The Return of the Latin Mass?

Robert Moynihan

Exclusive: The Vatican is preparing to call, in the clearest way since the Second Vatican Council, for an end to liturgical abuses -- and for far wider use of the old Latin Mass

“The do-it-yourself Mass is ended. Go in peace.”

By Robert Moynihan

VATICAN CITY, May 13, 2003 – Forty years after the Second Vatican Council, after four decades of liturgical "experimentation" which has troubled many of the faithful, Rome is about to issue a major disciplinary document, ending years of a generally "laissez faire" attitude toward liturgical experimentation and “do-it-youself” Masses.

The document is now in draft form and is expected to be published between October and Christmas this year.

In a bombshell passage, the document will also encourage far wider use of the “old Mass”, the Tridentine rite Mass, in Latin, throughout the Roman Catholic Church.

The new, stricter guidelines for celebrating the liturgy, and the mandate to celebrate the old Latin Mass more widely, even on a weekly basis, in every parish in the world, will be contained in a document to be published by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, headed by Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze.

“We expect the document to be published before Christmas,” Arinze told "Inside the Vatican" in an exclusive interview. “We want to respond to the spiritual hunger and sorrow so many of the faithful have expressed to us because of liturgical celebrations that seemed irreverent and unworthy of true adoration of God. You might sum up our document with words that echo the final words of the Mass: ‘The do-it-yourself Mass is ended. Go in peace.’”

We will be reporting in more detail on this historic document in future issues of "Inside the Vatican."