The Sensibility and Sense of Pope Francis

In that August interview which our Holy Father Pope Francis gave to a Fr Spadaro, there was an interesting pair of terminological innovations.

Firstly: the Extraordinary Form of the Mass was referred to as the Vetus Ordo. This, surely, is very useful and in my view most welcome. The word Extraordinary is often currently misunderstood. Words do change meaning; take, as a random example, the word  forensic. It means 'concerning the law courts'. But because it has so often been used in the phrase forensic Science, the ellipse of the word Science means that forensic on its own it has for many people come to mean 'scientific'. (I expect philologists have a technical term for this sort of shift.) Likewise, the commonest ecclesiastical application of the word extraordinary is in the phrase extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, and so inevitably extraordinary has for many people come to mean 'You get them absolutely everywhere'. This is quite simply not as yet true of the 'Extraordinary Form' of the Mass. Vetus Ordo, on the other hand, is purely factual, purely descriptive, and, with its pair Novus Ordo, is entirely, and happily, free of value judgements. Pope Francis wished simply to get the ideology out of the 'Liturgy Wars'; and this is absolutely right. There is no place for ideology at the foot of the Altar of God. Or, for that matter, for wars.

So, rather than asking "Was it an Eeee Efff Mass", we can now simply ask "Was it Vetus?" More succinct, more stylish.

The second terminological innovation was the use of the word Sensibility. The Holy Father, in that interview, referred to "alcune persone che hanno questa particolare Sensibilita." And the usage was picked up and applied  by the Nuncio to France in his recent letter to the FSSP in that country: "quelle que soit leur Sensibilite".Hence there are now two Sensibilities in the Latin Church: the Vetus and the Novus.

So, at parties, as we balance our wine-glasses precariously on our cardboard buffet plates and stab with our cocktail sticks at the bits of cheese and pineapple, the new with-it conversation starter will be "What's your sensibility?"

Did I say two Sensibilities? Rather, there are three. Don't forget the Sensibilita Anglicana.