"We Want Our Mass in Latin!" "Hands Off Latin Mass!"
These are some of the legendary slogans on signs brandished by Catholics at a crowded outdoor Roman Catholic Mass said in the traditional liturgy that was the norm before the Second Vatican Council of the 1960's — in Latin, with the priest facing east and with his back to his flock.
But it is now decades after "Vatican II," and the Catholic hierarchy considers the traditionalists a threat to their church and one that must be dealt with.
This seems to be right out of news reports over the last two weeks, when cardinals of the Catholic Church in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other population centers imposed Pope Francis' controversial crackdown on the celebration of their Mass in the manner for 500 years prior to 1970.
But it isn't. The outdoor Mass and the placards carried by parishioners are the opening scenes of a 1973 made-for-TV movie entitled, appropriately, "The Catholics." Initially a play by the late Irish author Brian Moore, "Catholics" told of a world in the near-future (that is, the late 20th century) in which Roman Catholicism has moved toward outreach with other churches and long banned the traditional Mass.
Almost eerily, life today is imitating art. The latest developments in Roman Catholicism mirror what Moore's powerful drama envisioned a half-century ago: a church intent on imposing a universal order different from that before its historic Vatican council, a small-but-intense group drawing worldwide attention by defiantly worshipping in the earlier form, and the brass-knuckled response by the church hierarchy.
That the cast is powerful — Martin Sheen, and the late Trevor Howard and Raf Vallone — is part of the reason that "Catholics" remains a captivating drama today.
It is the late 20th century, decades after Vatican II. In fact, there has been a "Vatican IV," and Catholicism has long abandoned the Latin Mass. Private confessions with priests are no longer permitted, replaced by "group confessions" in which worshippers confess together.
Some, however, long for the "old Mass" and traditional Catholicism. In Ireland, an order of monks on a remote island defy their church's hierarchy to say Mass in Latin on the mainland. Charter flights from throughout the world ("twenty flights from Europe alone") bring tradition-starved Catholics to Ireland, and television cameras from the media make their celebration international news.
"Enough recruits for a regiment!" beams Father Tom O'Malley (Howard), abbott of the island-based order of monks promulgating the Latin Mass.
"A wild-eyed holy man" is how the abbott-general of the order (Vallone) characterizes O'Malley, adding that "he belongs to the church we left behind." From the Vatican, he dispatches Father James Kinsella (Sheen), to deal with O'Malley and gives the young and very modern priest (he never wears a cassock) total authority to issue a "final edict" on the insurgency.
Father Kinsella needs a helicopter to get to the island, where monks fishing and farming marvel that this is the first time "one of those flying machines" has actually landed on their turf. There, over meals and prayer sessions, the Vatican's envoy engages in liturgical duel with the canny O'Malley and his men.
In a "sneak preview" of Pope Francis's vision of today's church, Father Kinsella notes that Catholicism is committed to "social justice" for improving the lives of the downtrodden throughout the world. Recalling that "the early Christians were revolutionaries," he calls the modern church "a powerful instrument of change."
"And if I wanted to be a revolutionary," snaps one of the monks, "I would have joined the IRA [Irish Republican Army]!"
Another monk explains that people flock to Latin Masses because the priest "is not just talking to your neighbor but to God." He also voices the distaste of worshippers for "singing and touching your neighbor [the contemporary greeting among the people in pews known as "the sign of peace]."
Abbott O'Malley explains that under the new Mass, "people stopped coming" to church. Husbands would drop off their wives at church, he notes, "and they'd be outside smoking." Hence, the need for something that would bring back the faithful.
The conclusion of "Catholics" is an unhappy ending for traditionalists. After contemplating becoming "the first martyr in this counter-revolution," Abbott O'Malley acquiesces to Father Kinsella's order and tells his tearful band of monks that discipline and order must be maintained in the church.
"Henceforth," he announces, "the Mass will be said in English and priests will face the congregation."
As to whether this is how the current opposition to Pope Francis's order on the celebration of Mass will finally end remains to be seen. But in accepting the discipline of his superiors, O'Malley voices a sentiment that surely resonates with those who worship in a way the church formally did worldwide and now find themselves treated as insurgents: "Yesterday's orthodoxy is today's heresy."
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