What's Latin for "wank"?
I guess you could say that this is from the Jesus fandom. One of the two recent pieces of news out of the Vatican that pissed off most of the planet was that individual priests will be free to celebrate the Tridentine Mass whenever they damn well please. The Tridentine Mass is the Latin service used worldwide by all Catholics from the 16th century until about 1970. The structure of the service itself is different, not just what language it's celebrated in.

(Full disclosure: Yes, I am one of those whackjobs who attends this kind of Mass.)

Well, this has caused such global waves of wank in the press and on the Internets that the entire planet is red and sore by now. I have many examples, but my favorite so far has got to be this innocent-looking article from Indianapolis. All would have been well...if this paper didn't have forums attached to every article.

"A dead language for a dead god. How appropriate," one commenter said oh-so-cleverly. And...they're off! Catholics aren't Christians! Protestants don't understand history! Anyone who believes in God is a fucking moron! Pedophile priests! FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER!!!!11

I'd pick out highlights, but really...there's too much here.

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mael
2007-07-19 11:53 am UTC (link)

My mother, who barely got through third grade before her father sent her to work in a silk factory, understands the Latin mass perfectly. She, in fact, will still quote Latin at me occasionally.

As indoctrination for the masses, it works perfectly. People feel like they're part of a speshul club. Even now that Sunday mass is Latin lite (some of the prayers are still in Latin, or were, when I was still practicing), the older members of the congregation bemoan the loss of the beautiful Latin high mass.

So the Pope is pandering to his home base, which is a ridiculous, ridiculous move, and is clearly making John Paul II do the hula in his grave.

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	snarkivist 2007-07-19 01:57 pm UTC (link)
	Um. Actually, John Paul II gave permission in 1988 for people to celebrate the Latin Mass if their bishop is cool with it. This recent change by Benedict is because some bishops were being dicks and not letting people do it. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

mael
2007-07-19 03:35 pm UTC (link)

Fair enough. I hear the news filtered through my extremely religious Italian family, and they seem to be siding with the "Benedict is less progressive/open/forward thinking" than JPII was. Some of my relatives are happy with that, some of them are not, and frankly I'm just glad I'm not living in Italy any longer, considering the surge of political influence the Vatican is trying to overpower the Italian government with; issues of same sex marriage and reproductive choices in primis.

Of course, from over here in bonny Massachusetts the whole howling controversy seems backwards and remote, but I do notice a distinct and marked difference in tone between this papacy and the last. Which is why I believe JPII to be entirely unhappy with the new and improved roll back to a pre-Vatican II standard of preaching.

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