"In conversation with American Catholics..." Oh really? This sounds pretty divisive and dictatorial to me. You just marginalized a LOT of people and you're arguments are sadly misinformed, as well intentioned as you may be.

There is a job waiting for you in a diocese somewhere as "Creative Director of Liturgical Reunification."

FAIL

With respect to some comments in the article please answer the following:
Where does it say in the documents of Vatican 2 that the priest has to face the people?
Where does it say in the documents that the Tridentine Mass is banned?
The answer to both is - they do not say.

The documents do state: The faithful must still know the latin....and it also states the beauty of Gregorian chant - unlikely to be heard in a "gym" mass.
And one last point - if the Tridentine Mass is so old, unpopular etc. then why do so many young people i.e. <40 love and attend the Mass?

If you're not kneeling at Mass (even though you are physically capable), you are disrespecting the Lord your God, Creator, and MASTER.

Period.

The Latin Mass is the Mass. The New Mass is also the Mass.

"Folk Mass", Guitar Mass, and other abominations are LITURGICAL ABUSE. Pure and simple.

Thank God for Pope Benedict and the new generation who is ushering the baby boomers and hippies into retirement homes and reclaiming the Church for Christ!

Last year, after the Pope's Summorum Pontificum, I asked a very young pastor if he was going to have a Tridentine Mass at his parish. He said that he was not because he wouldn't know how to do it. I told him, "Well, you read the Black and do the Red." to which he responded that he didn't know Latin.

Compare that to our Deacon (my age)who can read Latin and Greek. 'nuff said.

The whole problem here is ignorance of what the mass is.
The mass is the sacrifice of Our Lord to the Father for the forgiveness of sins.
This means that it is not up to us to decide how it is done and it certainly doesn't matter how we 'feel' about it.
We have the obligation to receive and care for what has been handed down and that is that.
What kind of faith do those people have that 'create' liturgy? Certainly they have no concept of the objective worship of the Godhead.
Read and learn about your faith, its a wonderful experience - and work on humilty.

Great commentary. Primarily, our scripture and liturgical life should be in our modern common languages. The Spirit of Vatican II call for all the faithful to open their hearts and explore our Christian origins, to renew our forms and attitudes of liturgical expression and to dream new ways to pray and become a eucharistic people here, now.

Secondarily, Latin -- along with Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, etc -- words, concepts, prayers and chants from our rich heritage of faith should be preserved; and, a renewal of ways to incorporate these expression into the Church's liturgical life should be welcome as long as the theology and intent furthers the work of the Holy Spirit alive in the documents of Vat II.

Take a Pass on the Bureaucracy
I’m going with the Last Supper - not politics.
By John Geis, Director of the “Gym Mass” at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Wilmette, Illinois

I’m the guy that “leads the group of lively folk musicians who accompany the assembly through a relaxed and informal liturgy.”
Just for the record, the Gym Mass Music Group is made up of rock musicians, jazz clinicians, classically trained string players and a few wind players. Ages 16 through 65. But that’s not why I wanted to respond to the article. It was more the authors remarks, albeit out of context, as cited below.
“I know many of these Catholics and consider them to be very good people. Their liturgy is, I believe, a scandal.” and, An outsider observing the two rituals would never guess they belonged to the same church. And in fact, many of the participants at the respective assemblies might admit that they don’t really share a faith with the participants in the “other” group.

This is what makes these liturgies scandalous. They represent such polarized expressions of worship that they drift from the central purpose of liturgy as stated in the introduction of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council’s document on liturgy: “to be a sign lifted up among the nations, to those who are outside, a sign under which the scattered children of God may be gathered together until there is one fold and one shepherd.” A church practicing such divergent forms of worship will hardly unite the scattered children of God.”
I disagree. The change from Vatican II that had the most immediate effect on the lives of individual Catholics, was the revision of the liturgy. The central idea was that there ought to be greater lay participation in the liturgy.
The Vatican II people established guidelines to revise the liturgy, which encouraged greater use of the vernacular (native language) instead of Latin, particularly for the biblical readings and other prayers. As bishops determined, local or national customs could be cautiously incorporated into the liturgy.
C’mon now, you don’t really need a church to have Mass do you? The real Mass is based on The Last Supper, and “for wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." --Matthew 18:2
There is no right way to say Mass my man. It’s the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist. Everything else is frosting. I’ve been to Masses said in the mountains of Peru with scraps of bread divvied up amongst the hungry people present and I’ve been to High Masses - and from what I can tell there was NO difference. Why is the “right” way and place to say Mass so important?
The Church believes that through apostolic succession, it is the continuation of the Christian community founded by Jesus. This is a view shared by many historians. The Church has defined its doctrines through various ecumenical councils, following the example set by the first Apostles in the Council of Jerusalem. On the basis of promises made by Jesus to his apostles, described in the Gospels, “the Church” also believes that it is guided by the Holy Spirit and so protected from falling into doctrinal error.
The last, above sentence has been plaguing the church for hundreds of years. Just as the Church will readily admit that though the Pope can speak ex cathedra he is human and therefore not free from sin. Similarly, though the Church has its dogma, it took them 350 years to officially apologize for summoning Galileo to an inquisition - accusing him of being a heretic and ruining the remaining years of his life. What the heck is wrong with “the Church”? We all knew WAY before 1992.
Just like we all know that it really doesn’t matter where you go to Mass - or if there’s a salsa band playing during Communion. God smiles on us at Mass - in gymnasiums and churches scattered all over the world.

I say all of the following without anger and with respect and love, but I hope it will be food for thought for some.  I am astounded by much of what I just read: 

How could John XXIII be rolling over in his grave by the use of the Latin Mass in every parish?  The pre-Vatican II Liturgy was all he knew, and all he ever celebrated.  In fact, this Missal that Benedict liberalized is called by Benedict "the missal of Blessed John XXIII" !!!!

How could the Tridentine Mass, a Mass used by Catholics for centuries, a Mass that Father Faber called "the most beautiful thing this side of heaven," be called a scandal equivalent to the scandal of modern liturgical chaos and disobedience?  This is ridiculous.

What is also seldom mentioned is that for centuries before Trent, the Roman Liturgy resembled the Missal of Pius V much more than it did the Missal of Paul VI.

Even when one attends the Liturgies of the Eastern Rites,  from the Coptic church rooted in St. Mark to the Indian rites rooted in St. Thomas, even though they differ in many ways from the Roman Liturgy, there one always finds:   beautiful vestments, sacred rituals, incense, profound reverence and respect, and the unique role of the ordained priest so clearly demonstrated.   One does not find informality or fun in any of these Eastern liturgies.  So one can't say this way of celebrating Liturgy began at Trent.

The Roman rite had unity from Trent up until the liturgical revolutionaries took over in the 1960s.  This refusal of the Modernists to conform- even to the norms of Paul VI's new missal- are what led to the disunity the author mentions.  I am not saying that the Mass can never change or that developments should not occur... I am saying that many Catholics - many of them good and sincere people as the author mentions- lost their liturgical compass after Vatican II.   I'm not sure that unity can occur between these two groups.  I think Benedict was trying to restore the liturgical sense to the Church.  What's somewhat encouraging to me is that many of the newer priests have a more solid formation theologically and are returning to Tradition.

-Dave Phillips