The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

A Mass of Trouble

The sixteenth Daddy Goodspeak apparently wishes to continue the rollback of the reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council by allowing general use of the Tridentine Mass, a sixteenth-century version of the ceremony and a "great treasure" which refers to perfidious Jews who live in blindness and darkness and which includes a charmingly sanctimonious prayer that "the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ". At the moment, this delightful piece of work can be performed only with special permission, but the sixteenth Daddy Goodspeak apparently wishes to "liberalise" its use. How nice to see that free speech is such a concern in the church's higher echelons.

The idea, it appears, is to "reach out to an ultra-traditionalist and schismatic group, the Society of St Pius X" - the sainted Pius being a rabid reactionary who appears to have been born about four hundred years too late for the wellbeing of either his church or his congregation. Among other achievements, he managed to provoke the French into kicking out the Jesuits. In 1905 he asserted the existence of Limbo, which the sixteenth Daddy Goodspeak has recently abolished. Pius' response to the outbreak of the First World War was apparently one of "horror and melancholy", which obviously helped a good deal.

If the Tridentine Mass does come back into widespread use, it will be amusing to see what effect this has upon the newly-appointed Saviour of the Middle East (the missionary formerly positioned in the Vicarage of Downing Street) in his attempts to bring peace and harmony to the benighted. "New Labour, New Jerusalem" is no doubt a laudable project, but it seems that fans of the Tridentine Mass "tend to oppose the laity's increased role in parish life... collaboration with other Christians and its dialogue with Jews and Muslims".

Unfortunately, Tridentine does not mean that the Mass has three teeth - one for the Jews, one for the Muslims and one for the Protestants. It is a reference to the Council of Trent.

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