Oh, those crazy Catholics. What will they think of next? Overturning Vatican II? This world is in such a backslide.

You mean that a former member of the Hitler Youth who went on to become a reactionary and head of the department of the Holy See that used to be the fucking Inquisition is reversing the reforms of Vatican II?

I am SHOCKED to hear that one religion believes another religion to be incorrect.

I left my Catholicness behind long ago, but I'd love to go to a Latin Mass sometime, if for no other reason than the retro campiness of it all.

HOWEVER, the politics of the Latin Mass within the Catholic church means that only the hardcore freaks and really old will be there.

The old, I can deal with. But the freaky hardcore Catholic traditionalists are a huge pain in the ass (and usually converts, I might add). With them, it's all about the superstition and opportunity to hate.

Tell you what, Dan: I'll go to a Latin Mass with you if you get us some matching mantillas. But you have to promise not to give me a "rosary job" ;-)

They should persecute muslims more. That's much more socially acceptable.

Dan.. where are the pages upon pages of daily news blogging? One story/day doesn't cut it!

you know Its hard out there for a taig!

Oremus et pro perfidis Judæis: ut Deus et Dominus noster auferat velamen de cordibus eorum; ut et ipsi agnoscant Jesum Christum, Dominum nostrum.

(Let us pray also for the perfidious jews, that our god and our lord would lift the veil from their hearts, and that they might recognized Jesus Christ, our Lord.)

Apparently they will eliminate the *perfidious* bit, and it's only said once a year - on Good Friday, right before the traditional running of the jews, as featured on Borat.

Dan sticks his head above water on a Saturday evening, just to let us all know that he is still a bigot.

Man, it must get tiresome figuring out how not to live your own life.

It's not bigoted to make fun of someone's unfounded supernatural beliefs. It's kind of like saying astrology is goofy. The only difference is that Christians tend to get a little more defensive about their unfounded supernatural belief system than the astrologists do.

@9 Almost as tiresome as being a ceaseless nag.

Sicut erat in proncipio, et nunc, et semper: et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Rough translation: old habits die hard. (Habits. Ha! I swear I didn't mean that pun. No, really.)

Amen.

Pope Benedict, stop! If you go back to a Latin mass, you might further marginalize your obsolete religion through sheer incomprehensibility and thus turn off generations of potential...ah...hmm...

In the Hitler Youth, yes, and also a soldier in the Nazi army! He was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps when he was 16.

Tallulah Bankhead to Cardinal Spellman entering the cathedral for mass swinging incense. "Dahling, I love your gown, but your handbag is on fire!"

Hey, Pope! The Jews are already God's children and are completely accepted by God. It is YOU and anyone else who cares to be accepted by God who must convert to the belief and acceptance of Jesus the Christ as their Lord and Saviour to be allowed in God's Kingdom. READ THE BIBLE BRAINIAC!!!

But the mass will be said entirely in latin, so it's not like any of the parishioners will catch it anyway. Though, I hope the churches who decide to do the Latin Tridentine will leave out that 'save the jews' bit.

I've been to a latin mass. There's a lot less to do when you don't know what's being said (because there are rules in place that a modern mass must be done entirely in the modern way, and a latin mass must be done entirely in the old way).

Plus, I had to kneel and let the priest place the wafer in my mouth, which was *awkward*.

Go for it. The more people that get turned off from religion the better. Now maybe if the media could stop reporting every stupid and nonsensical thing a bunch of sexually repressed men in goofy hats say and do we could really get somewhere.

Religion is not special, nor is it an innate trait. We don't mock people for things they can't change. Thats rude. However belief systems make claims that can be tested and argue for positions that can be opposed. Claiming bigotry to protect stupidity is not a good thing.

Mocking silly ideas helps to take away the power of those ideas. Some religious folks think their ideas are "sacred", however the rest of us are under no obligation to recognize even the notion of "sacredness".

I like #10s comparing of Catholic beliefs with astrology. It is a totally legitimate anology.

Atsrologist: "My palnets line up better than yours!"

Catholic: "Oh yeah, I eat my saviour once a week"

You morons really have no freaking clue.

To which most educated people would respond, "who cares"? Most of the world's religions have a strictly liturgical language. Until the Zionist movement began, nobody spoke Hebrew outside synagogues and Rabbinical schools. The Russian and Serbian Orthodox churches still conduct services in Old Church Slavonic, for that matter - a language nobody at all speaks conversationally. And then there are the Zoroastrians, Jains ... this list could go on for a while, but you get the drift, right? Bugged by the part about calling for Jews to convert? Duh. They call on the entire world to convert. They're the Roman Catholic Church - that's part of their schtick.

I'm not a Catholic, so I don't really care if they have a Latin mass again or not, but this sort of shrieking is pretty typical of The Stranger's puerile coverage of anything to do with religion.

"You morons really have no freaking clue."

ecce sticks his head above water on a Sunday morning, just to let us all know that he is still a bigot.

Man, it must get tiresome figuring out how not to live your own life.

Oh wait, I forgot only religion is special you can mock other things without being a bigot right?

@21 I agree with you, in that I can go to an Orthodox shul anywhere in the world and follow the service perfectly. I actually think a return to the Tridentine mass, minus hating on us Jews, would likely stem the hemmorhaging tide of Catholics who are becoming Episcopalians (all of the glitz, none of the guilt!) My beef is with the reversal on the ban on praying for us perfidous Jews. It makes me so mad that I called my elders and told them to raise the price of zinc.

Ecce Homo: Maybe you should examine your bigotry against morons. You seem to have trouble respecting their belief systems.

Jewsd, Christians, you're People of theBook, so you're kinda okay !
Better than those Greeks, pagans and Wiccans. Pffof, what heathens.

But really now -- there is no God but Allah!!!!!!
Tolerant of your ignorant backwardness,

My husband was raised a Catholic, still studies Latin sometimes and was a fan of the Latin mass. He said he'd like to go to one.

I somehow think he forgot that particular prayer as Jim has always been very eccumenical in his friends (I'm an ex-Protestant, our best man was Jewish, et.c.).

There is still an anti-Semitic streak among some Catholics, just the way there are anti-gay, anti-Mormon, and anti-women streaks. However, there isn't a spot in the mass where they say a specifically anti-gay, anti-Mormon or anti-women prayer (though one can argue that the absence of women conducting the mass speaks for itself about the Catholic place of women).

Every religion has its biases. Male orthodox jews thank god every day in prayer that they weren't born women. The Episcopalean Book of Common Prayer has some snarky things about the Catholics in it. Until the 1920's the Mormons had a pledge to work for the destruction of the United States as part of their endowment ceremony.

It's all Spacely Sprockets versus Cogswell Cogs as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/world/08POPE.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Read the article, people. The only thing that has changed is that priests who want to use the Latin Mass no longer have to ask the bishop's permission to do so. This is a WEAKENING OF THE CHURCH HIERARCHY! How is that a rollback of Vatican 2? How is that regressive? It's not like Benedict has made it standard again.

I never said it rolled back Vatican II.

I'm pretty sure Mel Gibson hates the Pope.

Anyone else notice how much good ol' Joey looks like Emperor Palpatine?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/bloodylamer/bastardly-photos/0505/2005-image-uploads/bodydoublepope051305.jpg

I'll go to Latin Mass if they play the Imperial March on a pipe organ.

"Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the DARK SIDE!"

It's interesting that the people who rant the most seems to have the least clue! Before you criticize something, perhaps you should ask some conservative Catholics and perhaps theologists about things that seem so absurd to you. And yes the Pope was DRAFTED in the Hitlerjugend as a youth at the END of the WWII. If he hadn't he wouldn't have lived very long. Try to relate, if you were drafted in the US in during WWII, Korea and Vietnam, and a big fascist dictatorship had ruled the country, you'd also be saluting whatever freakshow! And gosh, can everyone stop being such a bigot about everything already, if Catholics want to do the Latin Mass, then let them do it already! It's a fucking free country!

Well of course Catholics reserve the right to be stupid and backwards. That's the right of all religions in the United States.

It's a bit amusing to still see Benedict XVI castigated as a bloodthirsty Nazi. The Pope has been pretty straightforward about being drafted in World War II. Indeed, nearly every able bodied man of his age (or even younger near the front) was drafted. Compare and contrast with the self-appointed "conscience" of Germany, Günter Grass. Neither man could be blamed for being drafted as teenagers into the Nazi war machine, but the Pope has never sought to hide his participation. It would take an enormous leap of logic to equate him with Himmler on account of this, however.

Secondly, the thirst for the Latin mass is related to the sense of pageantry of the Roman Catholic Church. The non-Latin mass satisfies a thirst for egalitarianism, but the Latin mass satisfies the need for mystery and spectacle. Have you ever seen the Cathedrals of Chartres or Auxerre? The same principle applies to the architecture and design. Ever study a religious painting by Titian or Raphael? Same thing. The Church listened to parishioners who wanted this sort of thing back.

"Before you criticize something, perhaps you should ask some conservative Catholics and perhaps theologists about things that seem so absurd to you."

I'm pretty sure they'd lose me at the point wine and crackers become the skin and blood of their bastard(unmarried parents) zombie god and they ask me to eat it. I've sen enough late night movies to know what happens when one eats the flesh and blood of a zombie.

Slog comments are my favorite. It's like one big pointless pissing contest to see who's the most "superior" and "above it all."

...

I WIN.

@12 principio

classics majors secretly giddy

This Jew would love to be delivered from his darkness. If the Pope is busy, perhaps a Catholic schoolgirl could help?

@32 and @34, my post about the pope being a Nazi was entirely factual and without castigation, I used the word "drafted" before you did and no one said "bloodthirsty." I just think it's interesting that people mention Hitler Youth and no one seems to know he was actually in the anti-aircraft corps. Yes, history records him as "unwilling." OK. It's still a surprising thing to see on the resume of a spiritual leader.

eh ... honestly who the hell cares. I was raised catholic. I thought and still think some of the traditions are cool in the medieval gothic sense of it all. But the politcs are brutal. Latin mass is cool in that retro sense ... but ...

To be perfectly honest, I have less issue with religion and more issue with the religious taking their piousness and misery and distributing it to everyone else.

But that is their own damn fault!

This is a press release from Tuesday 11 July 2007. Seems that the recurrence of the Latin Mass isn't the only out-dated doctrine that the church is dusting off for a new Pontiff.
http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/20586.php?index=20586&po_date=10.07.2007&lang=en