Her er en interessant artikkel som prøver å finne ut hva pave Bendikt ønsket å gjøre da han nylig frigjorde den tradisjonelle latinske messen. Han så behovet for en fornying av messen etter Vatikankonsilet:
On the one hand, he recognizes that the reforms were necessary – comparing the liturgy to a classical fresco, he notes that «It had been preserved from damage, but it had been almost completely overlaid with whitewash by later generations … as far as the faithful were concerned, it was largely concealed beneath instructions for and forms of private prayer», and he insists «there must be no question of its being covered with whitewash again.»
På den annen side syns han ikke det som skjedde etter konsilet var særlig vellykket, og han frigjør nå den gamle messen for at disse to variantene av messen kan føre til en virkelig reform slik Vatikankonsilet ønsket.
Pope Benedict is clearly in favor of the idea of reforming the liturgy; his intention is not to simply transplant the Church through a time-warp and take us back to the 1950s; and yet he clearly does not believe that the reforms that were actually put in place are an accurate reflection of what Vatican II desired. The Latin language has been snuffed out; the priest now faces the people so that the congregation becomes self-suffocating, closed in on itself; clericalization has become exacerbated in that the priest has become the focal point of the liturgy, and all depends on his personality; the liturgical calendar seems in some ways too artificial; there is not enough quiet reflection and personal prayer in the liturgy; the liturgy has become the private plaything of committees and liturgists, and manifestly appears as something fabricated and not organic.
Les hele artikkelen her.