No servant can serve two masters:
Cardinal Lehmann is in Brussels tomorrow. The theme of his talk: Social Europe. It would be nice to think that a Catholic Europe would be on his agenda.
And here is the reason why Cardinal Lehmann is such an enemy of the Latin Mass? His left-hand man is the Devil (out in public together at the Carnival two years ago) (Hence the name sinister from Latin for left, as the left was always associated with evil things, even before Communism was invented!)
Cardinal Lehmann's official reason for the opposition to the Latin Mass is that it would cause liturgical chaos. So to help the Cardinal here are the number of different Masses, approximately that are possible in the new Rite, taken from a commentator on the ever-excellent kreuz.net.
Apart from variations in language, priestly dress, wine, and hosts used
OPENING
2 Introits
3 Greetings
3 Confessions
2-variable Kyries
READINGS
2 readings
3 credo (Symbolum or Nicene, last with I or We)
PREPARATION OF THE GIFTS
4 Praises…(loud- soft with or without acclamation)
2 Suscipiats
10-Prefaces
4-10 Canon
2 doxologies (Priest alone or with the people)
COMMUNION
3-variable Prayers prior to the Our Father
2 Libera (with or without)
2 Lord we pray thee (Priest with or without the people)
2 Silent prayer (missing occasionally)
2 Communion (with or without Communion helpers
DISMISSAL
2 Blessings
2 times 10 times 3 times 4 times 4 times 2 =
1024 timesl 81 times 16 = 1327104 Variations
One million three hundred and twenty seven thousand one hundred and four variations
New Rite
(click to see the Collect at Mass YODLED)
There is only one Old Rite.
Rite
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Comments
1. Only three prayers prior to the Our Father? We can go into infinity there, as we can . . .
2. . . .with the number of possible intros to the three confessions. And come on, in that third confession, the priest can and often does say virtually anything (e.g. "Lord Jesus, you inspired Rembert Weakland, Richard Rohr and Joan Chittester to consecrate their lives to you, Lord have mercy . . .").
3. Our contemporary "sacred" composers have crafted numerous versions of the Agnus Dei ("Jesus, Bread of Life . . ." or "Hope of the Oppressed . . .," etc.), while our priests ad lib endless variations on the Ecce, Agnus Dei.
4. And on Sundays, I can think of at least four possible places to insert announcements: before Mass, during the collection, before the post-communion prayer and after the post-communion prayer.
Well, I could obviously go on and on. To paraphrase the gospel according to St. John (or as I've heard it said, "according to the tradition of St. John"), "were every one of the liberties taken with the Roman Missal to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain all the books that would be written." (Jn 21:25)