Press comment on the Motu Proprio

The inaccuracy of so many press comments about the Classical Rite is now so commonplace that it is boring to draw attention to it all the time. Allow me just one example from the Telegraph article I mentioned yesterday. To save labouring the point, I will just put comments into the text:

The Tridentine Rite, which dates back to the 1560 Council of Trent, [no - the Council of Trent took place at various stages between 1545 and 1563. The Missal of Pius V was published in 1570 and it was simply a codification of the existing Roman Rite which was already in many essentials over a thousand years old then and was the most ancient of the rites then in use] differs from the new Mass in that it is [always] celebrated in Latin with the priest leading the people in facing east, the direction from which the Church believes Jesus will appear on the Last Day.

This means the priest has his back to the congregation, unlike the new Mass, which is [actually "may be"] celebrated in the vernacular [and may be celebrated] with the priests facing their congregations [but may also be celebrated in Latin and facing eastward - the other key difference between the rites is in the rubrics and the prescribed prayers. Here are some examples...]

Is it really so difficult?

Contrast this with the excellent, well-informed article of Andrea Tornielli in today's Il Giornale, Svolta di Ratzinger sulla liturgia: via libera all’antica Messa in latino. Rorate Caeli has translated part of the article. One of the most important points, one which I have occasionally drawn attention to in this blog, in whimsical fashion (see here and here) is that the Classical Roman Rite has never been prohibited or abolished.

Reading the whole of Tornielli's article, I thought that the following extract was also worth bringing to your attention (my translation):

Further, Ratzinger has already explained many times that “in the course of her history, the Church has never abolished or prohibited orthodox forms of liturgy because that would be foreign to the very spirit of the church” in that “a liturgy that expresses the true faith is never a collection of various ceremonies made according to pragmatic criteria, to be manipulated at will, today in one way and tomorrow in another.” It is, on the contrary, a living reality “an expression of the life of the Church, in which faith, prayer and the very life of generations is condensed, where at the same time the action of God and the response of man is incarnated in concrete form.” The Council therefore ordered a reform of the liturgical books, but did not prohibit the former books. Finally the Pope recalled that “there have always existed many forms of the Latin rite.” In fact, until Vatican II, alongside the roman rite, there were the ambrosian, the mozarabic, that of Braga, that of Chartreuse, that of the Carthusians, that of the Dominicans. “Nobody was ever scandalised” said Ratzinger “that the Dominicans, often present in our parishes, did not celebrate as did the secular priests, but followed their own rite. We never had any doubt that their rite was catholic on a par with the roman rite and we were proud of the richness of so many diverse traditions.”

Now that's what I call informed religious journalism. Bear in mind that Il Giornale is not a Catholic paper but a national Italian daily.