Recently I happened upon a long ongoing discussion on the NCR blog. The original post was titled, rather provocatively, “Which is Better: Latin Mass or Novus Ordo?” The poster, Matthew Warner, admitted to never having been to a Tridentine Mass himself, and went on to invite people to offer arguments on both sides. That was in February. It is now June. There are (since my last effort!) 481 comments on the piece, from webticians who as usual seem to range from the rational to the well-intentioned to the rabidly opinionated.
I have my own opinion on this question, as will be seen from my comments below. Let me say first, though, that my hackles always rise a little bit when I hear someone contrast the “Latin Mass” with the “Novus Ordo.” Putting all other arguments aside, and taking the most trivial: last time I checked, the words “Novus Ordo” were in Latin. That seems to suggest something to me . . .
Anyroad, here is my first comment, a couple of the ones following, and my reply. I’d be curious to hear what other people on the blog think on this issue. (Dena and Kevin, I’m looking hardest at you!)
Posted by Sophia Mason on Wednesday, Jun 22, 2011 9:33 AM (EDT):
Well, obviously I’m coming VERY late to this article, but my two cents are . . .
I grew up with something called “the Latin Novus Ordo.” (See Don Schenk’s post above.) Basically, it was a Novus Ordo Mass with all the constant parts (penitential rite, cannon, etc.) said in Latin. Oftentimes, though not always, it was celebrated ad orientem. People usually received communion on the tongue. Priests encouraged people who were able to do so to kneel for communion (even though none of the churches I attended growing up had communion rails). Music was a mixture of Latin Gregorian chant (for the Mass parts), traditional hymns, and polyphony.
I LOVE the Mass done this way! I think it’s really sad that nowadays people talk about “the Latin Mass” and seem to mean the Tridentine celebrated in its strictest, most inaccessible way. What about the cross-pollination that Pope Benedict has said he hopes to see between the two liturgies? Those Latin Novus Ordo Masses I attended seem like just the sort of hybrid he has in mind.
One anecdote. The parish I now attend doesn’t have a LNO Mass. There’s the Tridentine every Sunday, and several English Masses. A couple people have tentatively asked the pastor about having an LNO, but his attitude is that anyone who likes Latin would want the Tridentine. Au contraire! (To me, that’s like saying any girl who wants to dress modestly should wear ankle and wrist-length clothes. Oh, wait, there ARE some people who think that . . .)
Some months after this back-and-forth with the pastor, I sang at a Tridentine wedding at the parish. Also in attendance was a lower-echelon Vatican liturgist. After the Mass he came over to the music director and began congratulating him on the music, etc. He asked what the usual Masses at the parish were like. The music director gave him the “one Tridentine, and the rest are English Novus Ordo” answer.
The liturgist gave the music director a curious look, and said “So you mean you do Mass the old-fashioned way, and modern way, but you don’t do the official Mass of the Church?”
“What’s that?” asked the music director.
“The Latin Novus Ordo . . .”
Posted by Eileen Ratigan on Wednesday, Jun 22, 2011 10:36 PM (EDT):
I am responding to Sophia Mason and I am quoting her, speaking about the “hybrid” mass the “latin NO”.
Sophia said of her mass of upbringing, “Oftentimes, though not always, it was celebrated ad orientem.” “Oftentimes, but not always?” Well, why bother? This is a curious case of NO disorientation. Obviously, some churches are not set up properly ad orientem. That is another discussion entirely. The question remains after one assists the exquisite, ancient TLM, why change the language in the first place? Is it a great idea to mold the mass to the culture instead of Christ’s tradition of molding the culture to the mass? Please, modernists, study the ancient church. The mass was the core of the worship. The mass was a sacrifice on an altar, of the most worthy, pure and divine Lord for our salvation. The NO, in any form, contains too many distractions. It pulls the church towards the culture, which is exactly opposite of the way Christ himself and the ancient church worked so hard to pull the culture into the church. Diabolical disorientation is often exactly backwards.
Posted by Thomas on Wednesday, Jun 22, 2011 11:55 PM (EDT):
In response to Eileen, the Mass started as the Lord’s Supper, the remembrance of the death of our Lord. It was held around a table not some cold stone non human altar which for some strange reason is supposed to be facing east. Remember the first mass was at a table. The second mass was also said at a table in Emmaus and it was Jesus who said it. I don’t think Jesus cared about which way the table was facing or how fancy the altar was. The important thing was that his friends were gathered around him in love. Remember, the disciples who walked with Jesus recognized him in the breaking of the bread, not in a fancy altar, not in the direction he was facing and certainly not in a language they couldn’t understand (i.e. Latin). No their hearts recogized him in joy. Vatican II did a pretty good job of bringing that joy back considering how far the mass had slip from what it is supposed to be. Now unfortunately it seems to slipping back to some pagan ritual that has to be minutely followed using rules that make no sense and speak not in any way to our hearts. The mass is a sacrificial meal. God wants our hearts as a sacrifice as Jesus gave his. God does not want minutely followed rubrics. This clearly is one of the main messages of the Good News. Thank goodness, God left us the Gospels to show us His Way.
Posted by Tim Rohr on Thursday, Jun 23, 2011 4:18 AM (EDT):
I have been attending the Tridentine Rite for about 12 years. It’s true that there is a breed of folks who are more Catholic than the Pope when it comes to the Tridentine Mass, but its still a tiny fraction of people compared to the post Vatican II hordes who trampled upon anything that even smelled of the old Church. That Pope Benedict had to declare the old Mass as “never abrogated”; 40 years hence in his Moto Proprio, is some indication as to how quickly and viciously the old Mass was put to death and buried. I’m sad to say that I was part of that revolution, guitar in hand. But after 20 plus years of trying to make the Mass ever more groovy I had to admit that I was at a dead end. I put the guitar away and went in search of a Mass at which I could experience something greater than myself. I didn’t even know about the Tridentine at the time. For whatever reason, the Novus Ordo, or the way it is done, just simply lends itself to “an all about us” feel. Just my personal opinion. I eventually stumbled upon a Tridentine Mass. I’m not sure if it was the amount of silence within the Mass or the fact that the priest faced the altar, but there was just an “otherness” that seemed built into the Mass that attracted me. So I stayed.
Posted by Sophia Mason on Thursday, Jun 23, 2011 9:55 AM (EDT):
In response to Eileen Ratigan—my “oftentimes, though not always” was not intended as an approval—merely an accurate description of what I experienced. I’m pro ad orientem, for all the reasons you can imagine.
Distractions in the LNO? I think it depends very much how it is celebrated. For many people, like myself, a Mass that is reverent but participatory (as the best NO Masses are) is a better experience than a Mass that is so “other”. With or without a missal or prayer book, my mind tends to wander much more easily at a Tridentine Mass than it does at an LNO one. This may very well be a flaw IN ME, but I know other people who share the same flaw, and as a result have the same Mass preference!
What troubles me about this debate (which, as New Observer notes, has a surprisingly long life span) is that people on both sides tend to treat what is essentially a matter of practice as if it were a matter of dogma. Yes, a good, holy, reverent, fruitful Mass is essential (“unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man . . .”)—but the Church has given Latin rite Catholics two ways to say Mass. Both ways can, and both have been, abused. We shouldn’t make the abuse a reason to attack the proper use. To paraphrase GKC, “The Latin Novus Ordo hasn’t been tried and found wanting. Most places, it just hasn’t been tried.”
Dear Sophia,
I got a little education from your post–thanks.
I came into the Church in 1984, well past Vatican II, and never knew any sort of Latin rite. I didn’t have much interest in this debate until about 1995, when our local priest (there’s only one Catholic church where I live) became “progressive” after attending Mahoney’s seminars out in California. Changes happened…. I won’t go into them….
I can only say that until then, I’d never thought much about the debate.
But I think what I would have paid attention to in the NCR debate that is the subject of your post is the call for it: 9″The original post was titled, rather provocatively, Which is Better: Latin Mass or Novus Ordo? The poster, Matthew Warner, admitted to never having been to a Tridentine Mass himself….”) Someone who says he has no experience of/opinion about a subject and then invites other people to argue about it is engaging in “Let’s you and him fight” mischief. No, thanks.
Of course, I have opinions about liturgy and opinions about what has come to be called “liturgical abuse,” but as your post mentions, there have been 481 responses so far, and I know the subject exercises people to an extraordinary degree. (So did Matthew Warner.)
I’s obvious that Warner posed his absurd question in order to watch a donnybrook while standing at a safe distance. That’s malicious. But because his manipulative intention was successful, another more worthwhile question is: why was it so successful? Could it be that Catholics would rather argue liturgy among themselves than confront the enemy outside who provoked it? Could it be that creating war about liturgy has a far more potent and dangerous affect? It takes away not only the attention from a far greater threat, but also the energy needed to confront it. Diversion is such a handy thing….
Reading this post, I thought of the following article by Matthew Alderman in a past edition of Dappled Things: http://www.dappledthings.org/essays_lightfromeast.php
Perhaps you will find it helpful. It has a lot of information and sound thinking on the matter.
Thanks, Bernardo. That’s a very well-done, in-depth piece!
Dear Dena,
Ah, comprendo. I didn’t know when you came over. I can sympathize with the Mahoney experience–I went to college in CA just before he retired, and got a taste of it from time to time!
I wasn’t really thinking about WHY anyone would post on the Mass issue. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to suspect the motives of someone posing the question–but perhaps I just haven’t been around the web block enough times!
Sophia,
I haven’t “been around the web block” at all, but human nature isn’t changed by internet exposure (would that it were), just rendered more transparent more quickly.
Fair ’nuff!
On the other hand, Sophia, the absence of suspicion characterizes innocence. That says something about you. (Unfortunately, it also might say something about me. Oh, well..).
The question raised by the post on the NCR blog is “Which is better?” not “Which do you prefer?”
As there are significant differences between the two forms, it’s legitimate to ask which form of the mass better embodies the reality of the sacrifice of Christ, and which better forms those who take part in it?
The Novus Ordo is really an “abridged version” of the Tridentine – there are many elements in the latter which are not present in the former. It’s difficult to argue that these omission make no difference. One has to wonder – how has this abridgement been a really positive thing? Are we missing something by celebrating the Novus Ordo, (even in Latin) as opposed to the Tridentine?
To put it another way – the general norms laid down by Vatican II for the revision of the liturgy clearly stated that “there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.” It’s worth asking whether or not this principle has been honored in the revised liturgy, over and above which form I happen to like or dislike.
Most people have neither the time nor the inclination to ask such questions, which is fine, but I think it helps at least to get the questions on the table.
Hi Mr. Schmitt,
Thanks for your comments.
You’re right that “Which is better?” is the more important question in the abstract; but not all questions can be properly answered that way. Sometimes preference really makes the difference. Preference questions can be trivial (do you prefer the strawberry or the mango smoothie?) or not so trivial (if Tolstoy had given her the choice, would Natasha prefer Andrei or Pierre?). The assumption in the non-trivial preference questions is that, given a rightly-ordered conscience, your preferences will indicate, not necessarily what is absolutely better, but what is better for YOU. Hence, I think, the tendency to transfer this into a question of preference.
Yes, absolutely, a reverent LNO can be characterized as an abridged version of the Tridentine. But whether or not that abridgment was a good thing depends upon whether you think the Tridentine was more like, say, Kerouac’s unedited writing or Hemingway’s. (To take two writers, neither of whom I care for!) Some things ought to be abridged (though of course, we can still argue about whether the Tridentine Mass is one of them!).
Good point on the Vatican II norms. I suspect we would answer the question of whether or not they’ve been followed different ways; but as you say, it is a question that deserves to be considered, and isn’t very often.