Word: mass
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After months of intense speculation, Pope Benedict XVI has eased restrictions on the Catholic Church's traditional Latin Mass - a move that could raise controversy both within the Church, and in its interfaith relations, given the fact that the old rites include a Good Friday prayer for the conversion of Jews...
...with an explanatory letter to the world's bishops acknowledging the recent "news reports" and "confusion" about the lifting of restrictions for access to the old rite. Known as the Tridentine rite - delivered in Latin with the priest usually facing the altar, his back to the congregation - the old Mass (though never banned) had effectively been replaced, following the mid-1960s reforms of the Second Vatican Council, by a liturgy recited in the vernacular. Some Vatican insiders caution that Benedict's new ruling will simply ease restrictions on access to the old liturgy, which has continued to be followed...
...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...
...Bishops in the West, particularly in France, had shared their concerns that widening access to the old Mass would deepen the rifts and create splinter movements among their followers. The Pope also listened to concern about how this document could affect inter-faith affairs, given the inclusion of the Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of Jews. Though much less offensive than a reference to "perfidious Jews" that Pope John XXIII eliminated in 1962, some Jewish leaders are bound to ask why, after years of growing mutual respect, the Pope would not simply excise the conversion prayer...