The Tridentine Mass, also commonly known as the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), is the form of Mass in the Roman Rite celebrated according to editions of the Roman Missal derived from the missal promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570 and revised by successive popes through the 1962 edition promulgated by Pope John XXIII. It is normally celebrated in Ecclesiastical Latin.
"Tridentine" is derived from the Latin , , where the Council of Trent was held. Following a decision of the council, Pius V promulgated the 1570 Roman Missal and made its use obligatory throughout the Latin Church, except where another rite or liturgical use had been continuously observed for at least 200 years. Successive editions of the missal served as the principal liturgical books for the celebration of Mass in most of the Latin Church for approximately four centuries. Following the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI promulgated a revised Roman Missal in 1969, whose first typical edition appeared in 1970.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum permitted broader use of the 1962 Roman Missal and described it as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. A 2011 instruction concerning the implementation of Summorum Pontificum also referred to it as the ().
In 2021, Pope Francis's motu proprio Traditionis custodes restricted the use of the 1962 Roman Missal and declared the liturgical books promulgated by Paul VI and John Paul II in conformity with the Second Vatican Council to be the "unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite". A 2023 rescript concerning its implementation confirmed that certain dispensations relating to celebrations according to the 1962 Missal are reserved to the Apostolic See.
Terminology
The term "Tridentine Mass" applies to celebrations in accordance with the successive editions of the Roman Missal whose title attribute them to the Council of Trent (Missale Romanum ex decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum) and to the pope or popes who made the revision represented in the edition in question. The first of these editions is that of 1570, in which the mention of the Council of Trent is followed by a reference to Pope Pius V (Pii V Pont. Max. iussu editum).Manlio Sodi, Achille Maria Triacca, Missale Romanum, Editio Princeps (1570) (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1998) The last, that of 1962, mentions the popes only generically (Missale Romanum ex decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini restitutum Summorum Pontificum cura recognitum). Editions later than that of 1962 mention the Second Vatican Council instead of the Council of Trent, as in the 2002 edition: Missale Romanum ex decreto Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum auctoritati Pauli Pp. VI promulgatum Ioannis Pauli Pp. II cura recognitum.
Sometimes the term "Tridentine Mass" is applied restrictively to Masses in which the final 1962 edition of the Tridentine Roman Missal is used, the only edition still authorized, under certain conditions, as an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite Mass.
Some speak of this form of Mass as "the Latin Mass". This too is a restrictive use of a term whose proper sense is wider. The Second Vatican Council Mass also has its normative text, from which vernacular translations are made, in Latin, and, except at Masses scheduled by the ecclesiastical authorities to take place in the language of the people, it can everywhere be celebrated in Latin.
A few speak of the Tridentine Mass in general or of its 1962 form as the "Gregorian Rite". The term "Tridentine Rite" is also sometimes met with,Medieval Sourcebook; Pope reformulates Tridentine rite's prayer for Jews but Pope Benedict XVI declared it inappropriate to speak of the 1962 Roman Missal and that published by later popes as if they were two rites: rather, he wrote, it is a matter of "a twofold use of one and the same" Roman Rite. Hugh Somerville-Knapman, O.S.B., says that they should be separate rites, as the Mass promulgated at the Council of Trent was already the pre-existing liturgy of the Diocese of Rome and has direct continuity with the Mass practiced by the apostles, whereas the changes made in implementing the Mass of Paul VI are so great that it no longer resembles any Catholic liturgy practiced prior to the 20th century.
Other names for the edition promulgated by Pope John XXIII in 1962 (the last to bear the indication ex decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum) are the Extraordinary Form, or the usus antiquior ("more ancient usage" in Latin).
Traditionalist Catholics, whose best-known characteristic is an attachment to the Tridentine Mass, frequently refer to it as the "Traditional Mass" or the "Traditional Latin Mass". They describe as a "codifying" of the form of the Mass the preparation of Pius V's edition of the Roman Missal, of which he said that the experts to whom he had entrusted the work collated the existing text with ancient manuscripts and writings, restored it to "the original form and rite of the holy Fathers" and further emended it.
Language In most countries, the language used for celebrating the Tridentine Mass was and is Latin, which became the language of the Roman liturgy in the late 4th century. There have been some exceptions, primarily in missionary areas or for ancient churches with an established sacred-language tradition:
In Dalmatia and parts of Istria in Croatia, the liturgy was celebrated in Old Church Slavonic from the time of Cyril and Methodius, and authorization for use of this language was extended to some other Slavic regions between 1886 and 1935.
In the late 1500s, permission was granted for missionaries working in India to use Syriac for the mass.
On 27 June 1615 Pope Paul V granted permission for Mass and the Divine Office to be celebrated, and the sacraments administered, in the Chinese language according to the Roman Rite, and Lodovico Buglio, S.J., carried out the translation of the Missal, the Ritual, and a large part of the Breviary into Chinese. This faculty was never used.
Similarly, on 17 April 1624, permission was granted for the Discalced Carmelites to use Arabic at the mission in Persia, and on 30 April 1631 the Theatines were granted permission to use Georgian or Armenian at their mission in Georgia.
Permission to use Arabic was also extended to the Franciscans in the Holy Land in the nineteenth century.
Missionaries in Canada were authorized to use Mohawk and Algonquin translations of the ordinary and the proper of the Tridentine Mass at least through the middle 1800s. In 1958, permission was given for Hindi to be used at masses in India.
After the publication of the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, the 1964 Instruction on implementing the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council laid down that "normally the epistle and gospel from the Mass of the day shall be read in the vernacular". Episcopal conferences were to decide, with the consent of the Holy See, what other parts, if any, of the Mass were to be celebrated in the vernacular.
Outside the Roman Catholic Church:
The vernacular language was introduced into the celebration of the Tridentine Mass by some European Old Catholics (most Old Catholics use the Tridentine Mass, either in the vernacular or in Latin) and by Anglican Anglo-Catholics (with the introduction of the English Missal).
Some Western Rite Orthodox Christians, particularly in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America's Western Rite Vicariate, use the Tridentine Mass in the vernacular with minor alterations under the title of the "Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory". Latin Masses on days of the week other than Sunday are becoming common.
Pope Pius V's revision of the liturgy At the time of the Council of Trent, the traditions preserved in printed and manuscript missals varied considerably, and standardization was sought both within individual dioceses and throughout the Latin West. Standardization was required also in order to prevent the introduction into the liturgy of Protestant ideas in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.
Pope Pius V accordingly imposed uniformity by law in 1570 with the papal bull "Quo primum", ordering use of the Roman Missal as revised by him. He allowed only those rites that were at least 200 years old to survive the promulgation of his 1570 Missal. Several of the rites that remained in existence were progressively abandoned, though the Ambrosian rite survives in Milan, Italy and neighbouring areas, stretching even into Switzerland, and the Mozarabic rite remains in use to a limited extent in Toledo and Madrid, Spain. The Carmelite, Carthusian and Dominican religious orders kept their rites, but in the second half of the 20th century the Carmelites and Dominicans chose to adopt the Roman Rite. The rite of Braga, in northern Portugal, seems to have been practically abandoned: since 18 November 1971 that archdiocese authorizes its use only on an optional basis.
Beginning in the late 17th century, France and neighbouring areas, such as Münster, Cologne and Trier in Germany, saw a flurry of independent missals published by bishops influenced by Jansenism and Gallicanism. This ended when Abbot Guéranger and others initiated in the 19th century a campaign to return to the Roman Missal.
Pius V's revision of the liturgy had as one of its declared aims the restoration of the Roman Missal "to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers". Due to the relatively limited resources available to his scholars, this aim was in fact not realised."Just after the Council of Trent, the study 'of ancient manuscripts in the Vatican library and elsewhere', as Saint Pius V attests in the Apostolic Constitution Quo primum, helped greatly in the correction of the Roman Missal. Since then, however, other ancient sources have been discovered and published and liturgical formularies of the Eastern Church have been studied. Accordingly, many have had the desire for these doctrinal and spiritual riches not to be stored away in the dark, but to be put into use for the enlightenment of the mind of Christians and for the nurture of their spirit" (Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum ).
Three different printings of Pius V's Roman Missal, with minor variations, appeared in 1570, a folio and a quarto edition in Rome and a folio edition in Venice. A reproduction of what is considered to be the earliest, referred to therefore as the editio princeps, was produced in 1998.; publisher: Libreria Editrice Vaticana; introduction and appendix by Manlio Sodi and Achille Maria Triacca In the course of the printing of the editio princeps, some corrections were made by pasting revised texts over parts of the already printed pages.Introduction to the reproduction of the editio princeps, pages XXVI-XXX There were several printings again in the following year 1571, with various corrections of the text.Introduction to the reproduction of the editio princeps, pages XXI
Historical variations
In the apostolic constitution (papal bull) Quo primum, with which he prescribed use of his 1570 edition of the Roman Missal, Pius V decreed: "We order and enjoin that nothing must be added to Our recently published Missal, nothing omitted from it, nor anything whatsoever be changed within it." This of course did not exclude changes by a Pope, and Pope Pius V himself added to the Missal the feast of Our Lady of Victory, to celebrate the victory of Lepanto of 7 October 1571. His immediate successor, Pope Gregory XIII, changed the name of this feast to "The Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary" and Pope John XXIII changed it to "Our Lady of the Rosary".