It is my hope that the rumor be true that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVl will celebrate Mass according to the Ancient Use. As Cardinal Ratzinger he many times said the Old Rite, and performed Ordinations of Priests according to the Old Rite. There are many Photos of him doing so dressed in all the Regalia of a Bishop according to the Tridentine Mass. I have read that he says the Old Mass in his private Chapel often. Many of us have wondered why he has not done this in public. It would certainly show all Catholics the greatness of the Church’s Ancient Liturgy.

Yes, would love to see this and I hope and pray it will be televised in its entirety in the USA and archived on the Vatican’s website. All praise and glory to the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Glory and praise to our Holy Father Benedict XVI if the rumor is true.  What a blessing it would be if we could completely recover the spirituality of the Tridentine Rite and its doctrines and disciplines and those of Vatican Council I that were eschewed by the Second Vatican Council.  Unfortunately, I have serious doubts we will ever recover the almost 100 percent belief in the Real Presence that preceded it.  I will go to my grave believing that to be a tragedy of definitve magnitude.

The pope should make a more serious attempt to restore the glory of the altar and the traditional rite.
The current liturgy is so terrible that it allows as acceptable, the saying of mass at a coffee table by priests in flip flops, shorts and only a stole over a t-shirt.
I have witnessed this less than a month ago.
The Church needs to return to the sanity of its past and the Holy Father needs to show the way. Without him leading the way the sheep will remain scattered and the lambs ravaged by the wolves.

While it may be a long shot that he will be the offering the Traditional Latin Mass himself, even assisting in choir would be quite a statement.

(For those unfamiliar with the term “in choir,” it means that while he himself wouldn’t be involved in offering the Mass, he would still be present within the sanctuary.)

I would love to see the Holy Father celebrate mass every Sunday during the Year of Faith.

I am all for the Latin.  And I am all for good English, too.  Which is why I regret that your headline “Benedict XVI to Publicly Celebrate Tridentine Mass in November?” used a split infinitive.

The Holy Father’s love for the Traditional Latin Mass is without question, his having celebrated it as a Cardinal, in the form of a Pontifical Mass. It is also said that he is known to celebrate it privately. Keep in mind, that this is not just another Pontifical Mass, but a PAPAL Pontifical Mass. Only one person at any one time gets to be the celebrant for it, and there is barely anyone alive who has ever attended at one (whether in major or minor clerical roles), let alone celebrated one. As a master of ceremonies for a parish, I can tell you that eading about it in old ceremonial books is one thing; doing it is quite another. Between enough people reading up on it, any resistance at all among low- or mid-level operatives in the Curia, and the simple act of scheduling a non-routiine event in St Peter’s Basilica—this form of the Mass being anything but routine—it is no surprise that it would have taken several years into his pontificate that Pope Benedict would do this only now.

I bet it’s gonna be awesome!

Thanks Bill, though I feel I must point out that split infinitives are not considered ungrammatical and are acceptable in certain cases (in this instance, to make the headline concise). In much the same way, it’s no longer frowned upon to begin sentences, as you did, with a conjunction or a relative pronoun, though some grammarians would probably disagree.

WHY WOULD THE HOLY FATHER CHOOSE NOVEMBER 3RD AS THE DATE TO MAKE HIS FIRST PUBLIC CELEBRATION OF THE MASS OF THE AGES?  THE ANSWER IS FOUND IN MY NEW CATHOLIC NOVEL, “THE RAPTURE OF DARKNESS”: IT IS BECAUSE THAT IS “THE DAY OF MALACHY” ... THE FEAST DAY OF THE 12TH CENTURY IRISH SAINT AND MYSTIC, ST. MALACHY, AUTHOR OF “THE PROPHECY OF THE POPES.” THE HOLY FATHER KNOWS THAT MALACHY RESTORED THE IRISH CHURCH BY RETURNING DISCIPLINE TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND ORTHODOXY TO THE LITRUGY, AND THAT ACCORDING TO MALACHY’S PROPHECY, BENEDICT IS THE LAST POPE BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THE FINAL POPE ... PETRUS ROMANUS, WHO WILL REIGN WHEN JESUS RETURNS.  “SAVE THE LITURGY, SAVE THE WORLD” IS MORE THAN JUST A SLOGAN, AND THE POPE IS SIGNALING THAT IT IS BY THE RESTORATION OF THE TRADITIONAL LITURGY THAT THE WORLD WILL TURN FROM SIN AND FIND SALVATION. I WILL ASK JOURNALIST PENTIN WHO BROKE THIS STORY TO PRINT A FOLLOWUP BASED ON MY RESEARCH AND INSIGHTS.  UNA VOCE TRADITIO CATHOLICA.

“By chance, there’s always room in the San Pius X Society!”

All they need now is a Pope.

Jack Spring, Your post was very informative. If the Holy Father does say the Tridentine Mass on Nov, 3rd, by what you posted it would be enormously symbolic of the importance of the Ancient Use of the Mass. There is one thing that concerns me, its believed by many that St. Malachy was predicting “Petrus Romanus” as the last of the Popes. He was not. He is said to only have stopped there. As no one knows the day nor the hour, St. Malachy was not predicting the last Pope, he only stopped with “Petrus Romanus”. Perhaps if God wills, he will give us another of the likes of St. Malachy to describe Popes after Petrus Romanus. David L Alexander, why would the SSPX need a Pope? They already have one, Pope Benedict XVl. Should they ever decide to choose their own Pope, he would only be an anti-pope sent by the evil one.

Wonderful news, if true.

”[W]hy would the SSPX need a Pope? They already have one, Pope Benedict XVl.”

I’m not sure how big a factor that has been in the negotiations for their reconciliation with Rome. In fact, if it were true in the fullest sense, there wouldn’t be any negotiations at all, don’t you think?

Or don’t you?

Why can’t we revive polyphony and other fine aspects of Catholic liturgical tradition, yet keep it within the vernacular?

It’s a mistake to go back to pre Vatican days!  Local vernacular is the best because the Faithful can understand it all over our “catholic” world.  The Latin language would put us in the Dark Ages again.  You look around the church when there is a Latin mass and Latin singing and no one is singing because they do not understand it- much less know how to pronounce it.  What a waste of time.  Our Lord used simple parables to help people understand His message - why are we making it so hard. We faithful are SIMPLE people. I am against going back - we have enough to do in the church without dwelling on a dead language.  Our young peopel will really leave the church now.  And I am of an age where I spent hours in mass choirs singing in Latin in Catholic schools - never knowing what it meant.  Now I do through my language.  I pray Pope Benedict gets this message.

Mary L Brogan, Do you understand why Latin is called a dead language? Many mistakenly say it is because it is not used anymore, this is an error. The reason Latin is a dead language is because it never changes, the Latin spoken 2000 years ago is the same Latin spoken today. English is a living language because its usage changes constantly. What one word meant 20 years ago, has a different meaning today. Take the word “gay”, at one time it meant happy, today it means someone with a depraved sexual deviation. As for Latin in the Mass, I remember as a teen our parish priest would say Mass in Latin at daily Mass, the older people responded perfectly and they knew what they were saying, that fascinated me. A Nun once told me that she taught Altar boys Latin responses for Mass and that she did not understand a word. I found that strange to the point I did’nt believe her. The days she spoke of, were the days she prayed the Holy Office in Latin daily. She did this for 30 years before they started saying it in the vernacular. Its understandable why I did not believe she did not understand Latin. Latin is making a glorious comeback, to the joy of those of us who had grown up with the vernacular. With the vernacular we could respond and read the bulletin at the same time. Or respond and daydream at the same time. Goodbye and good riddens vernacular!

This sounds very reactionary and against the 2nd Vatican Council which did indeed rejuvenate a dying church.  Why is the Pope doing this?  Can’t he see he’s only giving fodder to the reactionaries who just can’t understand that the church has moved on.  Truth moves on too.  Truth lives and doesn’t just stand still.  If only Paul VI didn’t talk Bugnini out of removing the Roman Canon completely.  I’m surrounded by reactionaries.

From the article, there’s no real confirmation that Pope Benedict XVI will actually celebrate this mass in November.  One of his aides distinctly said that the mass celebrated would be the novus ordo (AKA Ordinary Form). 

But, assuming he did celebrate the Tridentine Mass (AKA Extraordinary Form), other than an considerable increase in liturgical beauty, what would be accomplished?

Does the pope plan on retiring the novus ordo mass? 

Will Vatican II be declared null and void?  It put forth a couple heresies previously condembed. 

Maybe this is a side issue but I’ve read on many Catholic websites that because Benedict XVI was consecrated as a Bishop that he’s not a valid bishop but a new bishop performing services for a new church.  The concept of a new church is that Paul VI so clearly abandoned his Catholicism (i.e., religious liberty being nothing more than a euphemism of religious indifferentism) that the new church, (AKA Conciliur Church) is actually a counterfeit church.  I know this sounds radical, but just look at the fruits.  Mass attendance at 20%, “catholics” think the Holy Communism is “merely symbolic” - do you think communion in the hand in such a nonchalant manner may have begat this error? 

  The extremists are the only reason Benedict can’t celebrate the Latin Mass.  He would love to but they will draw absurd inferences from his doing so….a secret signal that Benedict next will change everything they want changed in all their detail.

I have no doubt that the old latin mass is beautiful but isn’t the Holy Father setting a bad example by using a form abrogated by his predecessors?

Indy:

A commission of cardinals determined a few years ago, that the older form of the Roman Mass had never been abrogated. One might add that this had been done only in practice, if ultimately not in principle. There is no “bad example” being set. Even in lieu of the above, the Holy Father enjoys supreme executive, legislative, and judicial authority over the Church. He could DE-abrogate it all by himself.

My opinion on this is of little relevance, but I’d like to add some thoughts over some questions asked above:

Johnny Wadd said:

>This sounds very reactionary and against the 2nd Vatican Council which did indeed rejuvenate a dying church. 

No. CVII created a huge confusion within the Church, fostering indifferentism under the label of “freedom of religion”, allowing for liturgical abuses everywhere under the excuse of “fruitful participation”. Here, in Brazil (which was, by the 1960s, the largest Catholic nation in the world, and proud of it), the result of the “springtime of Vatican II” is a wasteland. We got vernacular, but lost our Religion, and became heathen again. CVII was a stab in the back of the church, and a open door for every kind of heresy to be proudly proclaimed as “within the ‘spirit’ of Vatican II”.

>Why is the Pope doing this? 

Someone has to put the pieces together, and the example always come from the top. When JPII took part in the heathen rites of India, what example came from that? INDIFFERENTISM. When the horrible Assisi meetings occurred, what conclusion the average guy draws? “OK to be anything: Muslim, Catholic, Hare-Krishna, Buddhist, as long as you are nice and don’t tell the others your God is the Real One, who gave his Only begotten Son to redeem our Sins”. JPII was a good political fighter, but why did he did all that? 

>Can’t he see he’s only giving fodder to the reactionaries who just can’t understand that the church has moved on.  Truth moves on too.  Truth lives and doesn’t just stand still.

“The truth changes” is a short form of a reasoning that was condemned by EVERY POPE since St. Peter to Pius XII, and such reasoning contradicts the simple statement “God is Faithful” (don’t know chapter and verse, but that’s the point: God doesn’t “change” His mind); saying that “the truth moves on” is simply the result of 50 years of modernist philosophies evolving in modernist theologies (mind the plural…) and the resulting colapse of the church in the hands of modernist clerics, that could no longer stand for Her truth because 50 years ago a PASTORAL council was erected into a Über-Dogma. I would say that this attitude of “no, the Vatican II can’t be disrespected, so kneel down in your house if you want, We’re calling Easter Bunny for the homily today”... It’s idolatry, pure and simple, by changing a non-dogmatic (therefore non-infallible) Council into an idol, a sacred cow.

> If only Paul VI didn’t talk Bugnini out of removing the Roman Canon completely. 

Cardinal Bugnini was “deported” to Sri Lanka when rumors of his affiliation to the Freemasonry became too great to be ignored. But then, the Novus Ordo Mass was already issued, and Paul VI couldn’t take it back. But, in his good faith, he tried to “open the windows and let the fresh air in”, only to see that (his famous quote) by some opening “Satan’s smoke came inside the Church”. He ought to know better, for Saint Pius V already warned against tampering with the Mass—what Bugnini did everywhere he could.

Doug Stillwater asks:

>But, assuming he did celebrate the Tridentine Mass (AKA Extraordinary Form), other than an considerable increase in liturgical beauty, what would be accomplished?

Doug, the Tridentine Latin Mass (let’s say TLM, for short) was Canonized (!) by St. Pius V, and the Bulls “Quo Primum” (by himself) and “Auctorem Fidei” (by Pius VI) warned to the fact that the Author of our faith is God Himself, and that no one, even the Pope, could mess with that. The Church have NO authority to change the TLM, due to it’s God-given perfection. What suits better to worship God? the perfect way He gave to the Apostles and was passed down to us unchanged, or what Pope Benedict XVI called “a manufactured rite”? I think it’s the first, and His Holiness is moving the church to a change in the Ordinary Form.

>Does the pope plan on retiring the novus ordo mass? 

I truly, dearly, heartily desire so, but… let’s put the feet in the ground. It’s more likely that he may create an hybrid mass, that displeases Traditionalists and Modernists alike. The average guy may take is as a “recovering of the past” and even find the way to TLM… in 50 years more. But, who’s hasty?

>Will Vatican II be declared null and void?  It put forth a couple heresies previously condembed. 

Same as above. Pius VI set forth an precedent by declaring heretical the Council of Pistoia (that proposed lots of things CVII later adopted, like vernacular and simplification of the mass).

>Maybe this is a side issue but I’ve read on many Catholic websites that because Benedict XVI was consecrated as a Bishop that he’s not a valid bishop but a new bishop performing services for a new church.  The concept of a new church is that Paul VI so clearly abandoned his Catholicism (i.e., religious liberty being nothing more than a euphemism of religious indifferentism) that the new church, (AKA Conciliur Church) is actually a counterfeit church.  I know this sounds radical, but just look at the fruits.  Mass attendance at 20%, “catholics” think the Holy Communism is “merely symbolic” - do you think communion in the hand in such a nonchalant manner may have begat this error? 

I’ve read lots of that “Counterfeit Church” stuff, but… can’t take it seriously. The implications of even thinking so would lead to the denial of the legitimacy to the popes John XXIII, Paul VI, JP I, JPII AND Benedict XVI. I am no judge of the Church, nor judge of the Popes, but I can say that: whatever their mistakes, they acted in good faith. Their acts backfired because they ignored warnings from the previous popes, saints and martyrs.

The result? “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi” already stated. The Paul VI Mass is so devoid of devotion, adoration and reverence to the Most Holy Sacrament, that most people believe it’s only bread… so, they think the Holy Communion is “merely symbolic”, that the Mass is a “memorial meal”, and not a “Propitiatory Sacrifice” to God, and a renewal of the Sacrifice of the Calvary. Hey, they don’t even believe in Purgatory, and live as Hell was not real! And all that starts with… “the Paul VI Mass” + “Communion in the hand”.

To end that post: by the age of 9 I was in the Catechism and attended to Paul VI Mass. My Catechism teacher told us “what” was the Most Holy Sacrament. I would NOT DARE to “touch” a consecrated Host for my entire life. Nowadays, I see priests and bishops insulting and harassing the faithful who want to receive the Holy Communion properly, and almost forcing the faithful to open the hands to receive the Holy Communion as if it were a cookie…

I always heard the Traditionalist were “reactionaries”. All we as Traditionalists want is our Church back, according to the real Vatican ll.
I must say that the real reactionaries are those liberals who have falsley interpreted V2. Why won’t they let go of their reactionism? Liberals were wrong all along, the Church tried to point it out, but No!, the modernists had always have to have their way. Sorry! No more! Cristo Vincet!!!

  People out there mostly Catholics need to keep in mind that this Pope is a “Liturgical Pluralist” according to theologian Tracy Rowland. He thinks and believes there can be more than just one Liturgy. He told Raymond Arroyo in his 2003 interview in English “the World Over” that we need to restore not so much certain ceremoniews but what he called “central Idea of the Liturgy” If you watched the 2005 World Youth Day and he had a Benediction Ceremony you could clearly see the Sacred Host bleeding in the Monstrance. I saw it with my own eyes and so did the altar servers who were seen turning the monstrance back and forth. The Pope knows most Catholics are not familiar with the Latin Mass. If the Mass of Pope Paul was not valid or evil would we have a Eucharistic Miracle at all? I doubt it. He celebrates it the way it was meant to be and he did say however that he wants future priests to learn this Mass in his follow up document to the Moto Proprio last May of 2012. We’ll see. The very first mass was celebrated in the Aramaic language but he did say “what was sacred once, remains sacred” Its his decision to make.

The main problem in the Church today is the false interpretaion of Vatican Council ll. Pope Benedict as Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out, that what was said at the Council and what was done after the Council are two totaly different things. One of the strong statements of V2 was, “Latin is and will remain the official language of the Church”, after the Council the complete opposite was done, Latin was done away with all together, clearly a grave violation of V2. Latin must return, it must return to the Church’s sacred liturgy and in the administration of the Sacraments. This is only one example out of a myriad of examples, of violations against V2. The Church must obey what Pope Benedict XVl has called for, that is the reinterpretation of the Council in light of Tradition.

Please pope Benedict xvi offer that beautiful form of the mass to attract many people to the beauty and richness of the catholic church holy father please I know you can do it.

The Latin Mass was a unifying element for all Catholics around the world.  No matter where one traveled, one could go to Mass on Sunday and feel “at home” as part of the congregation, even if one could not speak the language of the country.  There can always be a missal to translate to the vernacular for those who have never heard Latin Mass before; slowly, the Latin words will begin to grow on them.  It is true that the congregation “sounds” like it is participating more actively when answering in the vernacular; actually, once the Latin words are learned, participation is the same.  I may be wrong but I believe many who have drifted away from the Church have been turned off by too little time for private meditation during Mass and too lengthy sermons.