After an initial poll with a number of choices, there is now a shortlist of three:
- Extraordinary form/use
- Traditional Latin Mass or TLM
- Tridentine Mass
Of those, I'd vote for TLM. But I'm sticking obstinately to "Classical Roman Rite". The word "classical" does not have to refer to the Greek and Roman classics: we speak of "classical music" after all. I'm going with definition 3 of the COD:
"3 a in or following the restrained style of classical antiquity. (cf. ROMANTIC).
b. in or relating to a long-established style."
13 comments:
Anyway you slice it the terminology is going to be a pain in the kazoo. Given that the 62 missal was a change in some matters to what was said prior to that. If you say "Classical Roman Rite" it's not terribly precise. One *could* be talking about the Mass as celebrated in 1950.... If you said "Roman Ritual, 1962" It's as clear as a bell - but still a long handle.
I am with you on this Fr, Classical Roman Rite sounds just so much better. Yet with the Motu Proprio and the different Uses of the Roman Rite, Classical Use would also be good.
And hey its Coke Classical not Coke Traditional ;)
I think al three of these choices represent the preponderance of American visitors to Fr Z's site, though I can't say precisely why. They're all very unsatisfactory - "Tridentine Mass" is just plain wrong. "TLM" I just hate - horrible slangy techno-talk, like it's a model of flatscreen telly.
I like "Classical Roman rite" because it's accurate, formal and descriptive; somewhat lacking in religious warmth, though; a bit too rareified and scholarly, perhaps.
My home is the Liturgy of St Gregory the Great, Orthodox Catholic that I am ;o)
i thought it was the Extraordinary Form..but am gonna study the document myself...
Calling it the 'Classical Roman Rite' makes it sound like a fly in the amber museum piece. On the whole you can call the traditional mass but then some purists would also say no, because the 1962 Missal differs in some respect to the 1570 Missal (excluding the inclusion of new saints. They do have a point.
Before the Second Vactican Council it was called "The Mass" but within a year of that council there was another mass,forced on the faithfull with no vote ,no asking whether the faithfull wanted it,which the majority didnt,then this was "The Mass" known by no other name.So as the pre Vactican Mass was instigated at the Council of Trent it became known as The Tridentine Mass.
instigated at the Council of Trent
Errr. I don't think so. The Roman rite goes back in all essentials at least to St Gregory the Great and we have some quotations from earlier than that. The most significant differences in the ordinary of the Mass between 1570 and 1962 was the addition of the name of St Joseph to the Canon. Apart from that, a few minor rubrical changes etc.
Fr.
I don't think the Holy Week changes of 1955 (about which there is nothing "organic" whatsoever, the guiding principles being almost exclusively archaeologism and pastoral expediency) can be called "minor rubrical changes". It is here the process began for the Novus Ordo. Every reform from 1950 onwards was essentially an interim or preparatory measure. Even the text of what was subsequently became the Council's document Sacrosanctum Concilium had been largely composed before the council was even convoked. Annibale Bugnini recalls them in his hideous memoirs as his stepping stones to the great Novus Ordo deluge.
Fr. Ellard's book The Mass of the Future (first published in the early 1950s with a revised edition in the early 1960s before Vatican II) is a good book that disproves the myth that the nonsenical myth that the Novus Ordo was cobbled after Vatican II. The destruction of the liturgy by the church's worst enemies began long before.
Andrew = oh yes, I'm right with you there about the Holy Week changes. I have a copy or the original Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae and it was quite an eye-opener to read the reasoning for the changes. As you say, the ground was comprehensively prepared before Vatican II. But nobody dared to change the ordinary of the Mass until the Council was well underway. So I think that the 1962 ordinary was much the same as it had ever been. But Holy Week, the calendar, and the breviary had seen quite major changes.
I think Andrew got it right. That goes right across the board for the other changes promulgated as a result of the Second Vatican Council.
Edward P. Walton
I do not belive anyone would suggest the word classical. It sounds a performance or a DVD.
"Extraordinary Form" sounds like "Conditional Absolution".
Edward P. Walton
I did give a dictionary definition for the word classical which rather goes beyond concerts and DVDs. The Roman rite is redolent of the restrained style of classical antiquity and is long-established.
However, I wonder whether this is a word that sounds different in the USA or something.
You didn't volunteer any suggestion yourself...
I would like to use the term, "The Old Mass"
For the Novis Ordo, "The Prayer Book Service" (Book Of Common Prayer).
Edward P. Walton
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