More Latin to be used at Mass in Vatican clampdown 

By Kieron Wood 

The celebration of a Tridentine-rite Mass by a senior Vatican cardinal in Rome yesterday looks set to mark the start of a clampdown on worldwide liturgical abuses and a return to the use of Latin in the Mass. 
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, celebrated Mass in the basilica of St Mary Major using the traditional Latin liturgy, which was the norm in the wester n Church before the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. He is the first prelate to use the old rite in Rome for more than 30 years. 
According to the magazine Inside the Vatican, Rome is also planning to issue a major disciplinary document, ending liturgical experimentation. The document ^ already in draft form ^ is expected to encourage wider use of the Tridentine Mass, possibly on a weekly basis, in every parish. 

Fr Paddy Jones, director of theNationalCentrefor Liturgy at Maynooth, said the new document was signalled in the Pope's recent encyclical on the Eucharist. 
Jones,who has just returned from a US liturgical conference inWashington, said he expected the Congregation for Divine Worship to publish the document before the end of the year. 
The head of the Congregation, Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, told Inside the Vatican: ``We want to respond to the spiritual hunger and sorrow so many of the faithful have expressed to us because of liturgical celebrations that seemed irreverent and unworthy of true adoration of God. 
``You might sum up our document with words that echo the final words of the Mass: `The do-it-yourself Mass is ended. Go in peace'.'' 
Also last week, Pope John Paul set up a newVatican commission to restore Latin to its ``proper place'' in the Roman Church. Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, the prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, will head the commission. Grocholewski is said to be more fluent in Latin than in his native Polish. 

As long ago as 1988, Pope John Paul addressed the concerns of Catholics by issuing a document insisting that ``respect must be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application'' of Vatican directives allowing the use of the old Latin rite. 
Despite the Pope's expressed wish, most bishops throughout the world have refused to allow regular use of the old rite. 
In Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell has allowed only one regular Sunday Mass, at 11am in St Audoen's church near Christchurch Cathedral. Daily Mass is not permitted. Other Irish bishops have flatly refused to allow any celebration of the old rite, despite repeated requests. 

The Pope's 1988 statement followed the excommunication of the former head of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for illicitly ordaining four bishops without Rome's permission. The bishops were also excommunicated. 
Pope John Paul is known to be anxious to reconcile the followers of Lefebvre with the Church before his death. Last year,he approved a settlement with traditionalist Catholic Bishop Fernando Rifan in Brazil. 
Last month, the Irish superior of Lefebvre's Society of St Pius X, Fr Louis-Paul Dubroeucq, told The Sunday Business Post: ``Any reconciliation depends on Rome granting liberty for all priests in the world to celebrate the Tridentine Mass if they wish to do so.'' 

The chairman of the Latin Mass Society of Ireland, 34-year-old civil servant Peadar Laighleis,welcomed the developments in Rome. 
``Cardinal Hoyos' Mass and the ending of the ban on traditional rite Masses in Rome's major basilicas are a major step towards the acceptance of traditionalism worldwide,'' he said. 
``This is a concrete gesture in the Pope's own diocese, which reinforces what the Holy Father called for in the 1984 indult and in his 1988 letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta. 
``Rome is acknowledging the rapid growth of the traditional movement on every continent. Even here in Ireland, we are expanding, with regular Masses in several dioceses, and more planned. As the rest of the Church reports decline in all the Catholic indicators ^ vocations, church marriages, baptisms and Mass attendance ^ we are experiencing increases. 
``In regard to vocations, for example, the traditionalists have a different sort of crisis: there isn't nearly enough space to accommodate more than a small fraction of the applicants.''
 

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