Monday, March 12, 2007
TRIDENTINE MASS AN "EXTRAORDINARY UNIVERSAL RITE"?
POPE Benedict XVI plans to bring back the celebration of mass in Latin, overriding a rare show of protest from senior cardinals.
With a papal decree said to be imminent, Catholic publishers in Rome are preparing new editions of the Latin missal.
They have sent proofs to Vatican authorities for approval, the Rome newspaper La Repubblica has reported.
Vatican sources said Benedict, who is fluent in Latin, is considering the publication of a papal motu proprio (literally, on his own initiative), which does not require the approval of church bodies.
This would enable Benedict to ignore opposition from several cardinals.
The decree would declare the Latin, or Tridentine, mass an "extraordinary universal rite", and the vernacular mass, with which most Catholics are familiar, an "ordinary universal rite".
Read the rest of the story...
If he waits too long there will no longer be priests available who still remember how to say it. Those who do have gray heads now, though it may be possible that new communities of priests who wish to say it would form, and, of course, there are the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter priests and the SSPX priests.
Hat tip to NOR.
