This data would imply that the Latin ordinary form is dying out and that the demand for Latin in the liturgy is increasingly becoming the exclusive province of the extraordinary form. The great worry here, from my point of view, is the rising impression that the new Mass is for the vernacular and the old Mass is for Latin - total obscurity the reality that the normative form of both is Latin, and certainly the normative form of the music for both is Gregorian chant in Latin.
I had fretted about this data for a full day before it was finally brought to my attention that something is fishy about the report. Unless the author is withholding his source, there seems to be no scientific basis for these statistics at all. Indeed, there is no reason to believe a word of it.
In fact, my strong impression is that Latin in general received a strong boost from Summorum Pontificum’s liberalization of the older form of the Roman Rite. Certainly the sales of Latin chant books for the ordinary form reflect that. Most all musicians working in the Catholic Church sense the change, the opening up of possibilities for singing music from our heritage in Latin.
My evidence is anecdotal but my own inbox has served me well as a barometer on these matters, and I hear of ever more cases of parishes moving to all-Latin ordinary settings and more choirs singing the propers, and even cases of all-Latin dialogues and Eucharistic prayers. To be sure, most progress takes place within a context of a mixed-language liturgy, neither all English nor all Latin.
Now, one might say: it’s fine to sing a Sanctus but what about the rest of the Mass? My answer is this. If you are looking for a direction of change, and hoping to characterize the future of the ordinary form, looking only for all-Latin-language Masses misses the point in several respects. For example, it is actually very common for low Masses in the extraordinary form to include vernacular hymnody. Are traditionalists unwilling to call these “Latin Masses?” Of course not, even though one might even say that a sung ordinary form Mass with Latin propers is a closer approximation of the Roman Rite ideal than the the case of a four-hymn low Mass in the old form. .
As I think about these data in retrospect, a red flag should have gone up at the mere reporting of specific and seemingly scientific information about Masses and their forms in the United States. The parish experience is famously difficult to quantify. Many parishes have all Latin ordinary forms as one Mass on Sunday, and they may or may not advertise this fact, not because they are hiding it but merely because the parish convention can settle in without specific identifiers that subdivide parishes along demographic lines.
Why did I believe the data when I first read it and why was I alarmed by it? Because it played into a fear that I had developed soon after the Motu Proprio was promulgated. My worry was that the energy for reform the Mass that most people experience today would be poured exclusively into the push for the old form of the rite. The “traditionalists” would bail out of mainstream parish life completely once they get what they want, leaving the main Catholic experience worse off than ever. The “novus ordo” would be firmly entrenched as the English Mass with goofy music, while the “traditional Latin Mass” would be the place for seriousness, dignity, and Gregorian chant. This situation would persist for decades hence, creating a dynamic that might, on balance, leave the average Catholic worse off than before. The pressure to acculturate the ordinary form to Catholic tradition would evaporate.
Now, let me say in passing that there is a certain sector of traditionalists that would welcome this result - however perverse that might sound. To their minds, the new Mass is a hopeless abomination that must be destroyed, while the people who attend it (meaning some 95% of practicing Catholics) are deluded or corrupt or otherwise beyond hope, so they might as well be pushed overboard too. It’s true that some people really think this way, and if you doubt it, I encourage you to look at the editorial on the blog that originally reported this (made up?) data.
Fortunately, I don’t see this great fissure between the ordinary and extraordinary form happening. Of course we can only speak of broad tendencies and hard facts are truly hard to come by here, but my strong impression is that Pope Benedict’s hope for “mutual enrichment” is indeed taking place. This is absolutely essential for the ordinary form and its future. I think of places like St. John Cantius in Chicago, St. Agnes in Minnesota, and many other cathedrals and parishes in this country where the EF and OF coexist to the point that parishioners are no longer sure which they are attending.
The great calamity for Catholic liturgy that took place in 1970 is that the new Mass, implemented without sufficient attention to its associated music and rubrics, was imposed on the world in the cultural context that seemed to rule out looking to history as a means of guiding the way forward. Even the translation was completely novel and, in places, not a translation at all but rather a vague paraphrase. There were serious mistakes even in some structural aspects of the calendar, among other factors.
The regrettable cultural environment in which the new Mass was imposed is gone. What is the way forward? It is through looking back at tradition. But unless that tradition is a living reality that we can see and experience, we end up conjuring up a heritage from dusty books and groping in darkness and speculation. This is the reason that every Catholic should favor the full proliferation of extraordinary form Masses. It is not only for purposes of righting a wrong and ministering to those attached to the older form; a living presence of the older form provides a guiding light for the reform of the new.
It strikes me as a strange alliance that both die-hard “progressives” of the old school and hard-core traditionalists are united in wanting to keep a permanent wall between the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite. To hope and pray in the spirit of Summorum is to desire continuity between the tradition of the past and the ritual that Catholics will experience today and long after this generation passes from this earth. Print this post
