Mother Angelica's Eternal Word Television Network will broadcast a live Tridentine Solemn High Mass at 8 a.m. Friday. It will be the first time in the network's 26-year history that a Latin Mass will be aired. It takes place at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Ala.
The televised Mass coincides with a papal document issued by Pope Benedict XVI that encourages and confirms the right of all Latin Rite priests to use this most ancient version of the Mass, which dates to the 1500s.
The decree, issued on July 7, takes effect Friday.
For centuries, the Tridentine Mass was the church's liturgy for Catholics worldwide. With the reforms called by the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, the Latin liturgy was replaced with a new rite that uses the vernacular, or common language of the people. It also relaxes certain restrictions, changes the reading cycles on prayers and simplifies the Communion rite.
The pope refers to this Mass as the 'extraordinary' form, compared to the New Mass, considered the 'ordinary' form.
Michelle Bearden
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