Philadelphia Chapter

From the New Liturgical Movement
by Peter Kwasniewski

As I had occasion to point out some weeks ago in connection with mounting critiques of the post-conciliar liturgical calendar (see here), it seems we are entering a phase of great honesty and frankness in assessing not only the false principles behind the Pauline liturgical reform and the worldwide damage it has wrought—a sobering assessment that has certainly not been lacking over the past 40 years—but also, in particular, the possibility of a correction of this reform that would preserve its core while removing abuses or re-integrating foolishly discarded elements.

The new and more realistic phase to which I refer is captured succinctly in Fr. Thomas Kocik’s recent article at NLM, “Reforming the Irreformable?,” which has attracted a remarkable amount of attention. In essence, the conclusion is this: a “reform of the reform” is not, in fact, possible. The Pauline rite is so radical a deconstruction and reconstruction of the Roman liturgy that it does not exist in the same tradition of organic development. It is a new departure, a new thing, not a revision of the old thing that had been handed down over the centuries. As an artificial liturgical entity constructed out of pieces of the Roman heritage combined with modern scholarly inventions, any future reform of it would be no more than a variation on the new theme. The only way forward is not to tinker any more with this “fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product” (as Ratzinger called it in 1992), but to return steadfastly and stalwartly to the Catholic and Roman liturgical tradition embodied in the preconciliar Missal. Indeed, only in this way can the deepest aims and aspirations of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy be achieved and even applied.

Fr. Kocik’s bracing honesty was the long-awaited and necessary announcement that “The Emperor has no clothes.” There are many people who have said similar things over the years, but people perk up when an educated priest who has specialized in the study of the Roman liturgy and who, for a long time, defended and promoted the reform of the reform, finally cashes in the chips and says, “The only long-term solution and path into the future is to celebrate everywhere the usus antiquior, with full, active, and conscious participation.” It has a way of clearing the air so that we can breathe freely. Here’s a brief round-up of some of the best writing from recent days that, either expressly or implicitly, takes its cue from Fr. Kocik.

Dom Mark Kirby, Prior of Silverstream Priory, at Vultus Christi: “Let Nothing Be Preferred to the Work of God”:

I was, at one time, as deeply committed to the reform of the reform as was Father Kocik, having contributed to the Beyond the Prosaic conference at Oxford in 1996 and to the book that followed it. Like Father Kocik, although several years earlier, I came to see the futility of trying to repair something that, at bottom, is structurally unsound. Nowhere is the old adage, “Haste makes waste”, truer than when applied to the precipitous reform of liturgical rites and the books that contain them. In most places the liturgical landscape has become a dreary wasteland. The liturgical rites and books prepared so feverishly in the wake of the Second Vatican Council have been tried and found wanting.
There are, it is true, liturgical oases here and there, where the reformed rites are carried out intelligently, with dignity, reverence, and devotion—I am thinking of certain communities, monasteries, and parishes, the Communauté de Saint–Martin, for example—but these subjective qualities cannot make up for the objective flaws and structural weaknesses inherent in the same rites.
… The passing of the years has demonstrated the intrinsic inadequacies of the reformed liturgical books of the post-conciliar era. The cracks in the post–conciliar liturgical edifice became evident almost as soon as the new rites began to be “lived in.” Today, the same edifice appears like so many shabby buildings put up hastily during an economic boom, now revealing their structural flaws, and threatening imminent collapse.

Fr. Hugh Somerville-Knapman of Dominus mihi adjutor: “The Lament of a Liturgical Loner” (a very remarkable soul-searching article that deserves to be read in its entirety):

If liturgy was a live issue before the Council of 1962-65, it has become in the wake of that Council an explosive issue. Liturgy seems never to be at rest. For some, the Council gave a licence to change comprehensively the performance of the Church’s liturgy, and the change has been unrelenting. For others the changes were unjustifiable, unconscionable even, and they reject them outright. For others still, liturgy has been something to be coped with, an unavoidable battlefield on which they try to find shelter in some compromise that acknowledges the reality of change and seeks somehow to keep it organically connected to the Tradition of the Church. Few have been satisfied.
We might ask ourselves: where is my foxhole, my bunker, my bastion, on this battlefield? So much of my reading the past year or more has shown my foxhole [i.e., the reform of the reform] to be filling with mud, slowly but ever more surely. It is not a tenable position in the long-term. …
[I]t is hard not to conclude that the structure and the rubrics of the new Mass lend themselves to such a [cavalier, creative] practice and attitude. If you remove so many of the sacralizing elements of a ritual, of course it is going to end up secularized. Rather arbitrarily included after the Council among “useless repetitions” the same Council had deprecated, nearly all the signs of the cross and genuflections and kissings of the altar were removed from the Mass. To one not formed under the old Mass, these gestures can appear to be fussy and pedantic and almost obsessive. They seem to cry out for some rationalization. But is such a principle appropriate to the symbolic and sacred ritual of the Mass? Are time-and-motion principles suited to something that should take us out of time and out of ourselves? …
In other words, there is a disjunction between what we are taught happens at Mass and what seems so often to be happening. There is an incongruence between the words and the actions. It is possible to do the new Mass properly; but the new Mass seems to have the inherent flaw that it is so easy to do improperly.

Fr. Richard Cipolla, “The End of the ‘Reform of the Reform'” at Rorate:

This [article by Kocik] is indeed “Tract 90” for the “reform of the reform” and sounds the death knell of any serious attempt to hold onto the fiction of continuity between the 1970 Missal and the Traditional Roman rite. Just as Tract 90 marked the end of Newman’s attempt to find a Catholic continuity and a Via Media in Anglicanism, so does Fr. Kocik’s public articulation of the abandonment of his attempt to find a liturgical and theological continuity between the Novus Ordo and the Traditional Roman rite mark the end of the Reform of the Reform movement. What must be done now—and this will require much laborandum et orandum—is to make the Extraordinary—ordinary.

Those of you who read Nicholas Postgate’s piece “Is It Divisive to Speak of a Crisis?” will recall his unambiguous stance:

The Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the Missal of Paul VI, is irreparably broken. Due to the false principles, exploded assumptions, and rationalistic method behind its composition, it was wrong from the first day, and it remains wrong, no matter how well it is celebrated. Its very prayers and rubrics embody a hermeneutic of discontinuity that cannot be cured without a complete reworking that would bring it substantially back into line with the preceding liturgical tradition. In the language of the philosophers, it would require not an accidental but a substantial change. As far as incremental reform goes (for example, if we look to how some Oratorians celebrate the new rite), nearly every successful step has involved adding or substituting something from the old Missal, or removing something painfully novel. In most respects, the Ordinary Form becomes better by becoming the Extraordinary Form. As such, the Ordinary Form does not so much need to be reformed as it needs to be retired, so that the genuine Roman Rite may once again occupy its proper place in the life of the Catholic Church, as it had done for centuries before.

We have come a long way since the optimism of the 1990s, when it seemed as if one might somehow restart the process of organic development from within the Novus Ordo. If these authors are correct in their assessments, that is a fool’s errand. No one thinking with the mind of the Church disagrees for a moment that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should always be celebrated as beautifully, reverently, and solemnly as possible regardless of the form in which it is offered, whether the historic traditional rite that nourished Catholics for a millennium and a half and continues to prove its durability, or the newly created rite of Paul VI that is already showing its age in an unflattering fashion. But it is no longer necessary to pretend that, with a certain yet-to-be-found alchemy, we can transmute lead into gold.

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From Creative Minority Report Site

Historian Roberto de Mattei has been fired from his broadcast at Radio Maria for being critical of aspects of this pontificate.

This follows on the heels of Radio Maria firing two long time hosts, Mario Palmaro and Alessandro Gnocchi, for a similar infraction after a critical article at the height of the papal interview parade last fall.

So this is how it is to be now. The Pope commands us to shake up the Church. Shake it up, but don’t step out of line.

Well, actually, you can step out of line as long as you step to the left. An entire Episcopal conference can be in open rebellion and that is tolerated because they are stepping away from long held Church teaching. You can openly ridicule the head of the CDF and you will be tolerated.

If you step the other direction, you will be squashed. Just ask Mario Palmaro, Alessandro Gnocchi, the Franciscans of the Immaculate, and now Roberto de Mattei.

Welcome to the open Church where nobody judges anymore.

From Rorate Caeli

[On] Friday, Feb. 14, Pope Francis held an audience with the Bishops of the Czech Republic who came to Rome for their ad limina visit.

In the visit, as it usually happens in such cases, other than the formal address, the Pope heard the questions and comments of the bishops. Archbishop Jan Graubner, of Olomouc, told the Czech section of Vatican Radio how it went:

[Abp. Jan Graubner speaks:] When we were discussing those who are fond of the ancient liturgy and wish to return to it, it was evident that the Pope speaks with great affection, attention, and sensitivity for all in order not to hurt anyone. However, he made a quite strong statement when he said that he understands when the old generation returns to what it experienced, but that he cannot understand the younger generation wishing to return to it. “When I search more thoroughly – the Pope said – I find that it is rather a kind of fashion [in Czech: ‘móda’, Italian ‘moda’]. And if it is a fashion, therefore it is a matter that does not need that much attention. It is just necessary to show some patience and kindness to people who are addicted to a certain fashion. But I consider greatly important to go deep into things, because if we do not go deep, no liturgical form, this or that one, can save us.”

Comment from Rorate Caeli:

Traditionalists are extremely stable and strongly fashion-averse. But as for the winds in Rome!… Roma è mobile, qual piuma al vento! Under seven years ago, the opinion of the then-reigning and still living Holy Father (one who was much more acquainted with the issue at hand) was quite different:

Immediately after the Second Vatican Council it was presumed that requests for the use of the 1962 Missal would be limited to the older generation which had grown up with it, but in the meantime it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist … . … What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. (Benedict XVI, July 7, 2007 Letter to Bishops)

By Roberto de Mattei, Feb. 12, 2014
From Rorate Caeli

February 11, 2013, is a date which has entered into history. It was on that day that Benedict XVI communicated to an assembly of astonished cardinals his decision to renounce the pontificate. The announcement was received “like lightning in a serene sky,” according to the words addressed to the Pope by the cardinal deacon Angelo Sodano, and the image of lightning which, that very day, had struck the Basilica of St. Peter, spread throughout the world.

The abdication occurred on February 28, but before this Benedict XVI announced that he wanted to remain in the Vatican as Pope emeritus, something that had never happened before and which was more surprising than the renouncement of the pontificate. In the intervening month, between the announcement of the abdication and the opening of the conclave on March 12, the election of the new Pontiff was prepared for, even if it appeared to the world to be something unexpected. More surprising than the identity of the one elected, Jorge Mario Bergolio from Argentina, was the new name chosen by him, Francis, almost as if to represent an unicum, and what struck the people most of all was his first speech in which, after a colloquial “good evening,” he introduced himself as “bishop of Rome,” a title which is due to the Pope, but only after that of Vicar of Christ and successor of Peter, which constitute its presupposition.

The photographs of the two Popes who prayed together on March 23 at Castelgandolfo, offering the image of a new papal “diarchy,” increased the confusion of those days. But that was only the beginning. There was the interview on the return flight from Rio de Janeiro, July 28, 2013, with the words “who am I to judge!” destined to be used to justify every transgression. There followed the interviews of Pope Francis by the director of “Civiltà Cattolica” in September and the one by the founder of daily “La Repubblica” in October, which had a greater mass media impact than his first encyclical Lumen fidei. It is said that they were not magisterial acts, but all that has happened in the Church from that time derives, above all, from those interviews which had a magisterial character, in actuality if not in principle.

The encounter between Cardinal [-elect Gerhard] Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, coordinator of the counsellors for the reforms of Pope Francis, has brought the confusion to its head. The traditional doctrine, according to Maradiaga, is not sufficient to offer “replies for the world of today.” It will be maintained, but there are “pastoral challenges” adapted to certain times which one cannot respond to “by authoritarianism and moralism” because this “is not the new evangelization.”

The declarations of Cardinal Maradiaga were followed by the results of the survey on the pastoral challenges of the family promoted by the Pope for the Synod of Bishops of 5 – 19th October. The SIR (Service of religious information [the news agency of the Italian Episcopal Conference]) has released a summary of the first replies which have arrived from Central Europe. For the Belgian, Swiss, Luxembourger and German bishops, the Catholic faith is too rigid and does not correspond to the needs of the faithful. The Church should accept pre-marital cohabitation, recognise homosexual marriage, accept birth control and contraception, bless the second marriages of divorcees and permit them to receive the sacraments. If this is the road which one wishes to take, it is the moment to say that we are speaking of a road that leads to schism and heresy, because it would deny the divine and natural faith, which in its commandments not only affirms the indissolubility of matrimony, but also prohibits sexual acts outside of it, and even more so if they are against nature. The Church welcomes all those who repent of their sins and who propose to break with the moral disorder in which they find themselves, but can in no way justify the status of the sinner. It would be useless to affirm that the change would regard only the pastoral praxis and not the doctrine. If correspondence is lacking between the doctrine and the praxis, this means to say that it is the praxis which makes the doctrine as has already been happening, unfortunately, since the II Vatican Council until now.

Must the Church give replies which are new and “in step with the times”? Very differently did the great reformers in the history of the Church behave, such as St. Peter Damian and St. Gregory the Great who, in the XI century, would have had to justify the simony and nicolaism of the priests, in order not to render the Church alien to the reality of their time, and instead they denounced these wounds with words of fire, starting the reform of customs and the restoration of sound doctrine.

It is the spirit, intransigent and without compromise, of the Saints which today is dramatically absent. An acies ordinata is necessary, an army ready for battle which taking up the weapons of the Gospel, will announce words of life to the modern world that dies, instead of embracing its dead body. Between the Council of Trent and the French Revolution, the Jesuits offered this nucleus of combatants for the Church. Today all the religious orders suffer decadence, and if, amongst these, one appears rich in promise, it is inexplicably suppressed. The case of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, which exploded in July, has brought to light an evident contradiction between the continuous reminders of Pope Francis for mercy, and the stick assigned to the commissioner, Fidenzio Volpi, to annihilate one of the few religious institutes still blossoming today.

The paradox does not end there. Never before as in the first year of the pontificate of Pope Francis, has the Church so renounced one of its divine attributes, that of justice, to present itself to the world as being merciful and benedictory, but never before as in this year has the Church been the object of such violent attacks from the world towards which it extends its hand.

Homosexual marriage, being claimed by all the great international organisations and by almost all of the western governments, contradicts head-on, not only the faith of the Church, but the very natural and divine law which is written in the heart of every man. What are the great mass mobilizations which occurred above all in France with the Manif pur tous, but the reaction of the conscience of a people to a legislation which is both unjust and against nature? But the immoralist lobbies are not satisfied with this. What matters to them is not the affirmation of the presumed homosexual rights, as much as the negation of the rights of humans and of Christians. Christianos esse non licet: the blasphemous cry which was made by Nero and Voltaire, re-echoes in the world today, whilst Jorge Mario Bergoglio is chosen by the worldly magazines as man of the year.

The events succeed one another more quickly. The latin motus in fine velocior is commonly used to indicate the faster passing of the time at the end of an historical period. The multiplication of events, in fact, shortens the course of time, which in itself does not exist outside of the things that flow. Time, says Aristotle, is the measure of movement (Fisica, IV, 219 b). More precisely we define it as the duration of changeable things. God is eternal precisely because He is immutable: every moment has its cause in Him, but nothing in Him changes. The more one distances himself from God the more chaos, produced by the change, increases.

February 11 marked the start of an acceleration of time, which is the consequence of a movement which is becoming vertiginous. We are living through an historical hour which is not necessarily the end of times, but certainly the end of a civilization and the termination of an epoch in the life of the Church. If at the end of this epoch, the clergy and lay Catholics do not take their responsibility very seriously, there will inevitably be realised that fate which the visionary of Fatima saw unveiled before her own eyes:

“And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father.’ Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious were going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”

The dramatic vision of May 13 should be more than sufficient to urge us to meditate, pray and act. The city is already in ruins and the enemy soldiers are at the gates. He who loves the Church let him defend Her, to hasten the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

From the New Liturgical Movement, Part 2
By Gregory DiPippo

We continue our interview with Dom Alcuin Reid, occasioned by the 50th anniversary of the committee established on January 25th, 1964 by Pope Paul VI to implement the liturgical reform, the “Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem liturgicam Sacrosanctum Concilium.” His replies include previously unpublished material from his research. The first part of the interview was published last Friday.

NLM: You mentioned the Consilium – the body charged with implementing Sacrosanctum Concilium. Pope Paul VI established this on January 25th of 1964; who were its members, how were they chosen, what had they done beforehand?

Dom Alcuin: In January 1964 Paul VI personally chose Fr Annibale Bugnini to be the Secretary—a political move which reversed Bugnini’s banishment from responsibility for liturgical reform by Blessed John XXIII in 1962, in favour of Fr Ferdinando Antonelli—together with Cardinals Lercaro (Bologna), Giobbe (Curia) and Larraona (Prefect of the Congregation of Rites). This nucleus proposed the names of members and consultors to Paul VI who acted on their advice.

NLM: Were there any persons who, in your opinion, should or should not have been included on the committee? If so, why?

Dom Alcuin: Eleven pages of an appendix to Archbishop Bugnini’s memoirs, The Reform of the Liturgy (Liturgical Press), lists the personnel. Many of these had been involved in the commission for liturgical reform of Pius XII, the preparatory liturgical commission or the conciliar liturgical commission. Names such as Jungmann, Gy, Botte, Martimort, Righetti, feature rightly enough amongst the consultors. Interestingly Louis Bouyer was only included in 1966. Antonelli was one of the members; Bishop Jenny also. And there were bishop members from around the world who were regarded as having shown interest in the liturgy at the Council.
At a distance of 50 years I hesitate to suggest who should or should not have been included. Two of Antonelli’s contemporary observations, however, are illustrative:

“[The Consilium] is merely an assembly of people, many of them incompetent, and others of them well advanced on the road to novelty. The discussions are extremely hurried. Discussions are based on impressions and the voting is chaotic. What is most displeasing is that the expositive Promemorias and the relative questions are drawn up in advanced terms and often in a very suggestive form. The direction is weak” (N. Giampietro, The Development of the Liturgical Reform, Roman Catholic Books, pp. 166-167).

“That which is sad…however, is a fundamental datum, a mutual attitude, a pre-established position, namely, many of those who have influenced the reform…and others, have no love, and no veneration of that which has been handed down to us. They begin by despising everything that is actually there. This negative mentality is unjust and pernicious, and unfortunately, Paul VI tends a little to this side. They have all the best intentions, but with this mentality they have only been able to demolish and not to restore” (ibid. p. 192).

NLM: The basic work of the Consilium was achieved in about 6 years – the Novus Ordo Missae less than five years after its establishment, November 1969, and the Liturgy of the Hours soon after. Is it fair to say that the work was done hastily? Too hastily?

Dom Alcuin: Let’s return to the Ordo Missae of January 1965. It was possible for that to be published within a year of the Consilium’s establishment, and it is largely faithful to the Council’s stipulations for the ritual reform of the Mass. In due course an expanded lectionary, further prefaces, etc., could have been carefully prepared and published in due course as the post-Vatican II edition of the Roman Missal in accordance with the Council’s mandate.

But the Consilium were working on a completely new Ordo Missae, calendar, lectionary, etc., from 1964. As Antonelli said, they were not working from a desire to restore but from a wish to demolish and build anew. Hence the radical differences in the lectionary, calendar, order of Mass and other rites—something not intended by the Council but, alas, something enacted by enthusiastic reformers and promulgated by the authority of a pope.

The Consilium’s efforts encountered opposition, and Archbishop Bugnini is clear that they wanted to get the new rites out as quickly as possible—almost so as to ‘achieve’ a victory before it was too late. There is also the historical reality of the expectation of change and the devaluing of authority that was part of the 1960’s. This led to experimentation and abuse which was harmful, as Bugnini himself recounts, and meant that there was a real need to get the official rites out as soon as possible.

NLM: Was the work of the Consilium done with respect for the ideals of the Liturgical Movement and for the provisions of Sacrosanctum Concilium?

Dom Alcuin: Fr Carlo Braga, a close collaborator of Bugnini, once wrote to me that the principles outlined in the 1948 document of the Pius XII reform commission were “amplified by another spirit” after the Council (“dopo il concilio”). In February 1964 Paul VI established the Consilium in order to “to apply” Sacrosanctum Concilium “according to the letter and spirit of the Council”. Its “letter” was quickly left behind, and its “spirit” became something other than that of the Council fathers: one of innovation rather than restoration.

Some currently attempt to justify this departure and subsequent innovation by regarding Vatican II as an “event” and by insisting that the “core values” and “theology” of this “event”—in other words its increasingly hard to define “spirit”—are the only legitimate bases for interpreting Conciliar documents, regardless of the provisions and theology of the documents themselves.

Such a position is utterly revisionist and astonishingly a-historical. The Council Fathers never proposed this. It renders the principles and provisions of Sacrosanctum Concilium null and void, and provides a carte blanche for liturgical innovation.

NLM: During and after the Council, there was a great deal of talk in the Church about “collegiality” between the Pope and the bishops. Sacrosanctum Concilium itself says in no. 25 that “(t)he liturgical books are to be revised as soon as possible; experts are to be employed on the task, and bishops are to be consulted, from various parts of the world.” Were the bishops consulted by the Consilium? If so, to what extent? Were the reforms carried out as an act of collegiality between the Pope and the world-wide episcopate?

Dom Alcuin: Certainly there were bishops from dioceses across the world on the Consilium. And some schemas were sent to Bishops Conferences before the 1967 Synod of Bishops. But it is simply not true to assert that “every suggested adaptation, change, or modification was sent out to every Catholic bishop in the world” and that “when changes were severely questioned or opposed by a large number of bishops, they were revised according to the will of the bishops and then sent back again.” (Robert Taft SJ, Interview, 4 Nov. 2009) Bugnini describes the relationship with the world’s bishops in chapter 14 of his memoirs—and it is a very different account from Father Taft’s. The Consilium had ongoing contact with the Episcopal conferences, certainly, but one only has to read Cardinal Heenan’s letters to see how a residential Archbishop regarded the reform as something imposed by ‘Rome’ regardless of local bishops’ views (cf. A Bitter Trial, Ignatius Press).

Msgr Martimort, the Relator (co-ordinator of the working group) for the reform of the Liturgy of the Hours, explained to me in an interview that after consultation with experts he presented two position papers to the Consilium plenary meeting, which decided on which to follow and on appropriate revisions. After this, Martimort complained vigorously, Bugnini ignored these decisions and himself proposed another course to Paul VI—which was the one adopted. This ‘Paul VI approves what Bugnini-wants’ is a significant factor in the postconciliar reform, a fact underlined also by details recounted in the memoirs of Louis Bouyer, still sadly unpublished.

So too in 1969, the by-then Archbishop Jenny wrote to Paul VI because he believed he had “a duty in conscience” to utter “a cry of alarm” about “the liturgy in general and the divine office in particular” because of influences outside of the Consilium and outside of its normal working methods. Co-operation within the Consilium itself was questionable!

NLM: Did the bishops express much satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the work of the Consilium? Were their opinions heeded?

Dom Alcuin: The 1967 Synod of Bishops is illustrative. The Synod was given an update on the progress of the reform. In addition, a Mass was celebrated demonstrating what the Consilium intended as the rite that would become “normative” for parishes. The Synod Fathers did not like it. Cardinal Heenan spoke strongly against it (cf. A Bitter Trial, pp. 102-4). Bugnini himself admits: “It must be said flatly that the experiment was not a success,” and that “it had an effect contrary to the one intended and played a part in the [Synod’s] negative vote that followed”—“…in short, the changes in the Mass seemed too radical” (Reform of the Liturgy, p. 349-50). The Synod Father’s responses were not ultimately heeded, but dismissed—Bugnini says that they were “not representative” (p. 356).

NLM: In your opinion, what were the greatest successes and failures of the Consilium?

Dom Alcuin: I think that they are one and the same thing: the implementation of a radical liturgical reform that was the product of the wishes of certain of its members and consultors. This was a great political success, in spite of the Roman Curia and others, as Archbishop Piero Marini’s book A Challenging Reform (Liturgical Press) underlines. And it was a tragic failure faithfully to implement Sacrosanctum Concilium, as any careful reading of its text and as any study of such important sources as Bugnini’s and Antonelli’s memoirs reveals.

NLM: What implications does this have for our assessment of the liturgical reform today, and for the possibility of ‘reform of the reform’ in the future?

Dom Alcuin: As many have said before, we have not yet seen the liturgical reform desired by the Second Vatican Council. We glimpsed something of it in the 1965 Ordo Missae, but that was quickly left behind by the Consilium’s own products. Thus, out of fidelity to liturgical tradition, out of fidelity to the Council and as a matter of justice in respect of what was done in its name, we need seriously to address the question of a reform of the reform.

So too, we need as ever to invest in the work of sound liturgical formation so as to facilitate that participation desired by the Council, in order that the Sacred Liturgy—in whatever ritual form it is celebrated—may truly be the source and summit of Christian life and mission.

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Defend the Holy See

From Rorate Caeli, Febuary 11, 2014

Benedictus vir, qui confidit in Domino, et erit Dominus fiducia eius. Et erit quasi lignum, quod transplantatur super aquas, quod ad humorem mittit radices suas: et non timebit, cum venerit æstus. Et erit folium eius viride, et in tempore siccitatis non erit sollicitum, nec aliquando desinet facere fructum.

(From the Lesson of the Mass of Thursday following the Second Sunday in Lent: “Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence. And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture: and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit.

When searching for the header verses that would go with our image of Pope Benedict XVI resting in a garden dressed in a plain cassock, it was inevitable to look up the liturgy for the day on which his renunciation would go into effect, February 28: and there it is, in the Lesson from Jeremias (chap. xvii), a fine coincidence, and an apt description of our dear Holy Father.

Since this web log was founded, we have followed the seasons of the Traditional Roman Rite; the readings, the words that have inspired us have always and only been those of the traditional Roman Missal and Roman Breviary. We were, from our beginning, in 2005, trying to make clear that we thought and acted as if the Traditional Mass had never been abrogated, because that is what we really believed, despite almost all the “expert canonists” saying the absolute opposite.

We always believed that Pope Benedict XVI would act upon his words and recognize this reality. That he would make clear that the Traditional rites of the Roman Church had never been abrogated because they can never be abrogated. And, sure enough, the motu proprio, that seemed like a fable to so many, but that we knew would come, saw the light of day. The man who trusts in the Lord brought forth fruit, and the most blessed of all, that will prove his most enduring legacy, is Summorum Pontificum: the traditional Missal was “never abrogated”. Precisely because “what earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” (Letter to Bishops, July 7, 2007)

The leaves of this tree were green, but he knew the world did not want his shade, that the world hated him, as they hated the Lord in whom he trusted: “Whoever proclaims that God is Love ‘to the end’ has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity. … At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint.” (Letter to Bishops, March 10, 2009)

Woe to those who, in the right time, did not enjoy the shade and gather the fruit brought forth by the “Blessed man that trusteth in the Lord”.

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One of the greatest Spanish composers, and a father of Castilian poetry, Juan del Encina was a towering literary presence in the court of the Catholic Monarchs. After years in Rome, and having received the benefice of the priory of the Cathedral of Leon, already in his late fifties, Juan del Encina was ordained a priest. It is unclear when exactly he received his ordination, but it is known that he said several of his first masses during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land with several gentlemen led by the Marquis of Tarifa, in 1519-1520. His 1521 book of verses on the pilgrimage was one of the most famous in the 16th century, and inspired Saint Ignatius of Loyola to pursue his own pilgrimage a couple of years later: in it Fr. Juan del Encina speaks fondly of the First Masses he celebrated at the Holy Sepulchre and at the Sinai Monastery.

Years earlier, in his Cancionero (1516), he had published most of his famous verses, mostly of a worldly nature, written mainly in the happiest years of the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand. But deep inside, as he revealed in one of his villancicos, Hermita̱o quiero ser (I wish to be a hermit), he merely wanted to be a hermit Рand, if not exactly one, he managed to die a priest in his own Cathedral, dedicated solely to the things of God. Our Holy Father, after decades of active life dedicated to the administration of the Church, chose a contemplative life also dedicated to the Church in a sort of Vatican hermitage, as he waits for the day when the Lord will call him to appear before His own court.

Thank you, Holy Father, and thank you for your past and future time of prayer and penance for the Church.

[Repost: the liturgical reference is to Feb. 28, 2013]

by Jon Frey

Due to a power outage at St. Albert the Great in Huntingdon Valley, the monthly First Friday Traditional Latin Mass was transferred to Maternity BVM in the Bustleton section of Northeast Philadelphia on February 7, 2014. Mass was offered by Fr. Gerald Carey from Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Delaware County.

We extend our thanks for Father Paul Quinter for his charity in making the lower church available under the circumstances and short notice.

From Father Carbonaro

A Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form will be celebrated for the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Wednesday March 19, 2014, at Our Lady of the Assumption Parish, Strafford, Pa. Rosary will be prayed beginning at 6:40 p.m., with Mass to follow at 7:00 p.m. Celebrant will be Father Dennis J. Carbonaro, Pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption, and Homilist will be Msgr. Charles L. Sangermano, Pastor, Holy Saviour, Norristown. Following Mass a reception will be held in the Parish Hall. A collection will be taken up to help defray some of the expenses incurred for this celebration.

P.S. Let’s all show our support and appreciation of Fr. Carbonaro. We all remember him as a regular celebratant of the Missa Cantata at St. Paul’s.

From the New Liturgical Movement Site
by Fr. Thomas Kocik

IT COULD BE evidence of exemplary patience on the part of NLM editor Jeffrey Tucker that I am still counted among the contributors to this blog. More than two years have passed since I posted anything relative to the ‘reform of the reform’. Although I consider myself a capable writer, I am not a fast one, which impairment makes the demands of parish ministry even less favorable to the task of unpacking my liturgical ruminations for those who might care to know them. But that only partly explains the hiatus.

I have the impression that whatever can be said in general terms about the ‘reform of the reform’—its origin and aims, its scope and methodology, the various proposals advanced in its interest (if not in its name), its proponents and critics—has pretty much already been said.1 Although the movement is difficult to define (Is it synonymous with the ‘new liturgical movement’ or but one stage of it?),2 its overall aim was nicely summed a few years ago by the Ceylonese prelate who stated that the time has come when we must “identify and correct the erroneous orientations and decisions made, appreciate the liturgical tradition of the past courageously, and ensure that the Church is made to rediscover the true roots of its spiritual wealth and grandeur even if that means reforming the reform itself…”3

Long before Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he was critically evaluating the reform of the liturgy following the Second Vatican Council, identifying those aspects of the reform which have little or no justification in the Council’s liturgical Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) and which undermine the true spirit of the liturgy.4 As pope it was in his power to remedy the deficiencies—the “erroneous orientations and decisions”—of the reform on a universal scale not only by his teaching and personal liturgical example but also by legislation. He accentuated the liturgy’s beauty, promoted the liturgical and musical treasures of the Western Church (including of course the usus antiquior of the Roman rite), and introduced more tangible continuity with tradition in the manner of papal celebrations (e.g., the ‘Benedictine’ altar arrangement, offering Mass ad orientem in the Sistine and other papal chapels, administering Holy Communion to the faithful on their tongues as they knelt). His successor, Pope Francis, is a different man with a different personality and style, and his priorities clearly lie with other aspects of the Church’s life. I am not holding my breath in anticipation of further official progress along the lines marked out by Pope Benedict, who has deservedly been dubbed the “Father of the new liturgical movement.”5

But let us suppose, practically speaking and perhaps per impossibile, that the ‘reform of the reform’ were to receive substantive institutional support. Even so, I doubt the endeavor would be feasible—if we take that term to mean the reform of the present order of liturgy so as to bring it substantially back into line with the slowly developed tradition it widely displaced. It is not sour grapes about last year’s papal abdication that prompts my saying so. Like any movement, the ‘reform of the reform’ stands or falls on its own principles, not on any one pope or partisan. No: the ‘reform of the reform’ is not realizable because the material discontinuity between the two forms of the Roman rite presently in use is much broader and much deeper than I had first imagined. In the decade that has elapsed since the publication of my book, The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate (Ignatius Press, 2003), which concerns almost exclusively the rite of Mass, a number of important scholarly studies, most notably those of László Dobszay (†2011)6 and Lauren Pristas,7 have opened my eyes to the hack-job inflicted by Pope Paul VI’s Consilium on the whole liturgical edifice of the Latin Church: the Mass; the Divine Office; the rites of the sacraments, sacramentals, blessings and other services of the Roman Ritual; and so forth.8 Whatever else might be said of the reformed liturgy—its pastoral benefits, its legitimacy, its rootedness in theological ressourcement, its hegemonic status, etc.—the fact remains: it does not represent an organic development of the liturgy which Vatican II (and, four centuries earlier, the Council of Trent) inherited.

There are significant ruptures in content and form that cannot be remedied simply by restoring Gregorian chant to primacy of place as the music of the Roman rite, expanding the use of Latin and improving vernacular translations of the Latin liturgical texts, using the Roman Canon more frequently (if not exclusively),9 reorienting the altar, and rescinding certain permissions. As important as it is to celebrate the reformed rites correctly, reverently, and in ways that make the continuity with tradition more obvious, such measures leave untouched the essential content of the rites. Any future attempt at liturgical reconciliation, or renewal in continuity with tradition, would have to take into account the complete overhaul of the propers of the Mass;10 the replacement of the Offertory prayers with modern compositions; the abandonment of the very ancient annual Roman cycle of Sunday Epistles and Gospels; the radical recasting of the calendar of saints; the abolition of the ancient Octave of Pentecost, the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima and the Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost; the dissolution of the centuries-old structure of the Hours; and so much more. To draw the older and newer forms of the liturgy closer to each other would require much more movement on the part of the latter form, so much so that it seems more honest to speak of a gradual reversal of the reform (to the point where it once again connects with the liturgical tradition received by the Council) rather than a reform of it.

The twofold desire of the Council fathers, namely, to permit innovations that “are genuinely and certainly required for the good of the Church” and to “adopt new forms which in some way grow organically from forms already existing” (SC 23) could indeed be fulfilled, but not by taking the rites promulgated by Paul VI as the point of departure for arriving at a single, organically reformed version of the ancient Roman rite: that would be like trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. What is needed is not a ‘reform of the reform’ but rather a cautious adaptation of the Tridentine liturgy in accordance with the principles laid down by Sacrosanctum Concilium (as happened in the immediate aftermath of that document’s promulgation in 1963), using what we have learned from the experience of the past fifty years.11 In the meantime, improvements can be made here and there in the ars celebrandi of the Ordinary Form. But the road to achieving a sustainable future for the traditional Roman rite12—and to achieving the liturgical vision of Vatican II, which ordered the moderate adaptation of that rite, not its destruction—is the beautiful and proper celebration, in an increasing number of locations, of the Extraordinary Form, with every effort to promote the core principle (properly understood) of “full, conscious and active participation” of the faithful (SC 14).

Footnotes
[1] A history and analysis of the movement (if it can be called that) with a useful bibliography will appear as a chapter in the forthcoming T&T Clark Companion to Liturgy: The Western Catholic Tradition, ed. Alcuin Reid (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015). One of the first studies to take up the question of an alternate reform is Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, trans. Klaus D. Grimm (Una Voce Press and The Foundation for Catholic Reform, 1993) pp. 41-61 [on the Order of Mass], 63-75 [on the Order of Readings]; Gamber held that the Ordo Missæ of 1965 fulfilled the revision of the Mass envisioned by the Second Vatican Council. The earliest typology of post-Vatican II liturgical agendas is Beyond the Prosaic: Renewing the Liturgical Movement, ed. Stratford Caldecott (T&T Clark, 1996). More recently, see John F. Baldovin, Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics (Liturgical Press, 2008); reviewed on NLM here and here. Various ‘reform of the reform’ schemata can be found in the appendices of my book, The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate (Ignatius Press, 2003). The only foreign-language proposal (to my knowledge) is Claudio Crescimanno, La Riforma della Riforma liturgica: Ipotesi per un “nuovo” rito della miss sulle trace del pensiero di Joseph Ratzinger (Fede & Cultura, 2009).
[2] See, e.g., here and here and here and here and here.
[3] Archbishop (now Cardinal) Albert Malcolm Ranjith’s foreword to Nicola Giampietro, The Development of the Liturgical Reform: As Seen by Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli from 1948 to 1970 (Roman Catholic Books, 2009), p. xvi; reviewed in Antiphon 14 (2010) 312-14 and on NLM here. Ranjith was then Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and is now (since 2009) the Cardinal-Archbishop of Colombo.
[4] The Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 1986); The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000); “Assessment and Future Prospects,” in Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger: Proceedings of the July 2001 Fontgombault Liturgical Conference, ed. Alcuin Reid (St Michael’s Abbey Press, 2003).
[5] Alcuin Reid, “The New Liturgical Movement after the Pontificate of Benedict XVI”, Address to Church Music Association of America, 15 October 2013; available here and here.
[6] The Bugnini-Liturgy and the ‘Reform of the Reform’ (Catholic Church Music Associates, 2003); reviewed in Antiphon 9:3 (2005) 309-10. The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite (T&T Clark/Continuum, 2010). I was unaware of the former until 2006; my review of the latter is available on NLM here. See also Dobszay’s “Perspectives on an Organic Development of the Liturgy,” in Antiphon 13:1 (2009) 18-27.
[7] The Collects of the Roman Missals: A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons before and after the Second Vatican Council (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013). See the Book Notice; my review of this volume will appear in Antiphon 18:1 (2014).
[8] Also deserving of attention is Father Uwe Michael Lang’s essay, “Theologies of Blessing: Origins and Characteristics of De benedictionibus (1984),” in Antiphon 15 (2011) 27-46, dealing with the substantial revision of blessings in the Roman Ritual resulting from significant changes in the theological understanding of blessings.
[9] The three Eucharistic Prayers introduced in 1968 and included in the Missal of Paul VI as alternatives to the Roman Canon are innovations which the Council fathers had not even contemplated, never mind authorized. Whatever might be said in their defense, they are not the products of organic liturgical development.
[10] Only 17 percent of the orations of the 1962 Missal made their way intact into the Missal of 1970; so Father Anthony Cekada, The Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass (TAN Books, 1991). László Dobszay, in The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite, notes that “the Roman Rite is incarnated more in the Propers than in the Order of Mass” (p. 48), for the Sacramentary is “the most Roman component of the classical Roman Rite” (p. 201). I do not suggest that there is no basis in Sacrosanctum Concilium for modifying the propers (indeed there is); I simply point out the extent of the changes.
[11] The end result, I suppose, would be something like the missals published in various countries following the release of the Ordo Missæ of 1965, with the addition of new saints and prefaces.
[12] The ‘Tridentine’ Missal of 1570-1962 is not the only representative of the historic Roman rite, but unlike the Missal of Paul VI it differs only in minor points from the tradition which had already been alive for a thousand years when the Council of Trent codified the Roman curial rite. In this context the use of the word ‘traditional’ is wholly justified.