LIBERA ME, Domine, Iesu Christe, ab omnibus iniquitatis meis et universis malis,
fac me tuis semper inhærere mandatis et a te numquam separari permittas. Amen.


Wednesday, 13 October 2010

Oh Lord . . !

An Anglican friend of mine directed my attention to Damian Thompson’s recent blog post about Bishop Kieran Conry (of Arundel & Brighton) who has apparently lamented – indeed condemned – the decision to have both the Kyries and the Gloria in their proper tongues at the Papal Mass in Westminster Cathedral.

I know little or nothing about the Bishop : and I have to accept that he has been raised to the Episcopacy, and so must be presumed to be superior to me in every aspect of the Faith . . . but I have to say that I find it not so much tragic as alarming that a Bishop apparently finds it odious that a Papal Mass is actually, unmistakeably, and unarguably a Mass, and not merely something which could well be confused with a Protestant Communion Service.

Is this just me, or is it the Bishop who is in a minority in this ?
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6 comments:

  1. Patricius14 October 2010 at 00:40

    "...he has been raised to the Episcopacy..."-
    so was Cranmer.

    The Papal Mass at Westminster was sublime- and I only watched it on television. I seem to recall seeing Pope Benedict shaking the hands of all the choristers afterwards.

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  2. Auricularis14 October 2010 at 01:03

    I have to accept that he has been raised to the Episcopacy, and so must be presumed to be superior to me in every aspect of the Faith . . .

    Just because someone is raised to the episcopacy doesn't mean that are superior to us in every aspect of the faith or indeed hold the faith in its entirety. I would have thought 2000 years of church history has proven that.

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  3. Doodler14 October 2010 at 06:55

    I presume the words of Jesus at the Last Supper were in Aramaic. Why should we have to have them in Latin ( or English?) Does God have a "proper tongue"?

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  4. leutgeb14 October 2010 at 07:04

    It'a all Greek to me.

    Of course the acoustics in Westminster Cathedral are atrocious for anything other than chant and polyphony. Wordy Protestant music is rendered an echoey mush, so best do what it was built for.

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  5. Anonymous14 October 2010 at 07:35

    YOU are not in a minority.

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  6. Richard Collins14 October 2010 at 13:25

    Doodler, Aramaic was never likely to be a universal language, whereas, Latin was (within the context at the time). Hence it was adopted in the 4th century.
    We Catholics like Latin for several reasons; it gives us a link back to the traditions of the early Church, it is beautiful within the framework of the Extraordinary Form of Mass and it provides us with a recognisable form wherever we are in the world.
    It is the closest we can come on earth to "God's proper tongue"

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