Letter #10, 2025, Tue, Jan 28: Motu Proprio, Part 2

    Letter #10, 2025, Tuesday, January 28: Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now? Part 2    

    Almost 18 years ago, on August 17, 2007, I gave a talk at a church in California, St. Cecilia Church in Tustin, near Los Angeles, on the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to issue on July 7, 2007, his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, granting wider use of the old liturgy throughout the world.

    The motu proprio had been published just 5 weeks before.

    So, at that time, in August 2007, it was entirely in keeping with the wishes of Rome, and of the Pope, to receive and to accept and to praise and to embrace that document.

    Pope Benedict had encouraged me to try to explain his intent in the pages of my magazine, Inside the Vatican, and in any talks I gave.

    So I felt “authorized” to try to give my interpretation of what he had done, and why.

    I spoke without notes, and went on for about an hour. (It was recorded by Terry Barber of St. Joseph Radio — thank you, Terry!)

    Even as I gave the talk, I felt it was reasonably effective, but later people told me it was the best talk that I had ever given.

    I did speak from my heart, and from my memories as a child, and from my studies as a historian, and from my many conversations with Pope Benedict, in the 1980s and 1990s, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger.

    I tried to be clear, and fair, and reasonable, and faithful, to what I had lived and learned during those decades about the Catholic Mass.

    Later, people came up to me and told me that my talk had moved them and instructed them, and they thanked me.

    I put the talk onto a CD which was entitled Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now?

    (To order a copy, please click here)

    Now, almost 18 years have passed by, and the attitude of Rome, and perhaps also of the Catholic faithful in general, has changed over these nearly two decades. Indeed, in Rome, the current pontiff seems intent on restricting the celebration of the old Mass, for reasons he has set forth in two documents and in several interviews.

    (See this link from seven months ago.)

    During December, one month ago, an old friend and reader of the magazine told me that my talk had influenced him deeply, and that he had taken to listening to the talk on his car CD player (I realize that many cars no longer have CD players!) while driving on long trips. “It is a great talk,” he told me. “I may have listed to it 12 times or more by now. I always find something new in it. Why don’t you share it again, make it available again?”

    So I decided to publish that talk here, and to make the CD available again. I will also soon be posting a downloadable audio file.

    I note again that, when this talk was given, in 2007, it was given in an attempt to explain and defend the reasoning of Pope Benedict, who had acted just 5 weeks before.

    The talk was therefore intended to offer my full support to the reigning pontiff, and to explain why he had taken the decision that he took.

     —RM

    P.S. Order the Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now? CD here

    P.P.S. Subscribe to Inside the Vatican magazine here. (Each subscription is quite helpful to us!)

—RM

    Order the Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now? CD here

    Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now?

    Part 2

    How was this liturgy celebrated?

    In the first weeks and months and years of the Church, the Christians developed a pattern of remembering and celebrating the presence of Christ in the bread and the wine, which was the early developing Mass.

    And they had two main parts, a reading of the scriptures, that is the word, and then the celebration of the sacrifice.

    That is the bread and wine being offered to God, and then communion.

    The liturgy would have early on been celebrated in Aramaic, and then in Greek.

    Most, if not all, of the first Christians were Jews.

    It took about 20 or 30 years before non-Jews were even allowed, generally into the Church. Remember the Council of Jerusalem in 49 AD, so about 16 years after the death of Jesus, was still debating whether non-Jews could become Christians.

    And Paul said yes, and Peter said, I’m not so sure. And Paul said, right to his face, this is God’s will, this is the will of the Spirit.

    So the Council agreed, and the Church, at that moment in c. 49 A. D., made the leap to the Gentiles. (link)

    And Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and Peter remained essentially the Apostle to the Jews.

    The liturgy then would have been celebrated in Aramaic.

    And then also in Greek.

    So when did it begin to be celebrated in Latin?

    This would have probably taken 200 or so years.

    All of the Roman Empire spoke Latin as an administrative language. Just as today around the world, generally speaking, a world language that’s commonly used is English. So, at that time, Latin was the language of the leadership and the government.

    And as the Christian Church grew, and as more and more people in the empire entered the Church, there would have been these three languages used.

    The Aramaic by the Jews.

    The Greeks had spread throughout the Mediterranean world as early as Alexander the Great, and still were very important.

    And then Latin, the Roman language.

    By the 400s, there would have been a Latin liturgy which would have had the elements that we recognize even today.

    So our liturgy is not something that just was created in 1970 or even in the 1500s.

    It’s something that the first apostles celebrated, something that was then developed over the first three centuries, under the leadership of the Popes in Rome, and emerged into the open after Christianity finally was permitted to be a legal religion in the early 300s.

    This is another part of the context. For 283 years from its origin, Christianity was illegal. It was a persecuted sect. This is where many of the martyrs came from. Because if you were a Christian, you could be arrested.

    Because it (Christianity) did not allow absolute leadership in this world to Caesar. It did not worship Caesar as a god.

    It worshiped Jesus, the crucified Lord.

    And Caesar, thinking that he had to be all-powerful, thinking this was a subversive element in his kingdom, persecuted it.

    Finally, Constantine, in 313, allowed Christianity to be legal. After he had seen that sign in the sky, the cross, and the word nike, victory. “In hoc signo vinces,” he heard — “in this sign you will conquer.” (link)

    So he won the battle. He became the leader of the Roman Empire, and out of respect to the Christians said, “You are now legal.”

    So, during those first 283 years, there was a difficulty for Christianity to be fully, universally, organized.

    There certainly were letters being sent back and forth, but they didn’t have email, and they didn’t have political freedom.

    So, the real codification of many things in the Church has to wait until the 300s.

    After 313. And why do I call it 283 years? Approximately 30 AD is the death of Jesus, 130, 230, that’s 200 years, 70 more gets us to 300, 270, and then 13 more, 283 years of persecution.

    That’s the infancy of our Church.

    The Latin Mass then emerged in the 300s.

    There was no particular law saying “This is the Mass,” but there was a generally agreed upon structure of the prayers before you began the Mass, then the readings, and then the celebration of the moment of the consecration.

    And then after that, the preparation for communion, and communion, and the end of the Mass.

    This was the same already in the first centuries of the Church.

    [Part 3 to follow]