Asking for the Tridentine Mass

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

I can link you to the article I got it from:

http://www.cfnews.org/tridmass.htm

[lumengentleman]

Why do you dispute Quo Primum could not be abrogated?

I don't think we need to get into all of that again; there was a very long thread on this subject here about a year or two ago, and it's just endless.  There is just no good or convincing argument that a future pope can not revoke, change, reverse, abrogate, revise, etc., a previous pope's disciplinary decrees, no matter how forcefully worded.

 

Sometimes I think we let our emotions rule our intellects; I'm just as irritated as anyone that a pope used his papal authority to promulgate a new rite of Mass, but as much as I hate it, I have to admit that he certainly possessed the authority to do so.  May not have been the smartest or most prudent exercise of authority, but ... the authority was still there, like it or not.

 

Quo Primum just confirmed the long standing tradition of the Church. Even if it wasn't there, theologians agreed that the Mass, in any form, should not be touched.

 

It really doesn't matter if thousands upon thousands of theologians agree or not; the dogma of the Church is that the pope possesses the supreme authority in such disciplinary matters.  A liturgy of the Church cannot be properly called a "dogma," thus making it irreformable, no matter how beautiful it is.

 

I will go even further: it really doesn't matter (in the jurisdictional sphere) what a nine-cardinal commission decided either.  It's nice to know; it gives a bit of ammo; but if the pope didn't confirm their decision by some kind of decree, it remains nothing but the opinion of nine men.  Nine very well-read and learned men, to be sure; but just nine men, all the same.

 

Also, the TLM is long standing tradition; a Pope may legally suppress it, but in such a case, the Pope would be hardpressed to find a good moral reason for it.

 

A "long standing tradition?"  Yes and no.  Bits and pieces of it are older than others, and I understand that the core of it is pretty ancient.  But when St. Pius V finally sat down to codify the one liturgy which was to be official for all of the West, he collected all the extant liturgies currently in use, and discovered that there were so many variations that the very first thing he did was eliminate anything younger than 200 years old.

 

The Mass has always been an organically growing and developing thing; you can trace several changes it just in this last century (the 20th) alone.  That's why Traditionalists in some places argue over whether the 1962 missal or the pre-1962 missal should be used!

 

I understand what you're saying; but I'd be careful about trying to turn the TLM into something (historically) which it isn't.  Apparently the popes who made alterations to it in the 20th century did not understand Pope St. Pius V's bull the way certain Traditionalists do today.

 

Cardinal Stickler himself said the Pope could not forbid a Mass that made all the saints we've ever known.

 

But that's Cardinal Stickler.  But a bunch of men in pointed hats dogmatically declared a hundred years ago or so that the Roman Pontiff possesses supreme authority in the Church.  If a pope wanted to surpress the Mass, he would have every right to do so.  He'd be a fool, but he could certainly do it.

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

Msgr. Klaus Gamber himself has studied the Mass longer than any of us, and although not a traditionalist, he says with certainty the TLM is the oldest liturgy in existence, almost more than 1500 years old in its essentials. Other accidentals were added, I admit, but in its core, it is still the same liturgy that St. Pius V himself said and St. Gregory the Great as well.


I'd like to quote him (p. 11, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy):

Unlike the appalling changes we are currently witnessing, the changes made in the Roman Missal over a period of almost 1,400 years did not involve the rite itself. Rather, they were changes concerned only with the addition and enrichment of feast days, Mass formulas, and certain prayers.

[Vincentius]

Yes, but are they talking about celebrating in a private or a public venue? I am not aware of any bishop forbiding any priest to privately celebrate the TLM, though far too many have disallowed public celebration. It may seem a pedantic sticking point, but it's there.

There are probably more bishops than we care to know that are inimical to the TLM and prohibit its celebration in their dioceses.  One bishop, O'Brien, ex-Ordinary of Phoenix, AZ, once stated that the TLM will not be celebrated while he was bishop there.  The moment he got kicked out ("hit and run" conviction), the new bishop, Olmsted, assigned three churches to celebrate the TLM. 

[Vincentius]

The traditional Latin Mass could not be abrogated without grave reason.  But as Lumen points out, Pope Paul VI (or JP II) could have abrogated it if he wanted to, as he possessed supreme powers to do so.  A pope can loose a law bound by his predecessor.  This is the principle of equals having no power over each other.  The pope has and can exercise the  legal and moral right over law or discipline, and thus if we had a tyrant pope, the Church would be at his mercy, which of course is a farfetched scenario because the Holy Ghost won't allow it.  There is also the possibility, as one theologian put it, of the erosion of supreme authority if popes issued sequential diametrical commands at every whim.  Paul VI had the legal and moral right to promulgate his version of the Mass, and abrogate all previous versions, if he had grave reasons to do so, but as we have seen, he had not.

[lumengentleman]

Msgr. Klaus Gamber himself has studied the Mass longer than any of us, and although not a traditionalist, he says with certainty the TLM is the oldest liturgy in existence, almost more than 1500 years old in its essentials.

Of course it is.  In its essentials.  But it's been changed and altered, in little ways, all along.

 

Other accidentals were added, I admit, but in its core, it is still the same liturgy that St. Pius V himself said and St. Gregory the Great as well.

 

But what you understand by the word "accidentals" may not be quite what you think.

 

Can you imagine a Mass without the Judica me Deus at the foot of the altar?  Those used to be private prayers of the priest; they were added to the Mass by Pius V.

 

Without the Confiteor?  That appears to be a development of about 1,000 years ago - old, yes, but not an untouched tradition.

 

How about a Mass without the three-fold Kyrie/Christe/Kyrie?  Originally, there was no Christe eleison in that prayer.  Again, it's old - I think it was set and fixed at three invocations per person of the Trinity by the 800s - but that's still after Gregory the Great.

 

Envision yourself at Mass reciting these words in the Gloria:

 

Quoniam tu solus sanctus
Mariam sanctificans
Tu solus Dominus
Mariam gubernans
Tu solus altissimus
Mariam coronans
Jesu Christe

 

Minor additions?  Probably.  But it means the Gloria, which is rather a major part of the Mass, was not fixed or uniform until Pius V.

 

Listen, I'm not arguing in the least that the Novus Ordo is just another in a long series of organic changes.  Clearly it isn't.  But we shouldn't commit the other error of thinking that the missal of Pius V was the exact same Mass that St. Gregory the Great used, or that St. Thomas Aquinas used.

 

Very similar, yes.  There was probably something resembling a kyrie, gloria, and confiteor in St. Gregory's Mass - but probably not something you or I would immediately recognize were it used in our parishes today.

 

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

Actually, I understand that quite well. Michael Davies himself says that in his book The History of the Roman Rite, as well as Fr. Adrian Fortescue in his book concerning the history of the Roman liturgy. I understand the process of organic development.

[DominusTecum]

Asking for a TLM through proper channels cannot hurt, but if your friend has already "fought a battle" over it, and did not succeed, then in all likelihood, you will not, either.

 

Re: Pius V, Paul VI, et al, as I understand it, the Pope cannot suppress an immemorial custom. The TLM is certainly such if such a custom ever existed. The Canon was untouched from the time of Gregory the Great until the time that John XXIII stuck St. Joseph into the canon. Until Pius XII extensively reformed the holy week rites, the only changes in the Mass since Quo Primum have been new propers and such for new saints, and a reformation of that system, to accomodate the very large number of saints which have been added to the calendar since 1570 when the rite was codified by Pius V. The Mass is the heart of the faith, and owing to common sense, we know full well that the Pope cannot suppress the ancient Mass of thousands of saints, and replace it with a Mass that is an utter fabrication, banal, protestantized, and usually accompanied by sacrilege and heresy, and which encourages these things. It is nice to have theological arguments to back up our common sense, but it is very easy to overintellectualize and fall into error. As laity, under ordinary circumstances, our best bet would be to "sit down and shut up," because we aren't theologians, and therefore who are we to question the pope, curia, and most of the world's bishops. However, these are not, by any stretch of the imagination, "ordinary" times. Our Sensus Fidei tells us quite clearly that the Novus Ordo and associated "Conciliar religion," as it is called, is not Catholic. Furthermore, we docile laity are not the only ones to feel this. We all know that two cardinals, Ottaviani and Bacci, felt the same about the Novus Ordo Missae, and declared this, too. Cardinal Ottaviani was prefect of the Holy Office, and if anyone is qualified to make a judgement, then it was he. Not to mention, of course, that the very learned and accomplished Abp. Lefebvre also supported him in this, along with many other of the "old guard" of pre-conciliar prelates. As we have the support of these very holy and learned ecclesiastics, as well as our own learning and consciences, and we are aware that true obedience consists in obeying only in those things that are lawful, (not harmful to our salvation) and we believe that the Novus Ordo is indeed harmful, at times, we are bound to "disobey," in the spirit of True Obedience. We would not be Catholics if we did not.