There is a hierarchy of language. This is true for secular politics and cultural commerce, as well as in terms of religion. In this hierarchy, some languages are higher than others. JRR Tolkien, a philologist at Oxford, was quite aware of this. In his fictional world, which we know through Lord of the Rings, the…
In his Monday column at First Things, Italian journalist and veteran Vatican-watcher Marco Tosatti gave voice to what had previously been little more than a whispered rumor: that a group was at work, with Vatican knowledge and support, on a kind of interfaith liturgy: [T]here is the matter of the “Ecumenical Mass,” a liturgy designed…
In a new open letter rebutting points made by Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments (CDW), pope Francis has made clear that he is not in agreement with the African cardinal’s commentary on his recent liturgical moto proprio, Magnum Principium. This public “calling out” of the cardinal responsible…
Image credit: Ben Yanke At one point in Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus, the nihilistic proponent of might-makes-right, asks his interlocutor Socrates: “Am I to take my argument and pour it into your very own soul?” To which query Socrates replies: “God forbid, don’t do that!”[1] I was thinking about this recently in connection with some truly…
Summorum Pontificum: ten years later. The Fifth Colloquium in Rome, which marks the tenth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio, sustained the importance of an appropriate liturgy to the spiritual aggrandizement of man Ten years after the promulgation of motu proprio whereby Pope Benedict XVI allowed the Church to celebrate the Mass according…
Image courtesy of Marc Salvatore. We have probably all met people who are thinking of attending the traditional Latin Mass on a regular basis and who, when they actually start going, are struck by how much extra effort it costs. Perhaps we ourselves once felt the same way. For starters, you are expected to kneel…
Photo courtesy of Saint Ann’s Church and Shrine in Buffalo, New York. By Peter Kwasniewski & Michael Foley Given that it can often be less convenient for a person or a family to attend the traditional Latin Mass (and I am thinking not only of obvious issues like the place and the time, but also…
A new papal motu proprio letter on the liturgy was released today. It’s called Magnum Principium, and in my opinion, it’s a ticking timebomb. But to better understand it, we must first have something to contrast it against. If you’ve ever read Pope St. Pius V’s famous apostolic constitution on liturgy, Quo Primum (1570), you know that the…
Editor’s Note: Pope Francis, in a recent address, claimed that the “liturgical reform [i.e. the Novus Ordo Mass] is irreversible.” Vatican specialist Sandro Magister has said that many interpreted these words “as a halt ordered by Pope Francis to the presumed reverse course signaled by Benedict XVI with the 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.” Magister…
Dr. Heinz-Lothar Barth is a professor of Latin and Greek Philology at the University of Bonn, a 200-year-old institution boasting over 30,000 students. On the University website, the school is described as “one of Germany’s most prestigious universities and also ranked among the top hundred in the world”. Founded in 1818 as Rhein University, the school has offered programs in…
By Lisa Bergman Founder, St. Augustine Academy Press So many times people tell me, “I would love to go to the Latin Mass, but it’s just so confusing!” Or “I’ve tried going to the Latin Mass, but I feel so lost that I’m just not getting anything out of it.” I totally understand that feeling. …
