The retired auxiliary bishop of Rockville Centre, New York, Emil Wcela, “has written one of the best articles on the controversy surrounding the pope’s recent authorization of the Tridentine Latin Mass,” according to dissident theologian Fr. Richard McBrien.McBrien made the observation in the second of a two-part series on the Latin Mass published in the Nov. 2 issue of the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper, the Tidings.
The Wcela article to which McBrien refers, “A Dinosaur Ponders The Latin Mass,” was originally published in the Oct. 8 issue of America magazine.
Before summarizing Bishop Wcela’s piece, McBrien asserted that “those who attend Mass regularly would never prefer Mass in a language other than their own.”
Those who prefer either an old or new rite Latin Mass “constitute a tiny minority of the Roman Catholic Church,” McBrien maintained.
He conceded, however, the tiny minority’s “right to speak their minds about the matter or to take advantage of the concessions which the Vatican has offered them.”
McBrien observed that Catholics under 45 to 50 years old cannot have had any real experience of the Latin Mass, and that “it is a mystery how one can be nostalgic for something one had never experienced.”
Indeed, said McBrien, since Pope Benedict XVI issued his motu proprio liberalizing the permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, “liturgical scholars have published articles which carefully pick apart the reasoning behind the papal document.”
Such analyses have led to “a flurry of indignant reactions from a handful of Latin-Mass advocates” -- not one of whom, “to my knowledge,” said McBrien, “has presented a credible justification for their preference.”
Turning to Wcela’s article, McBrien noted the retired auxiliary bishop’s replies to recent articles defending the Latin Mass – articles that “only underscore the weakness of the arguments that have been mounted in favor of it.”
The gist of one, published in Time magazine, was, according to McBrien, that “if the Mass were celebrated in a language that nobody understands and the priest presided with his back to the people, then [the author] wouldn't have to listen to sermons on social issues with which she disagrees.”
To this author, Wcela wrote, "The Mass itself would be a kind of mantra, a reassuring background for her personal thoughts about God and other things. Not much of a reason for a Latin Mass."
The author of an article published in the July 21 Brooklyn diocesan newspaper The Tablet says she "loves to have the priest with his back to the congregation, facing the east, the direction from which Christ will some day return."
To which Wcela offered this rebuttal-question: "Does it count for nothing that at the Mass Christ is with us then and there? When I imagine celebrating again toward the back wall, even an eastern wall, I remember how deeply moved I was the first time I was able to celebrate facing the congregation, whose faith and life I shared."
Wcela said his “experience with a few members of these splinter groups [who favor the Tridentine Mass] has convinced me that the Latin Mass is at most a rallying point, a handy focus. The real issues go much deeper, into faith, the meaning of church and God's salvific will." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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