Comments on A Return To The Tridentine Mass, Conservative?

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You have a point there...
It is just that when I was a seminarian (and I am a post Vatican II seminarian) I heard a lot of these "modern" priests say "this is Vatican II" "that is Vatican I" and I found out later that what they were saying are not even in the documents of Vatican II! It is frustrating to find out that many of the things I grew up thinking to have been "the changes" of Vatican II were just the imaginings of a few disgruntled men.

posted by Friar__Tuck on October 27, 2006 at 2:40 PM | link to this | reply

Friar Tuck,

I think conservative, like liberal, is a loaded term because of its political connotation.

But it is true that those who favor a return to the Tridentine Mass have in common an affinity for tradition and an antipathy toward many of the reforms made after Vatican II. Traditionalism and opposition to reform are definining features of what is called conservatism.

posted by Dyl_Pickle on October 26, 2006 at 5:20 AM | link to this | reply

About "conservatives"...
First of all, Dylan, welcome to the household! :) I am very glad to read from you. I must agree that there is something to the Tridentine Mass. I have seen one of our friars -- a very old man -- build up his religious fervor from celebrating that Mass. He told me that it was easier for him to celebrate the Tridentine mass because it WAS the mass of his childhood and his early years as a priest. He simply -- he said -- could not adjust to the missal of Paul VI. So he got the permission to celebrate the Tridentine rite which Vatican II never really took away. Vatican II updated the way the Church was to deal with its boundedness with human history, not to "modernize" itself, but to make itself more fit to fulfill its mission in a world that is beginning to regard it as strange (which it was not up to the 18th century). This brings me to this point: sometimes we use "conservative" as something opposed to "modern". We seldom realize that it is just a label laid on something by those who think themselves representing the more "accepted" way. I personally don't like labels, and I don't like it when somebody uses the label "conservative" without really explaining why the thing so labelled is "conservative".

posted by Friar__Tuck on October 23, 2006 at 10:09 PM | link to this | reply

I posted about this a few days ago.

I just joined the Catholic Church this year, at the Easter Vigil. While I have never attended a Tridentine Mass, I like the idea of it. For example, I like the idea of the priest facing the same way as the congregation. That would seem to take the focus off the priest and put it back on God. I also like the idea of the singing in Latin. The Masses on the TV network EWTN are Novus Ordo, but are said (and sung) partly in Latin. It's beautiful.

It does seem, though, that those who seek a return to the Tridentine Mass are mostly conservatives. I don't think the use of the word "conservative" was meant as a pejorative. Pope Benedict clearly is very conservative in his theology, perhaps more so than Pope John Paul. I am definitely not a conservative, but I agree with conservatives about the use of Latin in the Mass.  

posted by Dyl_Pickle on October 19, 2006 at 8:20 AM | link to this | reply