Michael Voris update: RealCatholicTV changes it name to ChurchMilitant.TV...

[Virgil the Roman]

I am simply voicing my concerns. It would seem that they are warranted; particularly given all the scandals that have occurred with other Catholic televangelists . . .

 

[MikeK]

Scandal and calumny from unknown 3rd parties is what brought down Corapi. As has done many priests these days.

Corapi brought down Corapi.

 

[MKJ]

The text of the Tridentine rite really appeals to me, too. That is what got me interested. It isn't my favourite liturgy, though. The Divine Liturgy is the pinnacle for me.

I don't like it when people claim that the Novus Ordo just cut out a lot of repetition and simplified things. It isn't comparable to the Tridentine rite in any way - it is an entirely new liturgy of its own. It uses the bare-bones of historical liturgical elements that appear in a few different rites, but it really is a different liturgy altogether, devoid of many things the ancients clearly felt important enough to keep in their liturgies for well over a millennia.

I don't idealise the TLM and I don't like the attitude that a lot of the community seems to have embraced. The TLM isn't perfect. It is mainly idealised among people who were born after it was replaced, and only then because of its novelty and the beauty of the prayers. It has its issues.

I think the NO is a bit like a lot of things that came out of the first half of the twentieth century. It is all kinds of bits and pieces that have been cobbled together to try and bring out a deeper meaning. But the underlying structure and spirituality hasn't been preserved - it couldn't be preserved because it is just fragments - the heap of broken images that Eliot complains of.

I think that a vernacular liturgy is important myself. I think a lot of people conflate the problems of the NO with the vernacular, but they aren't the same - it's problems are its own. It is perfectly possible to have a good vernacular liturgy. The 1960's sure as heck weren't the best time to try and produce one though.

 

[Virgil the Roman]

Agreed. Heck, this why I've said for years now, that we need a Tridentine Liturgy in reverent hieratic or more dignified vernarcular (E.g. Elizabethan English for English-speakers; event Tolkien's literary English is quite high-flown enough to do an adequate job at this). It could retain some Latin, yes (as well it ought to do as it is the Language of the Church of God); yet, it would go a long well to restoring due reverence and dignity to the Church's worship.

 

[FullyMT]

Agreed. Heck, this why I've said for years now, that we need a Tridentine Liturgy in reverent hieratic or more dignified vernarcular (E.g. Elizabethan English for English-speakers; event Tolkien's literary English is quite high-flown enough to do an adequate job at this). It could retain some Latin, yes (as well it ought to do as it is the Language of the Church of God); yet, it would go a long well to restoring due reverence and dignity to the Church's worship.

The problem with using Elizabethan English for English-speakers in the USA is that we are not all of that patrimony (matrimony for Elizabethan?). As a person who strongly identifies with his Italian roots, I feel uncomfortable when using such language which identifies me as an "Anglo" which I am most certainly not.

 

[Gwendolyn]

Pope Pius XII wanted to translate the TLM into the vernacular and tweak it a bit. I honestly think he had the right idea. Unfortunately, the liturgy that came decades later was something entirely different, nothing like the pope had hoped for. Not that it matters, but I just find that interesting.

 

[JesusIsTheWay33]

The vernacular translation of the "tridentine" mass is pretty much what the 1965 missal was, and the Latin Mass Society was founded based on uproar over it. Clearly, it is not an acceptable compromise.

Agreed. Heck, this why I've said for years now, that we need a Tridentine Liturgy in reverent hieratic or more dignified vernarcular

There is no such thing as "hieratic English", and the obsession with Early Modern English be most verily an pretension of the Protestants, and most unknown to ye pond'rings of yond Holy Roman Church. (Forsooth.)

It could retain some Latin, yes (as well it ought to do as it is the Language of the Church of God); yet, it would go a long well to restoring due reverence and dignity to the Church's worship.

I must disagree, simply because I don't see anything in "hieratic English" of value to the Catholic tradition.

 

[MKJ]

The vernacular translation of the "tridentine" mass is pretty much what the 1965 missal was, and the Latin Mass Society was founded based on uproar over it. Clearly, it is not an acceptable compromise.

I'm not sure that the fact that there was opposition to it then means it would have been a failure in the long term. There are always people who are reactionary. Maybe if they knew what they were going to end up with instead they'd have kept quiet.

I don't necessarily think a modern vernacular would need to be done in "Elizabethan" English. As an Anglican I thank God for what we have as far as a vernacular liturgical and musical tradition, but the BCP was actually produced in the Elizabethan era, and so you can't really call it a pastiche.

Although aside from the UK, the BCP has actually been updated over the years to make it more understandable - just very conservatively, a word here and there or change in grammatical structure, nothing very extreme. So a Canadian BCP, for example, from before the modern NO style liturgies were developed has a kind of feeling of being Elizabethan to some - it uses a kind of formal poetic language that works really well for a liturgy. But it is also easier for moderns to use and understand.

I think that is one difficulty with the modern vernacular liturgies - mid twentieth century poetry isn't necessarily well suited to the job of liturgy.

But I am not sure where you would go outside of the world of English literature to find something appropriate to use - Italian literature has its own poetic traditions but how would you translate that to an English language liturgy?