Robert B. Greving teaches Latin and English grammar at The Heights School in Potomac, Maryland. Mr. Greving served five years in the U.S. Army J.A.G. Corps following his graduation from the Dickinson School of Law.
In a recent article for Crisis, Father Dwight Longenecker voiced his frustration with trying to unify his parish in the midst of what seems like national disintegration. He is right to be concerned, because as the Church goes, so goes the nation (and the world). The odd thing is that the Church had, in her liturgy, a strong and unifying force some 60 years ago. Yet as the Church’s liturgy has splintered—licitly and illicitly—over the last 60 years, so have the people of the Church. I would suggest, as a means of unifying parishes and Churches, the promotion of the Traditional Latin Mass.
Putting aside, if possible, the strict theology between the Traditional Latin Mass and the Ordinary Form (the form currently in widespread usage throughout the Church and which is said in the vernacular language), the change in the form of the Mass has divided us in three ways: by language, by interest, and by “personality.” The Mass in the vernacular automatically splinters a parish into linguistic groups. I am not blaming any group for this; if those whose native language is “A” can have Mass in their language, it is natural—and indeed just—that those whose native language is “B” should have Mass in their own language. And there is the problem; their own Mass. We have sanctioned, perhaps promoted, division. …
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