Back when people really took the Liturgy to heart...

Reader Jeff writes in:

Saw your Trid-Indult Poll and thought you might enjoy this vignette which I just sent to some of my friends:

From a quoted reference in a footnote in Klaus Gamber's "The Reform of the Roman Liturgy" (Ratzinger wrote the Preface for the French edition):

"The following episode indicates the bitter hatred that erupted among the people as a result of the reforms [mandating that the Roman Catholic Rhinelanders sing German texts that replaced the ordinary during the Liturgy of the Mass].

In 1787, on the Feast Day of St. John, a great disturbance occurred in the church. The new hymnal was being introduced to replace the Latin choral singing, which heretofore had been the accepted norm.

During High Mass, when the school children were to have responded to the Gloria in excelsis Deo, intoned by the celebrant, with a German song, the people started to hiss, and the choir responded with unusual force and vigor, Et in terra pax hominibus.... As the distubance grew in intensity, the Elector dispatched two companies of infantry, the artillery and two squads of Hussars.

Thirty ringleaders were sentenced to hard labor; and some among them were never to see their fatherland again." (P. 18.)

...ouch!