Recently this Blog was informed that the Tridentine Mass has stopped being celebrated in Birkirkara. For the foreseeable future it has been transferred to the Jesuits’ Church in Valletta. While, on paper, this is a welcome development - Valletta being more central - the good news might be short-term only. A regular attendee confirmed that this is also due to the fact of the COVID-19 virus, Birkirkara's church being small for the current ASPM congregation.
It is our sincere wish that more priests (there are already some who wish to) will be allowed to celebrate the Tridentine Mass on a regular basis. Otherwise, the traditional Catholics would be considered as a small part of today's Church. Also, the less Tridentine Masses by different priests are held, the more people would think that traditional Catholics:
- reject the idea of contents a priori prevailing over form. In the case of religious rituals, form and contents do not just form two separable, autonomous entities, but connect with each other through complex relationships, including theological, psychological, phenomenal, aesthetic and historic dimensions.
- These aspects, in their turn, play a role in the perception of these rituals by the faithful and in their spiritual lives. Considering the fact that Church rituals from their very beginning were intertwined with doctrinal truth, changing these rituals may have a tremendous effect on religious conscience and a severe impact on the faithful.
- Some consider any pre-Vatican II practice as exclusively theirs, denying that the Catholic Church has any claims upon a history before Saint Pope Paul VI.
