Fr. Peter Carota was a late vocation, having had a successful real estate practice before being ordained in 1997. For the last several years he has been celebrating the Latin Mass (that is, the Extraordinary Form). He was a successful pastor at a parish in the Diocese of Stockton (California). Among other things, he turned around his parishs finances and left the parish with a large bank balance. Then he decided to take a sabbatical. With the permission of his bishop hes been off on his own for a year-and-a-half or so. At the time of this change of status, he said he was interested in developing a ministry that would offer the Extraordinary Form daily on television. In the meantime, hes been writing a blog called Traditional Catholic Priest. A recent article there is titled People Should Not Say the Altar Boy’s Part at Low Latin Mass. In low Masses--as distinguished from high or solemn Masses in which the choir sings portions of the Mass--the congregation makes certain responses along with the altar boys. (There are other parts, such as the prayers at the foot of the altar, where only the altar boys made audible responses.) Carota doesnt like this arrangement, which is known as the dialogue Mass. It is an arrangement that came into use a bit before Vatican II. People certainly are free to say whether the (relatively) new arrangement is preferable or not to the preceding arrangement. Carota provides his opinion, but I dont think he does so in a polite or judicious way. For example, he writes, Ask any priest who really loves God and does not want to be a show off which Holy Mass is better, dialogue or silent Mass. Such a priest will prefer the Mass in which the congregation doesnt join in the responses, says Carota. First, I rather doubt that is so. I suspect a good proportion of priests who celebrate the Extraordinary Form feel that the dialogue Mass is just fine, but thats a matter for empirical investigation. What bothers me here is that Carota writes in terms of any priest who really loves God and does not want to be a show off, which implies that priests who like the dialogue Mass either dont really love God or like to be show offs. This is an ungenerous phrasing on Carotas part. Unfortunately, its not unique in his article. He also has a slight against the congregation: Everyone who comes from the Novus Ordo active show Mass loves being able to respond and be heard by everyone. Humans love to be the center of the show, including the Holy Mass. They enjoy being able to respond and being noticed. He also says, The dialogue Mass is jarring with all the people shouting out the Latin responses. People shouting out the responses? I havent found that to be the case at all. In my experience, responses are said loud enough to be heard by neighbors in the pews but not by anyone seated across the church, and that seems about right. If Carota wants to attract people to his thinking, he would do better than not calling into question the probity and intentions of the priests and people who celebrate and attend low Masses.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 18:23:42 +0000
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