Part of the Pope's Mass
in Glasgow will be in Latin
by Cate Devine
Sept. 6, 2010
A substantial part of the Mass to be celebrated by Pope Benedict at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on September 16 will be said in Latin, the Vatican has confirmed.
In an interview with
The Herald, published today, Monsignor Guido Marini, the Pope’s master of ceremonies, reveals the Canon and Preface – the most significant parts – will be said in the ancient language.
Mgr Marini said: “For all the Masses said in the UK the Preface and the Canon will be said in Latin. What the Holy Father intends by using Latin is to emphasise the universality of the faith and the continuity of the Church.”
The Canon is the most significant part of the Mass as it both precedes and follows the Consecration. It will be said in a Latin translation of the modern English liturgy, and will be viewed as a sign of Benedict XVI’s desire to return to the solemnity of the traditional liturgy.
[What the interviewer fails to mention - and if she is someone who was casually assigned to this story without requiring some preparation, she probably would have no idea of it at all - is that for some time now, the Canon and Preface, not to mention the Pater Noster, are recited in Latin in all of the Pope's 'international' Masses, i.e., those with an international audience, not just abroad but even at the Vatican. And so it will be during the UK visit for all his Masses. Since the Vatican has been posting the trip Missals integrally online, all you have to do is check out the published texts. The Pope has also encouraged praying the Pater Noster in Latin even at the General Audiences, where the text is flashed on the jumbo screens and also found now, I believe, in the ticket or pass.]
Mgr Marini also revealed a new English translation of the Mass, to be introduced next year, will be truer to the original Latin used by the Church for 1500 years before the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. Parts of it will be said at Bellahouston for the first time.
But the move
[which is already SOP for papal Masses with an itnernational audience] falls short of a wholehearted return to the old Tridentine rite of pre-Vatican II, supported by Pope Benedict, but which remains controversial.
[Obviously, the reporter was completely unprepared for this story, or she would have known some Latin usedin the Novus Ordo is something other than the use of Latin altogether in teh traditional Mass.]
Earlier this year news of the papal visit to the UK sparked debate about the unity of the church in Scotland as it was claimed some Scottish bishops opposed
returning to the old pre-1970s liturgy.
[No one is being asked to 'return' to the traditional liturgy! Otherwise, the Pope hismelf would be celebrating it openly and constantly now!]
Yesterday Father Stephen Dunn, parish priest of Sacred Heart church in Bridgeton, responded to the news by saying he is moving his regular Latin Mass from Monday evening slot to Tuesdays at 10am from this week.
“I’m doing this because it is in accordance with the wishes of the Holy Father,” he said. “I am delighted that the Holy Father is once again using liturgical Latin. It was never banned but has been discouraged.”
But Scottish composer James MacMillan, who has set parts of the new English verion to music for the Bellahouston Mass, dismissed any idea of controversy.
“Vatican II was never intended to do away with Mass in Latin,” he said. “Contrary to what certain activists are trying to claim, neither Latin nor choral music have ever been banned.”
Ronnie Convery, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Glasgow, said: “It is possible the Latin liturgy at Bellahouston may reawaken a renewed interest in the Church’s traditional music forms. We are completely relaxed about it, and support it.”
Yesterday, Damian Thompson posted on his blog - in what he may believe to be a pre-emptive move - that he has been told Mons. Marini will not get to have the seven candles and Crucifix on the altar in Bellahouston as Pope Benedict had re-introduced them to the Novus Ordo altar three years ago. I cannot personally imagine any of the organizers in Scotland descending to this level of pettiness, but it's Thompson's typically provocative way - not loath to exaggerate to make his point - of lighting the fire under the seats of prelates in the UK who he thinks have indulged their liberal preferences and defied the Pope for far too long...
The other incidental news this weekend is that Tony Blair's spokesman bluntly said "No' when asked whether the former Prime Minister, now a Catholic, had given any personal contribution to the Church for the Pope's trip. Of course, he is under no obligation to cotnribute anything, but perhaps Blair's conscience will be prodded to do soemething about it. Even a token 1000 pounds would mean something from a man who has announced he is donating the 4.6-million-pound advance for his memoir A Journey and any royalties from it to the Royal British Legion, a UK charity which provides support and assistance to UK servicemen and ex-servicemen. His detractors, who cannot forgive him for joining George Bush in the Iraq war, have already called his goodwill gesture 'blood money', and he had to cancel a London booksigning today to spare the government any expense in providing police ans security against his detractors who got nasty in Dublin this weekend.
The following is definitely a legitimate news report, but it's just one of the many anti-Benedict 'thumbing the nose' items in today's Guardian - in addition to the offensive pro-visit-but-anti-Benedict editorial I posted earlier on this page. Never mind that, insofar as the headline of this item goes, countless journalists have already bit the dust predicting over and over about Benedict, against all evidence to the contrary, that he cannot possibly match John Paul II's 'act' in any way (not that he tries to - he's completely his own man, sui generis, a living Doctor of the Church).
Yet his critics have absurdly closed their minds to the possibility that any institution, let alone the Catholic Church, could have two great leaders in succession - as if it were inconceivable that if the preceding Pope was great and extraordinary, his successor could be great and extraordinary, too! If they would just open their eyes and minds... Although the terms of comparison are not all that analogous, if the anti-Benedict journalists had lived in the time of John Henry Newman, they probably would not have seen his greatness at all.
John Paul II will be
a hard act to follow
by Martin Wainwright
Sept. 6, 2010
Whatever the challenges facing Pope Benedict XVI in Britain next week, they pale in comparison with 1982.
Pope John Paul II flew in at 8 o'clock on a bright May morning to a country at war in the Falklands, with casualties overnight against the troops of Argentina, an overwhelmingly Catholic country.
[So??? Surely, the Brits were not blaming the Vatican for the war just because Argentina happens to be a Catholic country!]
Almost to the wire, no one outside the Vatican knew whether the visit was actually going to happen. Vincent Malone, now retired auxiliary archbishop of Liverpool, sat through a health and safety meeting, expecting a message from Rome that would call the whole thing off.
However, the charismatic "Polish pope" was determined to become the first serving Pontiff to visit the island that had turned its back on Rome nearly 500 years earlier.
[In the same way that Benedict XVI wishes to visit his flock in a near-apostate land after 28 years, and beatify the first potential British saint since the 17th century.]
John Paul had sprung the idea a year before, in a video link to the Catholic national pastoral congress in Liverpool. The timing was perfect for the Anglican church and other denominations fired up with ecumenical vigour.
After kissing the runway at Gatwick in front of 3,500 singing children, and scooping up a 12-year-old with cerebral palsy in his arms, he met their expectations in full.
On the first day alone, he departed from his prepared text three times, to call for peace in the Falklands, and in Northern Ireland - whose struggles were represented throughout the visit by protesters from Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian church.
But, as the Guardian's then churches correspondent, Martyn Halsall, puts it today: "That was an expression of the fundamental Christian ideal of peace. It transcended politics."
The nitty-gritty of the visit lay elsewhere. "John Paul had clearly been very well briefed about the relative liberalism of English Catholics on social issues," says Halsall.
As the 62-year-old pope toured nine cities in six days, delivering 16 major addresses and drawing vast, sunny-natured crowds, he put the tenets of his faith into a contemporary, British context.
"One veteran observer even floated the idea that this was a new pope – Jean Paul III," says Halsall. Especially significant was a visit to Canterbury and an embrace with its archbishop, Robert Runcie - a see and its holder whose status the Vatican did not officially recognise.
The first Pope from outside Italy since the 15th century, John Paul had some of the Anglophilia of many Poles. Among the most enthusiastic of crowds were Polish communities settled in Britain. He addressed them in their own language on three occasions.
More widely, John Paul spoke with the eloquence of an actor and poet - both part of his CV - of his delight in being the country's guest. He called himself the "bishop of Rome" - a phrase used slightingly by Henry VIII - and met the Queen (although not the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher - the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Casaroli, did the talking with her).
Halsall singles out three especially striking occasions, one related to the Falklands specifically, the other two with resonances for all humanity. "It was extremely moving when he appealed for peace at Coventry cathedral, drawing on the new church amid the ruins of its blitzed predecessor.
"Then, his relationship with young people at the youth service in Cardiff was pure charisma.
"And when he moved among the elderly, ill and dying at a special service in London, he became a simple priest, doing the fundamental work of his calling."
The crowds posed problems every bit as expensive as those in preparation for Benedict. Logistics were often horrendous; and security at Coventry alone cost £2.65m at today's prices. A perimeter fence at Glasgow, where Protestant bands played Orange songs at a small counter-rally, cost £160,000. Six Free Presbyterian ministers, arrested on the first day for alleged public order offences, were released on bail only after the Pope's aircraft had lifted off for Rome.
There were disappointments, too.
Security fears and excessive hype saw the crowd at Heaton Park in Manchester fall to 200,000 instead of the predicted million. In an ironic reversal of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, one stallholder threw away £2,000 worth of unwanted burgers, sausages and chips.
But overall, everyone was satisfied and extremely relieved, even though the Falklands war continued unabated and fundamental issues between the churches were not resolved.
One of the last, and most lasting, images was John Paul's gentle teasing of the youth rally, saying twice that he had to return to Rome, which prompted, with stylish timing, huge cries of "No". He hoped to come back, he said, but that was not to be.
Soon his successor arrives instead.
What did the Pope do in 1982?
Fri 28 May Meets Queen; Mass for 3,000 at Westminster cathedral; ministry to 4,000 elderly, sick and dying at St George's, Southwark. Modest crowds watch popemobile pass.
Sat 29 May Service with archbishop Robert Runcie in Canterbury cathedral; Mass for 60,000 at old Wembley stadium.
Sun 30 May Mass for 25,000 British Poles at Crystal Palace; 350,000 welcome him to Coventry; visits both Liverpool cathedrals, where there were an estimated million people on streets and at services.
Mon 31 May Meets Manchester Jewish community, 200,000 at Mass; 210,000 in York; 44,000 teenagers in Edinburgh.
Tue 1 June Meets Scottish Protestant church leaders; 250,000 turn out at Glasgow (biggest religious service ever held in Scotland), where there are minor protests.
Wed 2 June Mass for 100,000 in Cardiff; youth rally of 37,000; leaves for Rome.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/09/2010 23:05]