Letters

Latin Mass

John Gariano

Contents - Feb 2007 - Buy a copy now Editorial: The Church and globalisation - Peter Westmore Education: Australia's Catholic school systems: the case for radical surgery - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World East Timor: priests threatened with execution - Peter Westmore Fr John Speekman: Vatican orders reinstatement of wrongly removed Sale Diocese parish priest - Michael Gilchrist Priesthood: Orthodox priests in a divided Church - Fr John Trigilio The Church and the environment: address the moral pollution first - Wanda Skowronska Salesians help rebuild post-tsunami Sri Lanka - Br Michael Lynch Why we need holy days of obligation - Joanna Bogle Music: Johann Sebastian Bach and the heavenly choir - Fr Finbarr Flanagan Letters: Shared guilt - Errol Duke Letters: Lost! - Moya and Leo Morrissey Letters: Truth and love - Chris Hilder Letters: Root Cause - Marie Kennedy Letters: Safe-sex? - Jack Blair Poetry: Gender-Bender Autos - Bruce Dawe Letters: Limbo? - Lawrence R. Hurley Letters: Manipulating language - Carol V. Phillips Letters: Obedience - Matthew Buckley Letters: Latin Mass - John Gariano Letters: Religious materials - J.W. Smith Letters: Catholic dolls - Anne Cramer Books: TREASURE IN CLAY: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM: Five Reflections on the History of the Church - Sr Mariana Handley (reviewer) Books: SPIRITUAL DIRECTION: Who Is It For and What Are Its Benefits? - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: B.A. Santamaria's correspondence published by MUP Books: New Titles from AD Books Reflection: Why the Church must continue to uphold priestly celibacy - Fr Pat Stratford

Just recently I attended a Latin (Tridentine) Mass for the first time in over 30 years. It was a wonderful experience. As this form of the Mass becomes more widely available, the present vernacular version of the Novus Ordo Mass could find its drawing power under more pressure.

Meanwhile, as regards the Novus Ordo, I suggest that there be no comment by the priest outside the rubrics, no ad-libbing, no added exhortations, no reading of notices, no comments on the weather. And no lay commentaries on the readings either. Let the priest do all the readings.

Let's leave out the hymns. We are not a musical people, so why pretend? The Sign of Peace should go as well and Communion should be given out by the priest alone. And why not let the altar boy say the responses?

JOHN GARIANO
Nedlands, WA

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 20 No 1 (February 2007), p. 16