I want to encourage all of you to go check out this article over at Athanasius Contra Mundum, entitled "The Glory of small 't' Tradition." This article exposes the conservative Catholic view on the disposability of small-t Tradition as flawed and explains very excellently why many Trads distrust EWTN and its cohort of mainline lay apologists. I'm sure most of you have been over and read it already, but I thought I'd give ole' Athanasius a plug anyway.
Adding to this line of thought, I recently went onto the Catholic Answers radio archives and looked up the airing of Catholic Answers Live from July 9th, 2007, the Monday after the Motu Proprio was released. The show was on questions and answers about the Traditional Latin Mass with Jerry Usher and guest Jimmy Akin. I encourage you all to go here and listen to this show yourself to get a good understanding of how conservative Catholics view the Traditional Mass (just put in July 2007 at the top and then click on the show "Pope Benedict and the Mass" for July 9th).
Adding to this line of thought, I recently went onto the Catholic Answers radio archives and looked up the airing of Catholic Answers Live from July 9th, 2007, the Monday after the Motu Proprio was released. The show was on questions and answers about the Traditional Latin Mass with Jerry Usher and guest Jimmy Akin. I encourage you all to go here and listen to this show yourself to get a good understanding of how conservative Catholics view the Traditional Mass (just put in July 2007 at the top and then click on the show "Pope Benedict and the Mass" for July 9th).
In this show, you will here the following:
- Host Jerry Usher and guest Jimmy Akin (JA) mispronouncing the word "Tridentine" on more than one occasion.
- JA referring to an "Anglican rite" within the Catholic Church (?)
- JA asserting that John Paul II "firmed up" the liturgy with his issuing of the 2000 Missal.
- JA doubting that a TLM fulfills a Sunday obligation.
- JA wistfully longing for an English translation of the 1962 Missal to be promulgated.
I urge you to check it out, and to contrast the view of the TLM presented on the Catholic Answers program with that expressed in Athanasius' post.
Is it TRID-en-teen or try-DEN-teen or try-DEN-tine? I don't know the "official" way to pronounce it, and I don't think the 1961 Daily Missal I have has a pronunciation guide.
ReplyDeleteI assume Akin meant the "Anglican Use".
Perhaps the problem is ignorance. The TLM has been shrouded for decades, and people understand it less today than they were reported to understand it 50 years ago.
I've been attending the old mass for years and years (and avoiding the New One when there is an old mass option), and I have studied Latin in Rome and taught it at US universities and I couldn't pronounce Tridentine either. Let's give them a break on that matter.
ReplyDeleteLook, I don't mean that they didn't know the correct pronunciation of the word Tridentine; we've all pronounced that differently. It was that they were stuttering and stumbling over the word itself, "Tr...trid...tridentin, tridentine...is that how you say it?" is what Usher says.
ReplyDeleteThe word "Tridentine" shouldn't even be used to describe it. That in itself should be a point on the list.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I hear of the TLM "in use for 400 years" or that it was created after the council of Trent. This is a vain attempt by conservatives to show that the TLM was fabricated like the Novus Ordo and is a perfectly legitimate function in liturgical development to make up Masses.
Alex-
ReplyDeleteVery true. This is the purpose behind calling the Tridentine Mass 400 years old. However, Tridentine simply means of the Counicl of Trent, and it is true that the Missal of Pius V came after/as a result fo Trent. I think it is a better name than "Extraordinary Form", as if the Mass used for 1500 years and by 95% of Roman Catholics throughout history could be the extraordinary form.
Yeah, I just call it the Traditional Latin Mass or Traditional Roman rite or something like that. "From the council of Trent" may be interpreted by some to mean that it was fabricated at or after Trent.
ReplyDeleteAlso I see Dave Armstrong has posted a response to Athanasius. Mostly about going after apologists and not much on the core of the post - namely that small "t" helps large "T."
Wow, Athanasius got Dave Armstrong really steamed!
ReplyDeleteCheck out his "reply" to Athanasius here:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2008/05/yet-more-anti-apologetics-rhetoric-this.html
That was the dumbest explanation of SP that I have ever heard.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, JA makes some very big mistakes. Perhaps the biggest (and most insulting)is when he talks about the use of the Traditional Mass during the Tridum. It needs to be made clear that the only thing that is forbidden is a PRIVATE Mass during that time. It's not a wholesale forbidding of the traditional Mass all togeather.
Mr. Akin goes on to another level of stupidity when he asserts that this (the mistaken notion that the traditional Mass can't be said for the Tridum) is because Pastors need to pay special attention to nourish the faithful liturgically during these holy days. This implies the absurd notion that the Traditional Mass doesn't nourish the faithful, or at the very least, doesn't do so as much as the Novus Ordo.
The many interviews like these from "conservitive" catholic media leaves me in a state of confusion. On one hand, there are interviews and programs like these. On the other hand there are open invitations to traditional priests to celebrate a televised traditional Mass from EWTN as well as EWTN's cooperation in making the FSSP's new training video for priests.
In the long run, what I think it is, is that nobody can ignore the reverence and graces inherent to the Traditional Mass, nor can they ignore the very large and growing movement to see its full fledged restoration to the Church.
Tridentine is a perfectly apt descriptor, IMO. What would happen were someone to begin agitating for a renewal of some of the (many) rites abrogated by or pre-Trent? I personally would love to see some recovery of the old old old Irish rites, and the pre-Anglican English. KWIM?
ReplyDeleteSo is there such a thing as 'Trad radio' online?
ReplyDelete