When Pope Benedict XVI celebrates his public Masses in Great Britain Sept. 16-19, he will recite the eucharistic prayer — the heart of the Mass — in Latin. During the last week of August, the bishops of Scotland, England and Wales distributed 1 million copies of a special papal-visit edition of Magnificat, a widely used prayer booklet containing complete Mass texts. The special edition included the songs and all prayers for the pope’s Mass Sept. 16 in Glasgow, Sept. 18 in London and Sept. 19 in Birmingham.
The booklets — available online at www.thepapalvisit.co.uk — showed that the pope will recite the eucharistic prayer in Latin at each Mass. Msgr. Guido Marini, the master of papal liturgical ceremonies, told the Glasgow newspaper The Herald, “What the Holy Father intends by using Latin is to emphasize the universality of the faith and the continuity of the church.”
Msgr. Peter Smith, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Glasgow, told the newspaper, “The Vatican made it clear they wanted the pope to say some of the Glasgow Mass in Latin because there will be a live TV and internet feed from Bellahouston (Park) beamed to a global audience of 1 billion, and they wanted the people of the world to be able to join in. The universal language of the church is Latin.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS)