Count me among the Catholics who are celebrating Pope Benedict’s motu proprio liberalising the Mass according to the 1962 missal, often known as the Tridentine Mass or Traditional Latin Mass.
I am definitely not one of those RadTrad types who think that the typical form of the Mass post-Vatican II is invalid – far from it! In fact, I still prefer a reverent “new” Mass – preferably sung Latin – over a TLM Low Mass, which is entirely spoken. On the other hand, I’ve been to a couple of sung TLMs and TLM High Masses, and that is the most amazingly beautiful thing in the world.
But one of the reasons I am happy about this motu proprio is that Pope Benedict is affirming the continuity of the Church through Vatican II, not the radical discontinuity that many of the “spirit of Vatican II” types promote. Did you know that the Vatican II document on liturgy, while it extends the use of the vernacular, also states that “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved” and that Gregorian chant “should be given pride of place in liturgical services”? Nobody told me that when I was growing up in a liberal diocese in the post-V2 Church. Benedict is not repealing Vatican II, but truly implementing it.
