Vatican II: Changes in Mass

[soc_puppet]

See what I did there, ohohoho.

DISCLAIMER: While I was raised Irish-Catholic, I lapsed a good five or so years ago, and my dad, from whom I got pretty much all of my information on pre-Vatican II services, was still a kid when the changes went down. My information is incomplete at best, and quite likely riddled with errors. If you know I got something wrong, or just have more specific information on anything, please correct me!

Here is the Wikipedia link for Vatican II, for more of the policy information and historical stuff.


Vernacular: The change that most people are aware of is the change from holding mass in Latin to holding it in the vernacular (the most common language(s) in the area). However, even before Vatican II, portions of the mass were in the local language(s): definitely the homily, and possibly also the readings. Everything else, though, was in Latin. I'm pretty sure it was to allow a certain sense of universality between individual churches, so individuals could still follow mass if they were in a country where they didn't know the language. It's still possible to do so now, but it's considerably more difficult to recite various prayers along with the rest of the congregation.

Altar and Priest Placement: Prior to Vatican II, the priest faced the altar which faced the back of the church (usually there's a crucifix there). After Vatican II, the entire altar was turned around and the priest faced the congregation. To the best of my knowledge, the idea before was that the priest faced God on behalf of the people, and the idea after was that the priest faced the people on behalf of God. (One of my dad's first thoughts on the priest turning around was that now he couldn't make trouble anymore.)

Alter Servers: Guess what, gals! You can now serve at the altar, too! After Vatican II, the position of Altar Server, formerly Altar Boy, was opened to girls as well.

Communion: AKA the bread and wine. During each Catholic mass, everyone of appropriate age would line up one-at-a-time to accept Communion. They would kneel in front of an altar boy, who would hold a small tray under their chin and place the host (bread*) directly on their tongue. They would then cross themselves and then return to their seats. Only the priest would taste the wine*. Now, Catholics still line up to accept communion (exceptions made for people with mobility problems; they usually sit in the front row to be served directly), and still cross themselves after accepting it, but most choose to take the bread* from the server (not necessarily an altar server) by hand and put it in their own mouths. The entire congregation is now allowed to taste the wine* as well, though not a lot do; the server wipes the rim of the cup with a special cloth after each person has drunk from it.

Hair Covering: Before Vatican II, girls and women were expected to wear something to cover their hair in church, in order to preserve modesty (or something). It could be as simple and small as a doily, or a handkerchief in an emergency, but hats were also allowed. Now women and girls are allowed to go to church bare-headed, and almost all do.

Music: There was somewhat less of it during mass before Vatican II, and considerably less singing along. Often there would be large choirs performing for special holidays (Christmas, Easter), but not so much other than that. The music has also gotten somewhat more "modern" since Vatican II, though rarely to the extent of the sort heard in Sister Act; heck, most of it doesn't even reach Vatican Rag standards.

Confession: The name of the sacrament as I learned it was Reconciliation, but you'll probably encounter it more often (and I've even said it more often) as Confession. Okay, sometimes in movies or on television there are those little booths with doors on either end and a screen to separate the parishioner/confessor from the priest? Those are called confessionals. Great for plot devices; mandatory before Vatican II, but mostly a formality these days. Whenever I went, I spoke with a priest face-to-face.


* Special Note: Catholics believe in a particular process called "Transubstantiation". We/they are taught that when the priest blesses the bread and wine it literally becomes the body and blood of Jesus. It still looks and tastes like ordinary bread and wine (actually, the wafers are kinda dry and hardly taste like anything) but has transcended that substance to become the flesh and blood of Christ. So when I say "bread and wine", I may just be substituting for "body and blood". There's more I could get into here, but I'll save that for a Catholicism 101 post, if anyone wants one of those, or if someone asks.


That's all that I'm aware of. Again, if anyone can expand on this or correct me in anything, I would love your input. Please feel free to link this around :)

Comments

[redsixwing]

I see what you did thar.

I'd be very interested in Catholicism 101, if you are so inclined to write one. ^^; I'm not even sure what questions to ask without being totally offensive!

Also, thank you for this breakdown; I've seen people mention Vatican II but was never able to pull together a synopsis of what it actually -meant.-

I've had some interesting conversations re: which way your facilitating clergymember faces, and where the congregation is looking. I wonder if there's writing out there on that..

[soc_puppet]

I'm so terrible ;)

Excellent! I actually got about half-way through writing one while I was trying to put this together, and I'm glad that I have an excuse to continue that and post it now.

My pleasure! I'm hoping this will help a lot of people wondering the exact same thing. (And also the Marvel Movie-verse fandom, which seems to have decided that Captain America should be Irish-Catholic through his mom, and was frozen when Vatican II went down. My priorities, let me show you them!)

There probably is somewhere, but I couldn't tell you where to look. Also, I'm not writing any of it myself.

[redsixwing]

Cool, I'll look forward to it! Thank you. :D

(Aha! Caught fandom-handed!)

I might get inspired and go do some digging, once I have internetz at home again. Somehow I don't think that search will have particularly fruitful results here at work. :p

[twistedchick]

I might be your dad's vintage, but some of what I remember is not the same:

-- Part of the reason the altar was moved away from the wall, and the priest went behind it and faced the people, was to emphasize the concept that God is not "out there" but "among His people".

-- Before Vatican II, people went to Mass and left and didn't actually have to interact with anyone else. One of the changes in the post-VII Mass was that during the Offertory, the congregation now turns and greets one another with a handshake (most of the time; sometimes with friends it's hugs.) This was a HUGE thing when it started; people didn't want to actually acknowledge that someone they'd had a fight with was right there. But it's in Jesus's teachings that if you have an argument with someone, you fix the argument and then bring forward your offering, so they couldn't debate the theology of it.

-- Altar girls. Hmm. Not so much. It wasn't universal and it took at least a decade, maybe two before it actually happened -- and in many places the boys were substituted back for the girls if the bishop was visiting. In my old home parish (Rochester diocese, western NY), the girls used to show up to tell the priest that their brothers would be late -- and then the girls started to fill in for their brothers. It wasn't an organized change; it just happened, somewhat illegally and then was legalized.

-- Re the change to the vernacular: One of the big changes with this was that there were two vernacular versions of the Mass. One was a fairly literal translation of the old Tridentine Mass (from the Council of Trent (1545-1563), updated so that the English was more like current English than like Shakespeare's English. The second, which was more commonly used, had all the same elements as the first one but the language was updated to reflect theological understandings and changes since the 1500s. The first one, for instance, still has most of the Roman martyrology at the beginning of the Offertory (the second half of the Mass, after the homily), while the second has a much abridged version without many of the saints whose historicity is doubtful. (I still remember the outcry over dropping St. Christopher, particularly since St. Christopher's Church, next parish over, had just been dedicated.)

-- Communion: Yes, most of the time people lined up down the center aisle, but not always; sometimes even in the old days they lined up and knelt along the altar rail. It depended on the church and its own traditions; this was one of the things I saw being done in various ways in various ethnic parishes in the diocese, which included parishes that were built at various times by separate groups of immigrants from Poland, Ireland, Italy and so on. In the old days both the bread and wine might be made available to a couple who were being married, during their wedding Mass, but not to everyone. There is no standard required type of wine, by the way; it's local option, but generally is slightly sweet and not too expensive.

-- Music: it depended on the wealth of the parish and who was available and wanted to serve -- in poorer parishes, nobody was paid to be organist or choir director. In the old days, better-off parishes had paid organists/choir directors and some paid soloists (and some still do.) The entire congregation was not generally expected to sing along, but some did, at times. Usually it was someone playing organ, and if the priest was chanting the offertory (usual) it was always in the same psalm tone series, often Gregorian but not always. (Even later, at first, we often sounded anemic compared to the Congregationalists across the street with their full-throated 12-voice choir leading the congregation.)


If you do want to write more on this and would like someone to beta it, I would be willing; I was born Catholic in the 1950s and was very active as a Catholic from the 1960s until the early 1980s, when there was increasingly no comfortable place within John Paul II's church for an educated, single, working woman who had studied theology and was not a nun (so I left and went elsewhere.)

[localfreak]

Hi There! I followed the link from Sam's Radio Free Monday.

I really enjoyed reading this- I'm a practicing Catholic and the first time I went to a catholic Mass that was based on the old format I found it very weird- I was in the plainchant choir for it and thought I would find it beautiful what with the universal language etc etc instead I found it to be what my Mum (who was very young when the changes occurred) described- very off putting because it was so hard to understand and follow- even to someone like me who could -at that time- recite the whole Mass in English. It made me realise how much I prefer Mass as it is now, and how lucky I am to have grown up with a Mass that I don't just have to hear I can actually understand.

You might be aware but I find it interesting- depending upon where the church is the church's records were kept in Latin decades after- I used to do the baptism and death records for our parish and even well into the 80s the books were still in Latin but, as the priests changed and moved on, the actual filled-out parts migrated slowly from latin to English.

Oh I've noticed someone mentioned altar girls not universal- it was a slow change, but Vatican II made it possible. In the 90s the first of my contemporaries were able to become servers regardless of sex, but the priest at the time did write for dispensation to do so from the Archbishop before it got the okay and other churches in the area were Much Slower to catch on. We used to have the letter framed in the room where the Altar servers say our prayers.

I was just wondering what you/your dad thought about the new changes in the Mass and the changes in language that have occured owing to the new translation?

[drgaellon]

It's interesting to me that Catholic priests were moved as you describe. In Jewish synagogues, the cantor faces the Ark. The cantor, who sings the service, is the "shaliach tzibbur" - the messenger of the people - and thus faces the same way the congregation does. The Spirit of God - the Shechinah - resides in the Ark.

In traditional (i.e. Orthodox) Jewish congregations, women also keep their heads covered. One explanation is for the maintenance of modesty. Another, however, is more societal. In Eastern Europe, only married women covered their heads - so the town matchmaker could easily pick out who was married and who wasn't!

[leonie_alastair]

Pre Vatican II the Priests faced the tabernacle (the box in which the consecrated host is kept) which was kept on the high Altar. In traditional symbolic thought this meant that the Priest and the Congregation celebrated the liturgy while facing God (in the form of the Eucharist) and while facing east (towards the rising sun). No one ever said the Church was subtle about their symbols. :D

Catholic women covered their head because St. Paul said to (1 Corinthians 11 - I think). Of course he also said that women should be silent in Church and if they had questions they should ask them of their husbands at home. Many, many of the Church's problems stem from taking St. Paul seriously.

[mysid]

Although the use of female altar servers did become common in some parts of the world post-Vatican II, according to official Vatican policy, it's still strictly forbidden. Altar servers, like priests, are supposed to be male only.

Yet another reason I no longer call myself a Catholic.

[leonie_alastair]

Hi there, I'm also linking over from copperbadge's RFM post. If your purpose is to compile the changes that Steve Rogers would notice the following changes are probably the biggest.

Smells and Bells: pre Vatican II the Mass included a lot special effects. Bells were rung at specific points, candles were lit and carried in procession, and incense was not only burnt it was wafted over the congregation in a censor. Almost all of this has been stripped from the US Masses.

General formality: People used to get dressed for Mass. No one would show up in jeans, no female would be seen in pants. Dresses and suits were the norm - even for children. And all women wore hats or veils (depending on age and culture).

The number of people involved in the Mass: There would have been many more church staff present on the Altar, maybe two or more priests, lots of altar servers, etc. And they would all have been male and they would all have been in surplices (at least). There were no women and no lay men on the Altar.

Congregation participation: There would have been almost none. The congregation would maybe mumble along with the major prayers, but the kind of call and repeat and congregation participation that exists now didn't happen. If there was a choir the choir sang. If there wasn't a choir - no one sang.

The wide variety of nationalities and languages among the congregation at a single Mass. In the 1930's and 40's each parish was the center of it's neighborhood and the neighborhoods were very specific to nationality. The Poles went to a Polish church, the Italians went to an Italian church, the Irish went to an Irish church etc. Most of those barriers (but not all) have been broken down and now the congregation at most urban Masses is a polyglot.

Nuns in full habits. US nuns, by and large, no longer wear the traditional habits. So while they are still present at many Masses (and participating on the Altar) they are no longer obvious. Their absence would be noticeable.

[trinity_clare]

here belatedly, also via RFM.

One thing that stuck out to me when I was talking to my mom about it was that people used to not have a choice about what parish they were in. Parishes were geographical, usually following neighborhood lines? and if you didn't like your parish priest and thought the one at the next church over was better, you were out of luck.

(As other people have pointed out, girls as altar servers is still hugely contentious. The first time the new bishop visited our parish, all five servers were girls - I was one of them, this was some years ago - and he was not happy about it.)