Finally woke up from that T-giving nap!

To all 10 of you that read me, sorry for the hiatus, especially in light of the most recent news. Even grumpy Catholic bloggers have to travel around the holidays!

Surprisingly enough, there was even some Catholic news in my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee's local newspaper, the News Sentinel--nope, not the big "no gay priests" story (more on that later), but two whole articles on the Mass: One on the growth of the Catholic Hispanic population, the other on the Latin Mass now being offered in two area parishes. Please remember this is East Tennessee; there are only about 40,000 Catholics in the whole eastern third of the state.

Now I must admit that at one time I was more rabid about opposing the Latin Mass (I think the Spanish one is just peachy, since it is a living language that baptized people actually speak). I still wonder what the whole let's-go-back-to-Latin thing all about. Nostalgia? Is God somehow nearer when prayer is incomprehensible (and let's be honest, there are probably as many pronunciations of ecclesiastical Latin as there are priests who celebrate Latin Mass).

But now my question is this: The most recent moves in the vernacular liturgy have been to basically force everyone to do the exact same thing. Why do the Latin Mass folks get a pass on that? As far as I'm concerned, they can celebrate the Latin Mass, as long as they'll allow those of us who want to continue the liturgical reforms of Vatican II get to keep going on that path.

But that doesn't seem like it's going to be permitted. Hmmm... wonder why...