Latin Mass story
Andrew Curtis
Issue date: 2/5/09 Section: Opinion
Firstly, we Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass appreciate the interest shown by The Collegian in featuring an article on the Latin Mass. It was surely an ambitious initiative to tackle such a broad topic in a necessarily brief treatment.
Speaking as one of the students present at the interview for the article on the Latin Mass that appeared in the last week's Collegian (Focus, Jan. 29), I would like to voice some concerns about the accuracy of certain points and quotations in the article.
I imagine that some readers first saw a red flag when they read that junior Raymond Spiotta had never taken Latin, as Mr. Spiotta is a Classical Studies major. (The slightly different online text of the article did not include this mistake, however.)
I would also like to clear up an error, evidently the result of some confusion, that threatens to compromise Evan Williams' credibility. While it was mentioned during the interview that the Roman Rite of the Church was established by the Apostle Peter at Rome, Mr. Williams did not claim that "the Tridentine Mass was passed down from St. Peter." The term "Tridentine Mass" by definition refers to the Mass codified at the Council of Trent in 1570. The Tridentine Mass thus cannot be directly associated with the person of St. Peter, though the integral form of the Mass can be clearly traced back to Pope St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century and tradition holds that the fundamentals of the Roman liturgy were handed down even from St. Peter.
Also mentioned in the interview was the then-Cardinal Ratzinger's reference to the new Mass as a "fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product." This quote is to be understood in its proper context in the Cardinal's preface to a book by Msgr. Klaus Gamber critiquing modern liturgical reform.
Finally, the intent of the interviewees was not to present a point-by-point comparison of the new Mass with the traditional Latin Mass or a forum for voicing grievances. Rather, the intent, as I understood it, was to provide some little exposure to the positive reasons why we love the traditional liturgy of the Roman Church, reasons which are independent from, though not unrelated to, any reference to the new Mass.
Andrew Curtis
Speaking as one of the students present at the interview for the article on the Latin Mass that appeared in the last week's Collegian (Focus, Jan. 29), I would like to voice some concerns about the accuracy of certain points and quotations in the article.
I imagine that some readers first saw a red flag when they read that junior Raymond Spiotta had never taken Latin, as Mr. Spiotta is a Classical Studies major. (The slightly different online text of the article did not include this mistake, however.)
I would also like to clear up an error, evidently the result of some confusion, that threatens to compromise Evan Williams' credibility. While it was mentioned during the interview that the Roman Rite of the Church was established by the Apostle Peter at Rome, Mr. Williams did not claim that "the Tridentine Mass was passed down from St. Peter." The term "Tridentine Mass" by definition refers to the Mass codified at the Council of Trent in 1570. The Tridentine Mass thus cannot be directly associated with the person of St. Peter, though the integral form of the Mass can be clearly traced back to Pope St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century and tradition holds that the fundamentals of the Roman liturgy were handed down even from St. Peter.
Also mentioned in the interview was the then-Cardinal Ratzinger's reference to the new Mass as a "fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product." This quote is to be understood in its proper context in the Cardinal's preface to a book by Msgr. Klaus Gamber critiquing modern liturgical reform.
Finally, the intent of the interviewees was not to present a point-by-point comparison of the new Mass with the traditional Latin Mass or a forum for voicing grievances. Rather, the intent, as I understood it, was to provide some little exposure to the positive reasons why we love the traditional liturgy of the Roman Church, reasons which are independent from, though not unrelated to, any reference to the new Mass.
Andrew Curtis
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