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My mistake. I'd read that he had celebrated Mass with pontificals of his own.

BOB

The mistake may be understandable. I am not quite sure about this, but I guess a cardinal can use pontificals (mitre, staff, ring, pectoral cross etc) even if he is not a bishop.

Getting back on topic, does anyone have an answer to antv's interesting comments above?

Father Deacon,

Are you referring to his description of Mass?

Here's the deal, as I understand it (it is much like how antv described):

Low Mass: 2 candles lighted on the altar. Is "said" but since some point in the early 20th Century, hymns are allowed to be sung by the congregation.

Missa Cantata: Can be broken down into two "types." One is, like antv said, "lower" than the other and uses 4 candles on the altar, I believe, and no incense. The other is "higher" and uses 6 candles on the altar, and incense is employed. Both are sung/chanted (therefore, "cantata"). No hymns, but it seems that in some places this was done. Is basically a "Low Mass" with all the smells and bells, since technically for a mass to be "High" there must be a deacon and subdeacon. Wikipedia has a nice little article on it.

Missa Solemnis: 6 candles always, incense always, deacon and subdeacon always. Chanted. No hymns, of course.

I've only experienced the no-incense form of Missa Cantata once, I believe. My experience in real life and on the internet may be incorrect, but they seem to be rather uncommon today. I think the vasty majority of Sung Masses employ incense, 6 candles, etc.

Alexis

Here is something which may be of interest:

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/05/installation-of-vincent-nichols-to.html

In many Roman Catholic churches the High Altar is no longer in use. Instead, another altar has been installed in front of the High Altar, so that Mass can be celebrated facing the people. Sadly, this leaves the High Altar unused.

Now it is reported that the Mass of Installation of the new Archbishop of Westminster will be celebrated at the High Altar! Apparently, this means that the Mass of Installation will be celebrated facing east, as there is no room for the celebrants to stand behind the High Altar of Westminster Cathedral [westminstercathedral.org.uk].

If the Mass of Installation of Archbishop Vincent Nichols is celebrated at the High Altar and facing east, this will set a precedent for others to follow, and will be a great step in the right direction!

Thanks be to God

New question but related, why did VII not translate the Extrodinary form into Vanacular and use it?

I still wonder why it is not translated into the vernacular now and permitted for celebration.

There are serious structural problems with the Tridentine Rite which make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring into compliance with Sacrosanctum concilium without a major overhaul. That is why it remains an "extraordinary form", albeit one much more widely tolerated today than in the past.

Attempts in the past to overcome the deficiencies of the Tridentine included the so-called "Dialogue Mass" of the Liturgical Movement, but there was considerable confusion regarding which responses rightfully belonged to the priest or the deacon, and which belonged to the people. Because of the extreme clericalization of late medieval Western liturgy, untangling the proper parts to ensure full and active congregational participation. There was also a desire to roll back a lot of the accretions that had developed over four hundred years, and to disencumber the Mass of things not considered legitimate organic developments.

Whether this was done well or not, is another question, but for many reasons the Tridentine was not a good platform for the kind of reform Sacrosanctum concilium wanted to see.

By the way, "vernacularism" was also not implemented in accordance with the intention of Sacrosanctum concilium. The idea was to have the vernacular and Latin coexist, not to banish Latin to the ash heap of history. So many priests acted as though the idea that vernacular was allowed had to mean Latin was banned, when in reality Sacrosanctum concilium said nothing of the sort. If properly implemented, celebration of the Roman Mass would look much more like the way in which we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, with English used side-by-side with Slavonic, Greek, Arabic or Syriac. The idea was for the people to be able to worship in their own tongue, while honoring the language of their Mother Churches.

Stuart,

One can fully and actively participate without speaking. Although I do agree it's preferable.

I didn't know there was trouble determining which was the people's part and which were the clerics' parts. There doesn't seem to be a lot of confusion on that point now in the EF.

Alexis

"One can fully and actively participate without speaking. Although I do agree it's preferable."

I have heard this said, and there are, of course, good reasons not to participate through singing the responses (consideration for the ears of other people being one of the better ones), but remember the Latin Church was responding to a situation in which people did not participate at all, but rather did something in parallel with the liturgical actions being performed by the priest, such as saying the Rosary. The patristic ideal was Mass as a dialogue between the celebrant and the people, just as it is in Eastern liturgies, and that was what they aimed to restore.

"I didn't know there was trouble determining which was the people's part and which were the clerics' parts. There doesn't seem to be a lot of confusion on that point now in the EF."

Remember, when the Dialogue Mass was developed, the state of liturgical studies was far less sophisticated than it is today. And, if the rubrics used for the Tridentine have not changed, there really is no need for confusion: the people may respond, but the priest is actually saying their responses at the same time, and his are the ones that, from a rubrical perspective, count.

Stuart,

I fully agree that parallel devotions during Mass are not optimal, and that the ideal is for vocal participation as well.

The solution seems simple enough: just legislate it so that, if the congregation is doing their part, the priest doesn't have to repeat the congregation's responses.

Alexis

"The solution seems simple enough: just legislate it so that, if the congregation is doing their part, the priest doesn't have to repeat the congregation's responses."

That they could do, assuming they successfully unravelled who was to do what to whom when. The net result would have been a rollback to the Romano-Frankish rite of the eleventh or twelfth centuries. As I noted elsewhere, this was a hybrid of the Old Roman Rite and the Gallic Rite, which evolved north of the Alps and was carried to Rome by the German popes in the 11th century. For whatever reason, however, Vatican II was intent on restoring the "spirit" if not the actual letter of the Old Roman Rite, which was somehow perceived as more "authentic". Perhaps, because Vatican II was seen as a precursor to a reunion council, the idea of restoring the Roman liturgy to its first millennium state was seen as somehow more acceptable to the Orthodox?

In any case, there were a couple of problems with this agenda. First, as compared to what we know about the Romano-Frankish rite, we know relatively little about the Old Roman Rite, particularly as it was celebrated in parish settings. Beyond that, at an early point the liturgical revision got hijacked by people who were not all that interested in resoursemnt but very interested in aggiorniomento, and they saw the revision of the liturgy as a "privileged space" in which they could fight for their vision of how the Church would relate to the modern world.

In that atmosphere, there was never much of a chance that the liturgical renewal would consist of a light overhaul of the Tridentine rite--though in retrospect, such a move would have been pastorally more prudent, even if only as an intermediate step in a more thorough renewal of the Roman rite.

But, Stuart, surely you're not saying that the Novus Ordo is a great deal like the pre-Schism Roman Rite?

I know the "old Roman Rite" was much simpler and more somber than that which resulted from Gallican infusions over the course of the centuries, but at least the old Roman Rite was organically developed at the time.

Stuart, forgive me for being so thickheaded, but I'm having trouble understanding why it would be so difficult to ascertain which parts of the Mass belong to the people and which to the priest. It seems fairly clear, and it is done constantly in the vast majority (I believe) of places using the Traditional Mass today.

Alexis