Reply #67: here is a good article...

[bleedingheart]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/ritesrituals/tridentinemass_1.shtml

"Tridentine Mass
The Tridentine Mass is the old form of Mass that was authorised for use throughout the Roman Catholic Church from 1570 until it was replaced following the second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

The Tridentine Mass is also known as the 'Old Mass according to the 1962 Missal', and sometimes inaccurately called 'The Latin Mass'.


Catholic altar

In a Tridentine Mass:

everything is in Latin,
the priest conducts the liturgy facing East, leading the community who are behind him
everything happens strictly and precisely according to the rubrics (instructions)
the congregation follows the Mass in private prayer and doesn't play an active part
Before the 1960s the Tridentine Mass was never called by that name - it was simply 'The Mass'; because there was no other sort of Mass.

"

"
Why people like the Tridentine Mass:

It's a theatrical and poetic experience of great spiritual power
It has more of a sense of the mystery and the sacred
It's more clearly sacrificial than the modern Mass
It's part of a tradition of worship that's centuries old
It's always the same - there's no freedom for personal variations
The language has a brevity and power that vernacular versions don't achieve
Modern texts are often banal
Because it was the same in every country, it produced a sense of community with other Catholics worldwide
Because it's what they grew up with
Because they don't like change
Some people also feel that the modern mass downgrades the status of the priest unacceptably, and weakens the theological content of the service in order to make it more readily understood.
"

"The most obvious difference between the old Mass and the new Mass was that it promoted the use of the language of the place where the mass was being celebrated (vernacular language) rather than Latin. (Many people think that Vatican II banned the use of Latin; it didn't do that at all.)"