Word: benedicts
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...Tridentine rite was never actually abolished, but local bishops had to grant approval for a priest to say the Mass. Benedict's ruling authorizes parish priests to celebrate the Tridentine rite if a "stable group of faithful" requests it, without needing their bishop's permission. It also permits the old rite for weddings, funerals and other liturgical proceedings...
...more than a year, Vatican insiders knew Benedict was keen to ease restrictions on the Tridentine mass. Indeed, in the first months of his papacy, he'd met with leaders of the "schismatic" followers of the late ultratraditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who'd split with the Vatican over the introduction of the vernacular and other Vatican II reforms. In his explanatory letter, Benedict says this decree alone will not heal the rift, which is on "a deeper level." So the Pope seems to be showing the ultratraditionalists - who want to undo all the Vatican II reforms - that he will move...
...Pope says he knows some wonder if the document calls into question the very heart of the Second Vatican Council. "This fear," Benedict declares, "is unfounded." As for the precise timing of the release of the document, one can wonder (with a wink) if it's more than coincidence that it came out just before Benedict zips out of Rome for a three-week mountain retreat...
...small, and likely to get smaller. Undoubtedly reflecting his own personal experience, the 80-year-old Pope cites Catholics for whom the Tridentine rite "had been familiar to them from childhood." As those generations pass there may be ever fewer faithful who are attached to the old Mass, and Benedict is simply providing a sort of bridge for the current over-50 crowd...
...symbolic weight of this decision may actually be heavier than the practical effect. Church progressives, and indeed some conservatives, are asking why Benedict went out of his way to reopen a hot-button issue that, for the vast majority of Catholics, has long been settled. With traditionalists emboldened and progressives feeling under siege, the Church hierarchy and local bishops may wind up caught in the crossfire. Still, on a more substantive level, Benedict's real long-term objective may be a sort of "counter-reform" of the alternative practices of the new Mass rather than a widespread return...