How Long Will It Take Us To Relearn What We have Lost?

The "Progressives" created a myth that Vatican II created a new church, that there was a break from the church existing at the time of the Council birthing new church.  Liturgically, the story was that there was a new mass and an old mass.  Unfortunately they convinced many traditionalist that the myth was true.

How did they make the myth of the new mass work?  They implemented it to look as different from the old mass as possible.  They imposed an English translation that was both mundane and inaccurate.  They convinced bishops and priests that "The Vatican said" or the "Council said" Latin was out, Gregorian chant was out, statues were out, the priest must face the people, the tabernacle must be banished, etc., etc.  In those days before the internet made it easy to discover what the pope or the council actually said, it was hard to argue with these experts.

I firmly believe, but can not prove, that the bishops of the time were great administrators who unthinkingly delegated the reform's implementation to these liturgists.  It jives with the administrative mind.  Delegate, delegate, delegate!  The big surprise of the Council was when the American bishops swung over to the "progressive side."  A young "peritus" (expert) by the name of Ratzinger noted that some of the bishops most opposed to dropping Latin from the liturgy were those whose Latin was lousiest.  Could that have been our American prelates? As I try to picture those no doubt holy men, I wonder about the effect of building so many churches and schools as America shifted from cities to suburbs.  Think of the soul numbing fundraising involved.  Was there anything left over for reflection and critical thinking?

One way or another the bishops gave the liturgist free reign.  The era's defining joke was the Q&A:

"What's the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?"

"You can negotiate with a terrorist."

Yet Vatican II called for presenting the old message in a new way and of renewing the liturgy not abandoning it.

Which brings me to the story that brings all this to a head.

There is a fellow Catholic blogger who writes humbly and touchingly at Saint Louis Catholic.  He wrote two posts, How John Paul II Led Me to the Traditional Mass, Vol. 1 and How John Paul II Led Me to the Traditional Mass, Vol. 2.  In the first, he explains his ambiguous attitude toward John Paul and in the second he relates how then Cardinal Ratzinger's celebration of the late pope's funeral mass brought him to the traditional Latin mass, i.e., the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  I can not think of anyone who would be better equipped to celebrate and plan that liturgy than Joseph Ratzinger.  I imagine it was most beautiful, beautifully celebrated.

This second post is a beautiful story of grace, relating the bogger's development with great humility and openness.  His story piqued my curiosity. I searched to learn more about John Paul's funeral.  I found a link on EWTN laying out the rites in some detail.  John Paul's funeral was celebrated as a Solemn High mass in Latin with Chant and sacred polyphony.  How could it not have been beautiful? It concluded with In Paridisum (note the accusative case), a traditional Catholic chant for the occasion.  We had that same chant for my uncle's funeral recessional.

And now for the surprise!  I looked at how it was celebrated.  There was a First Reading, a Responsorial Psalm, and a Second Reading.  There was the Prayer of the Faithful.  It dawned on me: the funeral mass was celebrated according to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, i.e., what critics refer to as the Novus Ordo.  Cardinal Ratzinger could not have provided more eloquent testimony to the reality that the Mass of the missal of Paul VI is the traditional Latin mass revised.

It is a tragedy that priests celebrating according to the Ordinary Form do not draw on the treasury chest of twenty centuries as called for by Vatican II.  Moreover, if priests had been allowed to introduce the revised mass mostly in Latin with the Propers in English and facing East, few would have believed the "progressive's" myth of a rupture between the old mass and the new.

Who Says Studying Latin Doesn't Pay?

Giovanna Chirri, a journalist who has covered the Vatican for twenty years, got the scoop of a lifetime when she was attending a consistory of cardinals.  She explains that it consisted of liturgical and other things which the people would not be interested in.  [Comment: Benedict in his last talk with the priests of Rome told the story of the Council from his point of view as an insider.  He told the good priests that there was the Council of the Spirit and the Council of the Journalists.  Is there any clearer indication that what interests the faithful in the pews and what interests the secular press is different?] 

Suddenly the pope took a piece of paper and began reading in slow, clear Latin.  Even some of the cardinals had trouble following what he had to say.  [Comment: the state of the cardinals' Latin is not what it should be.] The journalists were lost.  They had not been given an advanced text from which to write their stories.  Ms. Chirri, in a semi panic, forced herself to remember her high school [gymnasium] Latin.  As she came to realize what the pope was saying to the cardinals and as shock spread across their faces, she realized she was witnessing an event that had not occurred for hundreds of years: a pope was announcing his resignation.

Beachtung [warning]: the link taking you to the original story leads you to a German language website, online Focus.

Senseless Antiquarianism

Anachronism in the reform of liturgy is no virtue.

Organic development is no vice.

Johnny Hixson quotes Pius XII on Facebook:

"Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See."
        -Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947


A few observations:

I have not checked the accuracy of the translation, but"straying from the straight path" sounds too much like a Maoism.  Pius forgive me (or is it your translator?)

In paragraph 64, Pius XII rejects "senseless antiquarianism."  I agree.  Mr. Hixson's quote is from Paragraph 62 and should be read in this context. Benedict has explained this with great theological insight both now and before his papacy.  Renewing the liturgy is central to renewing the church.  Wrecking the liturgy to reconstruct some scholar's mistaken imagining of how the primitive church must have performed the liturgy is not renewal.

In the context of all three paragraphs of Mediator Dei, Pius rejects those who attack as inauthentic any development of the liturgy after that of the primitive church, i.e., as reconstructed in the mind models of scholars.  He himself reformed the Holy Week liturgy which is how it came to its form in the Missal of John XXIII: the 1962 Missal commonly used as the missal in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Personally I believe that the idea the altar should be a Renaissance dinner table is anachronistic. Whether the table is like Michelangelo's Last Supper or Luther's Tisch, it is neither like what Christ sat at nor like the altar in the Jewish Temple. Both are Renaissance projections back to the first century: "senseless antiquarianism."

Personally I love sacred polyphony, but prefer chant in mass and think every mass should be chanted. I would eliminate low masses other than private masses and under extraordinary circumstances. Music after Praetorius, even that of divine Mozart, robs the congregation of its rightful role.  This is a tragedy of the reductionist reforms of Trent. It is even true even of my beloved Renaissance polyphony.  Am I throwing the baby out with the bath water? Tallis forgive me!

What Really Happened When They Reformed the Liturgy?

Nicola Giampietro: "They have all the best intentions, but with this mentality they have only been able to demolish and not to restore." (192)

The Rev. Dr Alcuin Reid, one of the most sensible liturgists in the Catholic world, reviews  Nicola Giampietro, The Development of the Liturgical Reform: As Seen by Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli from 1948-197 (Fort Collins CO: Roman Catholic Books, 2009 xx + 347 pages. Paperback. $33.75 in Antiphon, the journal of liturgical renewal.


Giampietro was there when it all happened.  He was heavily involved in the liturgical Movement.  He was the secretary to the second Vatican council's work on Sacrosanctum Consilium, its constitution on the liturgy.  You can read his review on the New Liturgical Movement.

Sacred Language and the Sacred Liturgy

We have a new (and better) translation of the liturgy coming soon.  The current English translation of the mass became available in 1970.  Vatican II permitted it to be used in whole or in part during the mass.  The de facto transition from its being being an option to its being a mandate occurred with dizzying rapidity.

Christine Mohrmann gave the Dougherty lectures at Catholic U. in 1957 on the development of Liturgical Latin and its relationship to Early Christian Latin.  What she, a renowned expert on the subject, had to say is extremely interesting in light of Rome's current guidelines on translation (Liturgiam Authenticam) and the recent "translation wars."

I transcribed two quotations from hose lectures.  Please note that one popular, but simplistic, misconception about the transition of the Roman liturgy from Greek to Latin is that this was a attempt to put the liturgy into the ordinary language of the people.  Far from it!

Dr. Mohrmann writes, "Latin used in the liturgy displays a sacral style.  The basis and starting point of Liturgical Latin is the Early Christian idiom, which, however, through the use of features of style drawn form the Early Roman sacral tradition mingled with biblical stylistic elements, has taken on a strongly hieratic character, widely removed from the Christian colloquial language."

"The earliest liturgical Latin is a strongly stylized, more or less artificial language, of which many elements–for instance the Orations–were not easily understood even by the average Christian of the fifth century or later."

Apparently, in the late 1950s, there was already a strong movement in liturgical circles to put the liturgy into the vernacular.  Not only is Mohrmann aware of this tendency, but she is quite clear that least common denominator language of the street does not reflect the tradition of the early church.  Indeed, she tells us, "The advocates of the use of the vernacular in the liturgy who maintain that even in Christian Antiquity the current speech of everyday life, 'the Latin of the common man,' was employed, are far off the mark."


The quotations are from Chrstine Morhmann, Liturgical Latin Its Origins and Character: Three Lectures (Catholic University Press: Washington, D.C.: 1957.)

Benedict Approves a Document on the Reform of the Reform

As with past councils, it is only now that the fruits of the council are budding.

Rejoice and be glad!

Succoth, the festival of Huts, was a harvest feast. It was called Pentecost in Greek (fifty days after.) It too will come! We will harvest the fruits of the Council!

There is a special irony. The Hebrews lived in tents (huts, booths, tabernacles=tents) for forty years. We seem fated to spend forty years in the dessert living in tents before we reach the promised land. So it was after Vatican I and so it has been liturgically after Vatican II!

If Cardinal Pell Is for It, It Is Worth a Look

Louie Verrecchio has crafted a program of study of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. According to Cardinal Pell, Archbishop of Sidney, "I found Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II to be a rich and detailed resource... I consider this to be an excellent way to study the Vatican II documents whether individually or in a group." Verrecchio's Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II is a highly acclaimed adult faith formation tool that has been helping parish based study groups and individuals worldwide since 2004. He also writes a column on Catholic News service entitled, you guessed it, "Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II."

How do you say "Cross Fertilization" in French?

From Paris and Lourdes, the Lesson of the "Liturgist" Pope

On his trip to France, Benedict XVI did not only defend the ancient rite of the Mass. He also explained and demonstrated repeatedly what he believes to be the authentic meaning of the Catholic liturgy of today and always. And, about sacred music, he said...

by Sandro Magister
ROMA, September 16, 2008 – In the three Masses celebrated during his trip to Paris and Lourdes, Benedict XVI followed the post-conciliar rite. But he intentionally enriched it with elements characteristic of the old rite: the cross at the center of the altar, communion given to the faithful on the tongue, while kneeling, the sacredness of the whole.

The reciprocal "enrichment" between the two rites is the main objective that impelled Benedict XVI to promulgate, in 2007, the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum," which liberalized the use of the ancient rite of the Mass, according to the Roman missal of 1962.

Sandro Magister's analysis is always very valuable. It was just over a year ago, that Benedict freed the old version of the Roman Rite. He chose that aniverary to preach liturgical tolerance to a hierarchy short in that pastoral virtue. Moreover, Benedict used this "teaching moment" to show how the old and new can cross fertilize each other.

Hallelujah!

In the Mass, "We Celebrate with all the warriors of the heavenly army"!

Gregory the Great teaches us, as does the iconography of the ancient Christian churches that when we celebrate the mass, we are joined by the angels and the saints. These angels are no dainty lasses in flowing robes so sacarinely depicted in art. They are "the warriors of the heavenly army." Those are the words of Vatican II:

"8. In the earthly Liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that Heavenly Liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a Minister of the Holies and of the true Tabernacle [Cf. Apoc.[Rev.] 21:2; Col. 3:1; Heb. 8:2.]; we sing a hymn to the Lord's glory with all the warriors of the heavenly army; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ, until He, our Life, shall appear and we too will appear with Him in glory [Cf. Phil. 3:20; Col. 3:4.]." Sacrosanctum Concilium, [The Sacred Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.]

Forget the Iowa Caucases and the New Hampshire Primary

Forget the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, the real polls are open already: what do we call the old mass now that that great liturgical liberal, Benedict XVI, has clarified that priests can say the mass as it said at the Second Vatican Council (which used the Missal of 1962.) Fr. Z. is conducting a poll as to what that mass should be called. My first choice lost out in the initial round (the Mass of John XXIII.) In the runoff, the top three choices are:

1) the Tridentine Mass
2) extraordinary form/use (forma extraodinaria)
3) the Traditional Latin Mass or TLM


You can vote on his blog, What Does The Prayer Really Say? The blog is a great resource to find out whether Rome (which speaks in Latin) really said what your local liturgist said Rome said.

I voted for #2. That is what Benedict called it. The "Tridentine Mass" suggests that this form dates back to the Council of Trent which is wrong by at least a thousand years. The "Traditional Latin Mass" is OK but distracts us from the fact that the ordinary form (what we have in almost every parish, every Sunday) is supposed to be in Latin most of the time and should be celebrated in a manner that preserves the tradition of the Latin rite.

What About the Missal of 1965?

Adam Barnette makes some interesting arguments for reviving the Missal of 1965. There is a lot here so it will be a while before I absorb it all. You can read what I was thinking before the motu proprio.

Thanks to Jeffrey Tucker on the New Liturgical Movement for the link.

Read the Text of Benedict's Document Motu Proprio Data "Summorum Pontificum"

MOTU PROPRIO "SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM"

VATICAN CITY, JUL 7, 2007 (VIS) - Given below is a non-official English- language translation of the Apostolic Letter "Motu Proprio data" of Pope Benedict XVI, "Summorum Pontificum," concerning the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. The original text is written in Latin.

"Up to our own times, it has been the constant concern of supreme pontiffs to ensure that the Church of Christ offers a worthy ritual to the Divine Majesty, 'to the praise and glory of His name,' and 'to the benefit of all His Holy Church.'

"Since time immemorial it has been necessary - as it is also for the future - to maintain the principle according to which 'each particular Church must concur with the universal Church, not only as regards the doctrine of the faith and the sacramental signs, but also as regards the usages universally accepted by uninterrupted apostolic tradition, which must be observed not only to avoid errors but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, because the Church's law of prayer corresponds to her law of faith.' (1)

Read on....

Benedict's Letter to His Brother Bishops

LETTER FROM POPE TO BISHOPS ON "SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM"

VATICAN CITY, JUL 7, 2007 (VIS) - Given below is the text of the English- language version of Benedict XVI's Letter to all the bishops of the world concerning his Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum," which was published today:

"With great trust and hope, I am consigning to you as pastors the text of a new Apostolic Letter 'Motu Proprio data' on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. The document is the fruit of much reflection, numerous consultations and prayer.

"News reports and judgments made without sufficient information have created no little confusion. There have been very divergent reactions ranging from joyful acceptance to harsh opposition, about a plan whose contents were in reality unknown.

"This document was most directly opposed on account of two fears, which I would like to address somewhat more closely in this letter.

Read on....

The Holy See Press Office'd Explanatory Note on Benedict's Document Motu Proprio Data, "Summorum Pontificum."

EXPLANATORY NOTE ON MOTU PROPRIO "SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM"

VATICAN CITY, JUL 7, 2007 (VIS) - The Holy See Press Office today issued an explanatory note concerning the Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum". The most important paragraphs of the note are given below:

"The Motu Proprio 'Summorum Pontificum' lays down new rules for the use of the Roman liturgy that preceded the reform of 1970. The reasons for such provisions are clearly explained in the Holy Father's letter to bishops which accompanies the Motu Proprio (the two documents have been sent to all the presidents of episcopal conferences and to all nuncios, who have arranged to distribute them to all bishops).

"The fundamental provision is as follows: the Roman liturgy will have two forms ('usus'):

Read on ...

How the Church Lost Generation X, Part I

The Francis Beckwith Story

Francis Beckwith, until a few weeks ago the President of the Evangelical Theological Society, returned to full communion with the Catholic Church. He explained his reversion in an interview with Christianity Today and on the blog Right Reason. This was big news and not everyone one reacted kindly. You can read here how the Evangelical Theological Society's Executive Committee reacted publicly.

By far the most interesting take on the story is given by Jeffery Tucker on the New Liturgical Movement: "Bad liturgy drives people away; embracing our heritage draws them back."

Beckwith, who was born in 1960, is among the first years of Gen X. Listen to what he tells the National Catholic Register:

"Looking back, and knowing what I know now, I believe that the Church’s weakness was presenting the renewal movements as something new and not part of the Church’s theological traditions.

"For someone like me, who was interested in both the spiritual and intellectual grounding of the Christian faith, I didn’t need the 'folk Mass' with cute nuns and hip priests playing 'Kumbaya' with guitars, tambourines and harmonicas. And it was all badly done.

"After all, we listened to the Byrds, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, and we knew the Church just couldn’t compete with them.

"But that’s what the Church offered to the young people of my day: lousy pop music and a gutted Mass. If they were trying to make Catholicism unattractive to young and inquisitive Catholics, they were succeeding.

"What I needed, and what many of us desired, were intelligent and winsome ambassadors for Christ who knew the intellectual basis for the Catholic faith, respected and understood the solemnity and theological truths behind the liturgy, and could explain the renewal movements in light of these."

The Jessica Hahn Story

Oddly enough, his story reminds me of another Gen Xer, Jessica Hahn. Jessica Hahn was a church secretary who was invited to the P.T.L. (Praise the Lord) ministries by televangelist Jimmie Bakker. She wound up having sex with him. That much both accounts agree on. According to his account, she ("that Jezebel") seduced him. According to her account, he, with the compliance of his director, drugged and seduced her. I found her account the more plausible. She was no Delilah much less Ahab's queen. Whichever was nearer the truth, the affair led to Bakker's down fall.

Jessica Hahn having failed to find salvation in evangelical Protestantism sought it in America's quintessential neopagan: Hugh Heffner. He offered all the Playboy empire could offer to rebuild her self esteem: money, praise, and bare breasted fame.

I read her Playboy interview. I must have actually paid money and bought a copy of the magazine. Certainly there was no one I knew from whom I could have borrowed it and it would not have been in the St. John's University library. (The University of Connecticut library had a complete collection in braille, but that is another story.)

Jessica Hahn was born in 1959, a year before Beckwith. Her parents were Catholic, but divorced. Apparently her mother had remarried because she lived with her mother and stepfather. She lived on Long Island on the south shore which is much less fancy than the tony north shore. When she was fourteen (according to her Larry King interview) or sixteen (according to her Playboy interview) she was attracted to an evangelical church she would walk by. It was the music that brought her in.

The year would have been 1973 or 1975 (depending on which version of her story you count the years from.) What was the state of Catholic liturgy at the time? The new Missal of Paul VI was imposed in 1970. Concomitant with this was the banning of the fifteen hundred year old liturgy that had been reformed at Trent. Although Vatican II had ascribed pride of place to Latin in the Latin Rite, there was a de facto ban of Latin for liturgical use. The forty years that the American Catholic was exiled in a liturgical desert had begun: little wonder that Holy Mother Church could not compete by offering "lousy pop music and a gutted Mass."

How to Appeal to the Modern World

Many advocates of change in the Catholic Church of the 1960s and 1970s had a set of assumptions on how to make the Church appeal to the modern world. The more I study Generation X, the more I become convinced that their theories drove away the very people they thought they were appealing to.

More in my next posting.

The Mass of John XXIII?

Fox News in St.Louis reports an upsurge in the traditional mass in Latin among younger Catholics. The New Liturgical Movement reports this and provides a link to the actual broadcast.

The broadcast seems to be talking about the pre-1969 Latin liturgy not the current mass (sometimes referred to as the Novus Ordo mass) celebrated in Latin. It is not always 100% clear. The broadcast is pretty good however. Anytime I have been quoted in the media and they got half of it right, I have considered it a victory. The perfunctory "balance" by Fr. Richard McBrien is predictable. Like so many aging "progressives," he is increasingly irrelevant.

That said, there is a real difficulty in nomenclature.

The current mass is based on the missal that was issued in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. It was claimed to be necessary to implement the reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council. It is variously called the Mass of Paul VI, the Novus Ordo mass, or the mass of the Missal of 1969. Fr. Martin Fox (Bonfire of the Vanities) even suggests at one point calling it the Pauline Mass. (Read Fr. Fox's very useful discussion of the issue.)

Referring to the "Latin mass" is ambiguous. The current mass can be celebrated in Latin, in fact that is the clear intent of Vatican II. Certainly the current mass in Latin with both the people and the priest facing God together would be a vast improvement over what many people suffer through in too many parishes today.

Many people want the restoration of the so called "Tridentine mass," typically by reverting to the Missal of 1962. This mass is sometimes called the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), the Pian mass (after Pius V who issued the Missal implementing the reforms of the Council of Trent) or the Tridentine mass. The 1962 Missal was the latest (prior to Vatican II) revision of the mass in the form it took under Pius V's reforms. But do not be deceived. There was not some new rite developed after the Council of Trent. Calling it "Tridentine" is misleading. Pius V modestly and respectfully pared back to basics a 1,000+ year old rite. There was no break with the past. It developed organically from the practices of the Church in Rome in Peter and Paul's time and from the Jewish ritual that preceded it.

After the second Vatican council, a new missal was issued in 1965. One could argue that this Missal issued in 1965 (right after the Council) already met the requirements of the Council. If you hold to this position, you would argue that the very dramatic changes made in 1969, were not necessary.

Traditionalists who argue for going back to "The old Latin mass" typically call for restoring the Missal of 1962. This Missal was promulgated by Pope John XXIII. This was the mass as it was celebrated during Vatican II.

Rather than calling this the "Tridentine Mass," maybe we should refer to it as the Mass of John XXIII!