Case for Tridentine Mass

Sunday, March 18, 2012 ,

by Zak Portelli, Swieqi

I would like to remind Marie Dean (The Sunday Times, February 26) that Malta is not like other countries that have indeed welcomed the Pope’s motu proprio on the celebration of the Tridentine Mass. Here the very mention of Latin would horrify some priests. Every Sunday at 9.15 a.m. there is Latin Mass at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta using the 1972 missal Novus ordo, celebrated on a dining room table, but when there is a pontifical Mass (Christmas, Epiphany, etc.) it is celebrated in Maltese with only the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei sung in Latin.

Am I correct in believing that the Tridentine Mass has not been celebrated at the high altar of St John’s for over 40 years? What is wrong with the Tridentine Mass? If Pope St Pius V during the dogmatic Council of Trent (1545-63) published the Tridentine Missal stating “...this missal can be used everywhere lawfully and freely without any scruple of mind now and in perpetuity”, why do we still have to constantly quarrel with priests who seem to think that the Church never existed before Vatican II?

On several occasions we haveTridentine Masses at the parish church of Ta’ l-Ibraġ, with the permission of the Archbishop; however, there is no regular Tridentine Mass.

St John’s would be a perfect place for a Tridentine Mass; let us hope that the cathedral chapter will be as generous as the Gospel asks them to be and allow the Tridentine Mass to take the place of the 9.15 a.m. Conventual Latin Mass. The Cathedral has a resident choir that is extremely capable when it comes to Latin chants; it has a high altar and many other things that befit the Tridentine Mass.

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