Alison Girone
CV NEWS FEED// A Scottish composer has created an online petition to stop worldwide bans of the Latin Mass just 10 days after he penned a letter to the Vatican.
The Times published Sir James MacMillan’s first letter asking the Vatican to stop restricting the Latin mass on July 2. Almost 50 artists, musicians, nobilities, and billionaires signed the letter, including many non-Catholics and some non-believers.
The letter was a response to rumors of a Vatican document banning all diocesan celebrations of the Latin Mass. On the same day the letter was published, a French Catholic magazine reported that no such document existed.
Emphasizing the cultural importance of the Tridentine mass, the original letter states:
The traditional liturgy is a ‘cathedral’ of text and gesture, developing as those venerable buildings did over many centuries. Not everyone appreciates its value and that is fine; but to destroy it seems an unnecessary and insensitive act in a world where history can all too easily slip away forgotten.
Like the letter, MacMillan says, the petition is “entirely ecumenical and non-political.” MacMillan urges people to sign “as a gesture of support for those Catholics who have found spiritual solace in the old Latin Mass,” adding that this is especially important to support these Catholics “at a time when religious minorities around the globe are facing harassment.”
MacMillan also asks signatories to keep any supportive messages respectful, “as this petition does in any way not challenge the authority of Pope Francis and attacks on him would damage our cause.”
