lefebvrist movement – has been given the authority of “maintaining vigilance over the observance and application” of the motu proprio.

Hmmm, maybe it’s just me, but I find that a tad worrying.

There is a good basic article here about the history and detail of the Tridentine Mass that’s been updated since the announcement. It sets out the following reasons people like it:

• It’s a theatrical and poetic experience of great spiritual power
• It has more of a sense of the mystery and the sacred
• It’s more clearly sacrificial than the modern Mass
• It’s part of a tradition of worship that’s centuries old
• It’s always the same – there’s no freedom for personal variations
• The language has a brevity and power that vernacular versions don’t achieve
• Modern texts are often banal
• Because it was the same in every country, it produced a sense of community with other Catholics worldwide
• Because it’s what they grew up with
• Because they don’t like change

I can understand and sympathise with a lot of these points. But listen to the discussion embedded in the article and what Austen Ivereigh has to say:

… this depends on where you go. There is good contemporary liturgy, there is bad contemporary liturgy, there was pretty appalling old liturgy … the call for the old rite is often a call for a better liturgy, for more prayerful and transcendent liturgy…

For me, prayerful liturgy is at the heart of it. I spoke here of my difficulties over attending Mass at my local parishes. I don’t think that a return to the Tridentine rite will be an automatic return to grace and reverence any more than it was in “the good old days”.