Tridentine Latin Mass returns to St. Mary’s by the Sea

Even if you’re not Catholic, this is significant. Imagine what would happen if, tomorrow, all the rock radio stations in America started playing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Mozart’s Requiem, Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, and Bach’s B Minor Mass for six hours a day (the previous links are to YouTube videos, if you want to listen to some samples). Or, for that matter, if they started playing old-style Protestant hymns.

Culture always trumps politics, and in fact politics comes from culture. That’s why the most important event this year was not anything in politics, but Pope Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio (decree) restoring the Tridentine Latin Rite throughout the Catholic Church; the Pope even noted that, contrary to widespread belief, the Tridentine Mass never had been banned.

At St. Mary’s by the Sea’s High Mass today at noon, the Mass truly was “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven,” as someone observed years ago about the Tridentine Mass. Said by Fr. Xavier, a Norbertine priest, and accompanied by a competent choir, the Mass was sublime and inspiring. About 120 people were in the pews, significantly more than have attended the noon Mass, said in Latin but in the Novus Ordo rite, in recent weeks.

I snapped the picture above on my cell’s camera. Note the six candles on each side of the altar, indicating High Mass, and the the priest facing toward the altar, not the people.

The Tridentine Mass long was at St. Mary’s until its pastor, Fr. Daniel Johnson, retired 3-1/2 years ago; he died earlier this year. A lot of parishoners then fled the church, some to chapels that still featured the Tridentine Mass but were not affiliated with the the local bishop, Tod Brown. As I’ve mentioned before, I never would attend an unapproved Mass (except as a journalistic observer). But there’s no doubt that these chapels around the world were one reason, among many, the Pope issued his order, as he indicates in the text of the Motu Proprio.

The Motu Proprio was supposed to be implemented in September, but Bishop Brown delayed that until today, Dec. 2. Well, even though I haven’t exactly been a fan of Bishop Brown’s administration of the diocese, I’m not going to grouse about the delay, as some have done. 2-1/2 months isn’t too long to wait. The Bishop was busy with the controversy over Msgr. Urell‘s testimony and departure for Canada. And Fr. Martin Tran, the pastor, just spent a month in his native Vietnam.

I talked briefly with Fr. Tran after the Mass and he was happy. I don’t know if he recognized me as the author, along with my former colleague Steven Greenhut, of the Register blogs in spring 2006 that sparked the infamous kneeling controversy, which became an international cause celebre.

But for Fr. Tran, the controversy is over. He followed the Bishop’s wishes during the kneeling controversy, even though it sparked the controversy. But now he has also followed the Bishop’s wishes in smoothly bringing the Tridentine Mass — which is filled with kneeling — back to St. Mary’s. It make take some time, but I suspect that most of those who left St. Mary’s because of the controversies will come back.

And Bishop Brown did what he’s supposed to do: advance what the Pope called, in the Motu Proprio, “an interior reconciliation in the heart of the church” by accommodating the needs of tradition-minded Catholics. Until now, the Tridentine Mass has been offered officially in Orange County only early in the morning in out-of-the-way parishes.

Although the vernacular Mass, the Novus Ordo, can be said beautifully, usually it’s said to the accompaniment of insipid guitars and drums imitating the sound of  Peter, Paul, and Mary (the 1960s folk-rock group, not the saints). I always wonder why they don’t go all the way and play adaptations of the kind of shock rock I listened to as a teenager, with the volume turned up to 11 to annoy my parents: The Who, Hendrix, Zeppelin, the MC5, the Stooges. If I’m gonna have to listen to rock music at Mass, instead of “Kumbaya,” make it “Purple Haze” turned up loud enough to make me need a hearing aid.

But I don’t need to worry about that now because I can just attend the Tridentine Mass at St. Mary’s.

It’s a blessed day and all Orange County will receive many graces.

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Mass riots at St. Mary’s by the Sea?

Even if you’re not Catholic, you might have heard about the Saga of the Latin Mass at St. Mary’s by the Sea Church in Huntington Beach. A summary is here.

At a minimum, it shows the power of bloggers as agents of change, as they said in the 1960s. Only now, the change is back to tradition.

The latest, shown in the bulletin reproduced below, is that the Tridentine Mass scheduled to be restored there on Sept. 16 and the Noon Mass will not use the recent readings, but will use the old readings from the 1962 missal.

But, strangely, Bishop Tod Brown has warned, in the paraphrase of Pastor Tran:

for those who are not parishoners at St. Mary’s by the Sea: either geographically or not from our parish (visitors are OK), or intentionally not registered/willing being part of St. Mary’s by the Sea (but just coming for the Tridentine Mass), they should go back to their home parishes to request the Tridentine Mass or they can go to Mission San Juan Capistrano or Pope John Paul II Center to attend the Tridentine Mass celebrated there.”

The syntax is kind of mixed up, so it’s not clear what he means. And the problem has always been that those two existing Tridentine Masses are early in the morning and too far away for many people.

There’s another problem Fr. Tran doesn’t address: The geographical restriction would leave the Tridentine Mass only for the wealthy people who live in the 92648 area code, where the median housing price is around $900,000, according to Zillow. And anything more than a dinky apartment costs around $1.4 million.

So, say, a poor Latino or Vietnamese family from Garden Grove wants to take a short drive down Beach Blvd. to attend the Mass of Eternity at St. Mary’s. Instead they’re supposed to drive all the way down to San Juan Capistrano, burning up gas money they don’t have at $3.25 a gallon?

What’s really going to happen is obvious: The first restored Tridentine Mass will be swamped, including by the local media. The Register news section, for some reason, missed the story last year even though our Commentary blogs broke the story, allowing itself to be scooped by the L.A. Times on a well-known story right in their own back yeard. This time I expect a couple of Register reporters to attend.

But after all the fuss, I expect there won’t be any big deal. The Mass will be said in its ancient form. The next week, the media will be gone. The Mass will still be packed, leading to pressure for more Tridentine Masses in the diocese.

The Pope’s Motu Proprio says any priest can say the Tridentine Mass. But there’s still some leeway for the local bishop to limit its use. It also will be interesting to see how Cardinal Mahony follows Rome’s instructions over in his sprawling L.A. Archdiocese. My suspicion is that, with the abuse cases still occupying his life, he’s not going to want any more trouble and will grant liberal expansion of Tridentine Masses.

And as the old Latin saying has it, Roma locuta est, causa finita est. Rome has spoken, case closed.

It’s likely that, within a couple of years, or even months, the Tridentine Mass will be said as often as is demanded by the faithful in Orange County and elsewhere.

Introibo ad altare dei.

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Mickadeit on Progressives vs. the Tridentine Latin Mass

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Frank Mickadeit today published the second of his two-part column on the Tridentine Latin Mass expanding in Orange County. He says some people said this would mean a new “Inquisition” against Progressives.

Actually, it’s orthodox Catholics remaining in the Church who have been persecuted by the Progressives. Ever since the vernacular Novus Ordo (New Order) Mass was promulgated in 1969, we’ve been treated badly just for wanting a decent Mass — in the Novus Ordo itself! Orange County is fortunate because there are about 1 million Catholics here, and numerous good priests. So it’s not hard to avoid the clown masses they used to have at Sts. Simon and Jude in Huntington Beach. Or the devil-distributing-communion Halloween Mass just last year at Corpus Christi Church in Aliso Viejo, or the … but you get the point.

For Progressives, all is permitted — except the Mass that goes back almost 2,000 years.

People in less populated areas have not been so fortunate and often were stuck with a Progressive priest who wouldn’t budge on anything. Inquisition? It’s orthodox Catholics who have spent 40 years burned by a Progressive auto da fe.

This is the same persecution all of us, not just Catholics, experience whenever the Progressives start running things, such as the P.C. inquisition at universities.

And it’s the Progressives, let’s remember, who let loose the perverts on the children in the abuse scandal. Cardinal Mahony, one of the top Progressives, just shelled out $660,000,000.00 of his people’s money to avoid a trial in the abuse cases he condoned. Nationally, the total bill so far for the Progressives’ malfeasance is: $2,000,000,000,000.00. That’s $2 billion. Then there’s the immense human cost on the souls of the children and families abused.

“Progressives have little to fear,” Mickadeit concludes. That’s true, but the Progressives are dying out. Orthodox families have more kids, and sons more likely to become priests, than do Progressive families. And unlike in the 1960s, when no one knew the horrors that were in store for us, everybody knows the score now.

The Pope noted this in his Motu Proprio on bringing back the Tridentine Latin Mass:

it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons, too, have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the mystery of the most holy Eucharist particularly suited to them.

It’s the Progresssives who are out-of-date, living in a 1960s world, and who have impeded change.

Now it is they, old and ready to shuffle off this mortal coil, who will have to heed Dylan’s shout from the 1960s:

Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

Late night thoughts on the Latin Mass while listening to Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony and sipping burgundy

It’s 10:45 pm on June 17, 2007. I’ll explain the headline at the end.

In March 2006 in the Orange Punch blog, I joined my colleague Steven Greenhut in publicizing the kneeling controversy at St. Mary’s by the Sea church. After the administrator, Fr. Martin Tran, said kneeling after the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) in the Mass was a mortal sin, I blogged that the Vatican and canon lawyers said that was incorrect. Greenhut blogged:

At the last minute, the Diocese literally dumped the brochures that would have invited 55 traditionalists at St. Mary’s of the Sea to leave the church and the diocese for daring to kneel before communion.

These blogs went “viral” — every blogger’s dream of infecting blogs across the globe. For some reason, the Register management ordered me to cease and desist writing about this topic, despite those blogs going “viral.” That’s not a problem here because it’s my own blog.

One viral blog item is here, mentioning both Steve and me. First Things magazine wrote about it.

Part of the controversy stemmed from the retirement by Bishop Tod Brown of the Tridentine Latin Mass at St. Mary’s when its pastor, Fr. Daniel Johnson, retired in 2004. First Things noted:

Nearly all the three hundred parishioners who regularly attended that Mass, one fifth of the parish, promptly left—many of them badly catechized enough to head off to Our Lady Help of Christians in Grove City, a strange little schismatic chapel whose only attraction appears to be its Tridentine rite.

By contrast, as I noted in a blog last year, the kneeling controversy punished the ones who stayed at St. Mary’s and remained united to Bishop Brown and the Pope. (Johnson died earlier this year. His funeral was a Tridentine Mass said by Bishop Brown.)

(As for me, despite my disagreements with Bishop Brown, I would never attend Mass at a church not under his and the Pope’s jurisdiction, except as a journalistic observer. To borrow a phrase from the gun rights movement, you’ll get me out of a church tied to the Pope when you pry my cold, dead knees from the kneelers.)

Anyway, eventually, the L.A. Times wrote about the kneeling controversy, although neglecting to mention our blogs. After that, in 2006 Bishop Brown gave in on the kneeling issue.

On June 17, just last month, Pope Benedict XVI issued a Motu proprio, or decree, allowing any priest to say the Tridentine Mass. It’s a good question how it will be implemented across the world. Frank Mickadeit has an excellent column today on the matter, and promises more tomorrow, June 18.

My sources tell me that one of the first places the Tridentine Latin Mass will be said again will be none other than at St. Mary’s by the Sea. They sent me a copy of the Sunday Bulletin, posted by me here, which includes this message from Fr. Tran:

Therefore, as your Administrator/Pastor, I wholeheartedly “accede”: We will have the Tridentine Mass officially started on September 16 at 12:00 Noon Mass (with the readings in English, following the current Lectionary)…. This is a great opportunity for all of us to be united and to move forward together in love, respect, humility, harmony and collaboration, letting go of all divisions and discord. May God bless all of you!

Sincerely,

Your servant/brother in Christ,
Fr. Martin

I hear Fr. Tran has been practicing diligently to say the Tridentine Mass properly. Good for him.

No doubt some Tridentine Mass purists will gripe that Fr. Tran will be using the readings from the modern lectionary, instead of the traditional readings, which are different. They have a point. But I’m the last one to look a gift Tridentine Mass in the mouth.

After 40 years of prayer and suffering, the Tridentine Mass is back, just when its exaltation of the sacred is needed most.

Special thanks is owed to all the St. Mary’s folks to stood by, protested, cajoled, prayed, suffered, and prevailed.

They’re like the Persistent Widow of Jesus’ parable in Luke 18: “And will not God revenge his elect who cry to him day and night: and will he have patience in their regard? I say to you, that he will quickly revenge them. But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?”

As to my title of this blog, it refers to the musings of Lewis Thomas in “Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Symphony.” For some reason as I began writing I wanted to listen to some Bruckner, the holiest of symphonists, who dedicated all his works to God. Claudio Abbado’s rendition of the Fourth Symphony, the “Romantische,” was sitting atop some CDs, so I slipped it in the player.

I didn’t much like all that Bruckner heavy romanticism when I was younger, but he grows on you. (Mahler’s another favorite, although in his case since I was young, around 1972, when I was 17.)

Bruckner also wrote beautiful Masses, one of which was integrated into a Mass I attended at the beautiful Alte Kirche in Garmisch, West Germany, back in 1979 when I was in the U.S. Army at the height of the Cold War. That was a sublime experience. My, what our civilization created when inspired by the Tridentine Mass! — and will again.

The great composers all wrote Masses for the Tridentine rite: Ludwig’s Missa Solemnis, Papa Haydn’s Missa in Tempore Belli (essential in our own time of war), Wolfgang’s Requiem, and Giovanni (that’s John, like me) Pierluigi Palestrina’s divine Missa Papa Marcelli being a few.

Even Bach, a Lutheran, wrote his sublime Mass in B Minor, maybe the greatest of all, although my favorite is Palestrina. By contrast, nobody has written decent music for the 1969 rite, said almost always in the vernacular. That should tell you something right there.

Beethoven, Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Hayden and dozens of other greats — vs. bad imitations of the Byrds. Need I say which will prevail in the long run?

And sipping Burgundy added to the celebratory mood.