CNA Staff, 30 July 2024 / 11:00

Catholics and even non-Catholics around the world have recently appealed to Pope Francis to refrain from implementing a notorious ban on the Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).

The Vatican has imposed restrictions on TLM in recent years, with the Holy Father claiming that the centuries-old Latin Mass was used in “an ideological way” of Catholics.

Rumors have circulated recently that the Vatican is preparing to impose an even stricter ban on the liturgy. A broad coalition of Catholic and non-Catholic advocates, both from America and from Europe, has asked Francis to allow TLM to continue.

A Mexican archbishop emeritus, meanwhile, earlier this month urged Pope Francis not to forbid the ancient form and begged him: “Do not let this happen.”

What changed between liturgies?

The Tridentine Mass has long held a prominent place not only in church history but in wider culture; many non-Catholics are familiar with its ornate liturgical processes, its high solemnity, and its use of ancient music, bells, and incense.

The official form of the Mass was codified after the Council of Trent in the 16th century. It remained the dominant form of Catholic liturgical worship until the promulgation of the Mass of Paul VI – also known as the “novus ordo” or the “ordinary form” – 1969. (TLM is also called the “extraordinary form.”)

Among the most notable changes to the Mass was the substitution of the “vernacular” in the liturgy. While the TLM is celebrated in the ancient Latin language, the novus ordo allows the use of modern, local languages ​​in the Mass.

Father John Baldovin, SJ, professor of historical and liturgical theology at Boston College, told CNA that the linguistic revisions to the Mass stemmed from “a pastoral liturgical movement that sought to increase the people’s active participation in the liturgy.”

This “led to a desire for a liturgy in the language of the people,” he said.

Second Vatican Council Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy notes that “in fairs celebrated with the people a suitable place may be assigned to their mother tongue.”

The document stipulates that “measures should be taken so that the faithful may also say or sing together in Latin the parts of the Mass that belong to them.”

Proponents have argued that allowing liturgies in vernacular languages ​​enables the faithful to become “actively engaged in the rite and enriched by its effects,” as the Second Vatican Council put it.

Others have argued that the Latin language allows for a more constant and enriching liturgy. Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze has written that the ancient and unchanging language “fits a church that is universal, a church where all peoples, languages ​​and cultures should feel at home and no one is considered a stranger.”

Another major change was the compensation for priests to celebrate mass in front of the congregation.

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The Tridentine rite dictated that the priest should face “ad orientem” or “to the east”; however, the current General Instruction on the Roman Missal states that it is “desirable whenever possible” for the celebrant to face the people.

In 2000, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, then Prefect of the then Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, clarified that “the position facing the congregation seems more comfortable because it makes communication easier”, but that the missal in question does not exclude facing “ad orientem”.

The priest’s face to the people is still the dominant celebration of the Mass today. Estevez noted that the “spiritual orientation” of the act of worship should be distinguished from the physical direction of the priest.

“If the priest celebrates ‘versus populum’, which is legitimate and often advisable, his spiritual attitude should always be ‘versus Deum per Jesus Christum’ (toward God through Jesus Christ), as representative of the whole Church,” he wrote.

Jimmy Akin, a senior apologist at Catholic Answers, told CNA that another major change was “the expansion of the liturgical readings from a one-year cycle to a three-year cycle for Sundays and holidays and a two-year cycle for other days.”

“The new cycles also include a reading from the Old Testament, which was mostly absent from pre-Vatican II readings,” he said.

These cycles “do not cover every passage in the Bible,” he noted, but “the change was made to give the faithful a broader exposure to the content of Scripture.”

Akin noted that the church has periodically issued changes to the liturgy over the centuries.

“There have always been minor changes to the Mass rites, such as the Leonine Prayers or ‘Prayers after the Mass’ which were added to the celebration of the Low Masses by Leo XIII in 1884,” he said.

Other changes in the novus ordo arose from less direct but still consequential revisions.

The ornate vestments and solemn processions of the Tridentine Mass, for example, have faded in favor of much more simplistic liturgical trappings.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy stipulates that “the rites shall be simplified” and that “elements which in time came to be duplicated or added with little benefit, are now to be discarded.”

Although many ancient parts of the liturgy were discarded in the revised missal, several other notable practices were restored, including the “prayers of the faithful” and the act of penance.

These parts of the liturgy had “suffered damage through the accidents of history,” the council noted, and would now be “restored to the power they had in the days of the holy fathers.”