The Latin Mass “is simply a non-issue to the 99 percent of us out here in the pews”

… It is not Latin but "the Word made flesh that we celebrate"

To listen to the conservative commentators on the Catholic network EWTN or to read some of the stories in the conservative Catholic papers and online, many would believe that the Catholic Church is in the midst of a full-fledge schism because of Pope Francis. 

Hardly.

The pontiff basically outlawed the old Latin Mass that the church had followed prior to Vatican II in the 1960s, and that has a small, vocal minority outraged about it. 

A correspondent for America Magazine writes in an op-ed that most people who attend mass could care less about the Latin Mass. 

And he is right. 

Here is his argument

Clarke is a senior writer for America, and he is young enough to have never really experienced the Latin Mass. That, for him, is a positive experience,

Recent edicts and explanations of edicts out of Rome have ignited a familiarly unpleasant conflict in the U.S. church. And yet, though this will infuriate a vocal minority of my fellow Catholics, I just don’t get the brouhaha over the traditional Latin Mass.

I do not miss the traditional Latin Mass, and I do not know anyone who does or who will likely miss it in the future. I have never been to a Latin Mass, except as an infant and toddler, so I cannot feel nostalgic for it. 

In fact, whole generations of Catholics around the world have come of age and remain faithful to the church without ever having attended a Latin Mass.

I suspect that almost no one in my parish or any parish I have ever belonged to, beyond their most senior members, has been to one

Kevin Clarke, “I just don’t get the controversy over the traditional Latin Mass,” America, December 21, 2021

Some of us who are a little older do remember the Latin Mass, and most do not want to see a return to it. I remember it as an altar boy, choir boy, and an organist. How I loved the change to the vernacular, to having the priest face the congregation, to having priest distribute communion — and on an on it went.

Few are really complaining

As Clarke laments, outside of the media bubble and in the churches, few people are complaining,

In fact, outside of a handful of influential newspaper, magazine and web columnists, and a small group of self-described “trad” Catholics, I don’t personally know anyone who is upset about the pope’s recent decision to rein in what had been an experimental reopening to the Tridentine rite. 

I suspect a lot of Catholics don’t even know that the Latin Mass tentatively returned under St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in the first place.

In fact, outside of a handful of influential newspaper, magazine and web columnists, and a small group of self-described “trad” Catholics, I don’t personally know anyone who is upset about the pope’s recent decision to rein in what had been an experimental reopening to the Tridentine rite. I suspect a lot of Catholics don’t even know that the Latin Mass tentatively returned under St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in the first place.

Kevin Clarke, America, December 21, 2021

Latin does not propel the people: Jesus does

As Clarke concludes, he hates having the beautiful English mass derogated by a small minority who say that it is “traditional,” when in reality, it has been for only about 20 percent of the 2,000-year history,

Some insist that Latin is the “language of the church.” It was for four centuries. But time has moved on and the church with it. Aramaic may have a better claim on that designation anyhow. It is not lace, incense and Latin that propels the church. It is the Word made flesh that we celebrate.

Kevin Clarke, America, December 21, 2021

And all that I can say about that is “Amen.”