What's new is old again! Or is it the other way around? As one who has an interest in Church history, I'm amused by the fact some are having a hard time adjusting to the "new" liturgy. When the Mass of Paul VI was adopted, Catholics who were attached to the Tridentine Mass were disparaged for "holding on to the past", for "not embracing the spirit of Vatican II", etc. Now that history rolls on and we're in a time of litrugical re-reform, it's a "new" old generation of Catholics who are having a hard time adjusting. While their reasoning (and I'm a Catholic seminary grad student) is layered with liturgical scholarship, I suspect their true objections are found in psychology. As we age, we just don't adjust to change as well and we tend to "canonize" our beliefs for all time. Tridentine Catholics have been going through that for 50-some years.

The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine banned Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s book, Quest for the Living God. She was not informed her book was being reviewed, asked any questions about it or told the bishops banned it until after they had done it. She found out through other avenues. The stated reason she was not called for any conversation regarding their criticism: that would "just prolong a process that they really didn't want to prolong." These kinds of procedures have common ground with the policies and procedures used to thrust the New Missal on the faithful laity of the Church. At a conference for deacon leaders and their wives that I attended, participants were told the new Missal was going to be the only Missal used, there were no options, there was no going back, and the bishops had wanted and allowed no discussion at all about inclusive language, because that would have been to acquiesce to the feminist agenda! I tie these two factual happenings with a third: the priestly class at the time of Jesus had as their first public utterance, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving that they were not born 1) gentile, 2) slave, 3) leper, or 4) female.

The tentacles from such practices continue to pervert teaching, preaching and practice in the Church, and create a terrible credibility gap. Further, the present Tridentine outbreak of those who refuse to accept Vatican II, as they huddle to celebrate their own liturgy in the Church, underscores and exacerbates the problem.

I don't think these changes alone are what is driving people away from the church. Yes, folk are capable of absorbing this change and moving forward, but this is just a line in a litany that is pushing many over the edge. These vocabulary changes are an additional string of adjectives and adverbs by which we are supposed to define ourselves. The irony is that someone "downtown" keeps insisting that the Mass is "our" prayer, even though it is not in our language, or inclusive of our prayers, dreams and hopes. This is just one more step in which someone decides for us how we are supposed to think about ourselves as a faithful people. It is more than just irritating and problematic, it is depressing. I believe in the people of God. I beleive in the work of the Holy Spirit. But quite honestly, I can't imagine what comes next. But, it make make for interesting study by some sociologist in the future.

As a 60-year-old cradle Catholic who has lived through many changes in language, music and rubrics, I have come to the conclusion that I must always remember that the Mass itself has not and will not change - it is still the Word and the Eucharist. The language and movements are externals. Please, people, choose your battles. This, too, shall pass as the pendulum swings again.

I don't remember anyone being so solicitous of my feelings when they changed the Mass last time! And yet we learned to live with it. I think I will like the new translation. It seems to be more like what I grew up with before Vatican II. I realize it is not in Latin, but our missals had the English translation on the right page and the Latin on the left so we could understand what was being said. it is funny to think of the peoplewho want to retain what I think of as the new Mass being the traditionalists, though!