Cardinal Seán's Private Masses

From today's post at Cardinal Seán’s Blog, an excerpt of his response to a question someone had about the (possible) loosening of the restrictions upon the Traditional Latin Mass by the Holy Father:

"It’s not a question of anyone being obliged to celebrate the “old” Mass. As far as the language is concerned, the “new” Mass can be celebrated in Latin without permission. As a matter of fact, when I was first ordained, if we celebrated Mass alone, we were supposed to celebrate it in Latin. I still follow that custom. The idea being that the vernacular was allowed for pastoral reasons for the people."

(my emphasis)

A few interesting tidbits in the latest post by Cardinal O'Malley of Boston on his (awesome) new blog. I was glad to see him give such a careful treatment of the underlying assumption that Latin was only part of the "Old Mass" and is now forbidden after Vatican II - wrong! Vatican II wanted Latin to maintain pride of place, and only offered the possibility that the Mass MIGHT be celebrated in the vernacular. But I don't need to cover this ground again, if you've come here before, you know what I feel about this issue!

What I was more interested in personally was to hear Cardinal O'Malley say that when he was ordained he was told to say the Mass in Latin if he was alone - I wonder when he was ordained, and if this was something that had to do with his status as a religious priest (Capuchin Franciscan, for the record - the same order as St. Padre Pio). I have never heard of such a requirement before, but I like it! I also like it that the Cardinal, by his own admission, is maintaining that tradition, which I guess means that the Cardinal says his private Masses in the universal language of the Roman Catholic Church - Latin. Sweet.