How do you say ‘counterrevolution’ in Latin?
In a New York Times op-ed today, Kenneth J. Wolfe doesn’t answer the question in my headline, but he does see a “counterrevolution” in the return of the Tridentine rite. In a piece titled “Latin Mass Appeal,” Wolfe also offers an interesting take on the liturgical development of the past century. Here’s the kicker:
Benedict understands that his younger priests and seminarians — most born after Vatican II — are helping lead a counterrevolution. They value the beauty of the solemn high Mass and its accompanying chant, incense and ceremony. Priests in cassocks and sisters in habits are again common; traditionalist societies like the Institute of Christ the King are expanding.
Chanting Latin, wearing antique vestments and distributing communion only on the tongues (rather than into the hands) of kneeling Catholics, Benedict has slowly reversed the innovations of his predecessors. And the Latin Mass is back, at least on a limited basis, in places like Arlington, Va., where one in five parishes offer the old liturgy.
At the beginning of this decade, Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) wrote: “The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself.” He was right: 40 years of the new Mass have brought chaos and banality into the most visible and outward sign of the church. Benedict XVI wants a return to order and meaning. So, it seems, does the next generation of Catholics.
Liturgy posts are like waving a red flag at a bull, which is always good fun. And I’m sure many will wade in with waves of their own. I’ll start: Apart from Wolfe’s cheerleading for the old rite, I think he makes a number of dubious assertions. For one thing, he calls Benedict “a noted liturgist,” though I think Ratzinger is that only in the sense that he is very interested in liturgy, and of a certain kind. Maybe that qualifies. He also imputes an omnipotence to Archbishop Annibale Bugnini so powerful that it evidently hypnotized popes Pius XII, Paul VI and even John Paul II into indulging in reforms against their will–and even after Bugnini’s death. Hmmm…
He never seems to explain the “paradox” of Pius XII “scoffing” at modernizing the liturgy and then preparing the way for such modernization. And viewing liturgical reform as a sop to Protestants? And the idea that the Tridentine rite and traditionalism are booming seems suspect if one goes by, well, the numbers.
Hey, everyone can have an opinion, and Wolfe takes a legit approach. But I think his history is skewed. I also marvel at the terminology and triumphalism of such apologists. Wolfe, for example, lauds the unvarying “rubrics” of the past rite yet now apparently welcomes the manifold liturgical options that Benedict is introducing. Paradox indeed. In any case, I am not a liturgist, noted or otherwise, so corrections welcome.
UPDATE: Kenneth Wolfe replied in the comments below and I think it merits more prominent play. Here’s what he says:
Goodness, I love liberal Catholics — I really do.
I commend the above writers who took the time to quibble with facts and points. The argument about whether it was fair to note the barely-a-decade parish work of Bugnini in light of the pope’s resume is an interesting one.
But, sadly, I see the same, tired arguments by most others above: Vatican II is settled, the novus ordo is set in stone until the end of the world and anyone who dares remind us there was a Church before the mid-20th century will be maligned as an univited guest.
Like it or not, Benedict XVI is a fan of traditionalists. Two of his biggest actions thus far into the papacy have been the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (essentially removing bishops from decisions regarding the traditional Latin Mass and all the pre-VII sacraments) and the un-excommunication of the four living SSPX bishops. Next up is to fully reconcile the SSPX.
Yet I see scoffing and Upper West Side-esque dismissal by those who (in my opinion) don’t want to face reality. The Church is swinging back to the right. You may not like that, and you are entitled to your opinion. But you ought to act a little less surprised and angry that a traditionalist viewpoint could be aired in the mainstream media.
David – As to your overall point, I would agree – I don’t think of this NYT piece as a particularly well thought out and comprehensive.
I see that in the combox over at the NLM, Wolfe is indicating that he didn’t have the space to write the most thoughtful article possible.
That being said, like one of the commenters at NLM, I tend to believe that the only reason this piece appears in the NYT is that God has blessed Pope Benedict’s various liturgical outreaches with such success.
Paul, thanks for the reference, and space is always an issue in op-ed pieces, which is why they are often heavy on the opinion part. I’m not sure his arguments would hold up at an extended length but worth checking out over at NLM. I think that his final grafs are the strongest and would have worked if backed up by evidence.
I like the way Jeffrey Tucker says the NYT “permitted a Catholic thinker” to write a piece!
Archbishop Timothy Dolan was absolutely right. The NEW YORK TIMES is blatantly anti-Catholic.
How could it have refused publication of the op-ed piece the archbishop submitted a couple of weeks ago and, instead, publish this piece?
Right, Robert Mickens! Where is Bill Donohue when the NYT deliberately sets out to confuse the faithful?
I hope Rita Ferrone gets to write an answering piece.
The author is mistaken. Pope Benedict XVI has not “slowly reversed the innovations of his predecessors”, but those mandated overwhelmingly by an ecumenical (universal and general) council of the Church and the bishops who then implemented them in concrete form. It should be noted that the Pope did so “motu proprio”, that is, of his own volition and, by all accounts, without widespread consultation.
Furthermore, the author attempts to discredit Archbishop Bugnini’s credentials by stating that Pope Pius XII appointed him secretary of the Commission for Liturgical Reform “though Bugnini had barely a decade of parish work”. Unless I am mistaken, Pope Benedict XVI’s total parish experience consisted of 14 months, immediately after his ordination. Nonetheless, the College of Cardinals elected him as “Universal Pastor of the Catholic Church”, as Pope John Paul II was fond of calling the papacy.
I actually think Ratzinger was in a parish for less than a year, and it was not a happy time for him–not his thing. But I think using a year or a decade in a parish as a determining factor for such offices as a yardstick is always dicey.
My wife and I both found this a simplistic piece of trash -(after she sais, “Who is this guy and why does he think Trent liturgy is the best for all time?) – we wondered why the Times published it -
except, BXVI continues the lurch to the righ tand the right loves the liturgy of old as putatively more reverential.
David
For “counterrevolution” perhaps “rerum ueterum reditus”.
One who prefers the mass of Pius V might be described as “homo liturgiae ueteris cupidissimus”.
This description of Wolfe says it all.
“Kenneth J. Wolfe writes frequently for traditionalist Roman Catholic publications.”
Maybe the Times feels this is compensation for not publishing Dolan’s OP-ED. At any rate Wolfe’s op-ed is pure fantasy or outright lying. Take your pick.
Hello David,
For one thing, he calls Benedict “a noted liturgist,” though I think Ratzinger is that only in the sense that he is very interested in liturgy, and of a certain kind. Maybe that qualifies.”
I note your ambivalence. Still, I’ve heard this argument so many times from erstwhile liturgists. What does it take to “qualify” as a”liturgist?” If I may be so bold, there’s been an unhealthy credentialism at work in advocacy for only those with advanced degrees in liturgy from sacraments (usually only from approved institutions) as qualifying. In fairness, had I been writing the sentence, I would have said “a noted theologian with a deep and longstanding interest/study of the liturgy” or somesuch, albeit only because “liturgist” has become a confining and even controversial label. But I would not deny him the title “liturgist” for any who wish to claim it for him.
I by and large endorse the essay, but there are quibbles, and you note some of them. I deplore much of Archbishop Bugnini’s role in the liturgical reforms, but it’s not accurate to represent Sacrosanctum Concilium as his work, or raise his limited parish experience as disqualifying for his work on the CLR. A lot of folks in Rome (not just now, but throughout the ages) would end up disqualified for their jobs if this were the case. Likewise, it’s not strictly accurate to say that the changes he documents began in Advent of 1969, since much of it had already been implemented in many American parishes between then and the end of the Council.
Wolfe is a little overly effusive about the growth to date of the traditional mass; the numbers involved in the traditional mass remain small, as you rightly note, though they are a great deal more than they were even a few years ago, particularly in regards to vocations. God alone knows what it will amount to 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now. At the least it will play a small but significant role in the life of the Church, which seems not unfitting given that it is essentially reflective of the Western Church’s liturgical life for one and a half millennia.
Either way, I remain astonished that the Times published this piece.
Yes, as Bill Mazalla notes above, the sign off tells us a lot. At least at the end the Times identified “Kenneth J. Wolfe” as someone who “writes frequently for traditionalist Roman Catholic publications” so readers (who get that far) will be clued in to the genre in which it is written. Though traditionalists are as yet few in numbers, their publications trumpet the coming of a new day, and frequently feature articles shedding a rosy glow around the story of their past tribulations and present, inevitable ascent to power. Since such articles are written for a very small audience of the like-minded, they can assume agreement on often hotly disputed matters, a good deal of common knowledge, and can express what R. M. Lender above calls “a little overly effusive” attutude toward the “growth to date of the traditional mass.
The oddity here is that this piece is directed to a public, mixed audience, and its last paragraph is designed to assert some highly disputable opinions held by a minority of Catholics. I hope there will be an opportunity for a response to this piece in the Times. either in the Letters to the editor or an Op Ed.
Hello Bob,
…after she sais, “Who is this guy and why does he think Trent liturgy is the best for all time?
In fairness, though, he never actually uses the word “Trent.”
Which is a wise move, because, as many have pointed out – and I will argue this til the cattle come home – it’s a serious misnomer to speak of a “Tridentine mass,” since neither Trent or Pius V really did much of anything to the Roman rite of the mass as it existed, save for very minor clarifications. From the time of Gregory the Great – and I think you could even make an argument for Damasus – the Roman rite changed relatively little for about fourteen centuries.
And on this understanding, it’s not unreasonable to make claims for the traditional Roman rite, since it was, after all, the rite which informed most of the Latin Church’s liturgical life for most of its history. That’s not to say you can’t make arguments in favor of the novus ordo/Pauline missal, only that it’s not unreasonable to hold esteem for the traditional Roman rite.
Hello Susan,
“I hope there will be an opportunity for a response to this piece in the Times. either in the Letters to the editor or an Op Ed.”
I’d be shocked if there won’t be one.
The Tridentine mass (and it’s referred to as such because it reflects the wishes of the conciliar fathers at Trent for the pope to follow through on liturgical reform) is not just a liturgy. It is an instrument that reinforces a sick clerical culture whose ugliness has been revealed within the past few years with revelations of rampant sexual abuse of children, episcopal coverups/lies/deceit and arrogance toward victims and their advocates, etc. The Tridentine mass is, indeed, the work of the ordained.
As the central focus of Catholicism, the liturgy plays a crucial role in setting cultural expectations of ordained and laity. The Tridentine mass reinforces the passive role of the laity, not just in worship but also in larger corporate life, as well. The Novus Ordo liturgy, on the other hand, promotes a truly more “catholic” view of lay-ordained participation in both liturgy and organizational/institutional life.
Given what we’ve learned in the past few years, I would not gloat over the Tridentine’s (and predecessor rites’) contributions to “the Latin Church’s liturgical life for most of its history.”
A future pope wrote more than 43 years ago, “[F]acts, as history teaches, carry more weight than pure doctrine” (Joseph Ratzinger, HIGHLIGHTS OF VATICAN II, Paulist Press/Deus Books, 1966, p. 16).
It should be well past time for this current pope to jettison his attraction toward all stuff Tridentine and learn from the “facts” and conclusions of ecclesial history.
God knows, Benedict needs to!
F.Y.I.-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tridentine_Mass
What devotees of the Tridentine Mass fail to keep in mind is that it was only the end result of the Roman Missal that was published from 1570 to 1962. The last I looked, it was not handed down from on high a la the stone tablets containing the decalogue. There were 15 centuries of various forms of Eastern and Western Catholic liturgy that grew and adapted over time. The 16th through 20th centuries are only a small part of this development.
John Baldovin, SJ (no liturgical slouch in anyone’s book) has published a 10-part series for “Now You Know Media” entitled “The History of the Mass” that I strongly recommend. It puts this “extraordinary rite” into a proper perspective. Fr. Baldovin teaches theology and liturgy at Boston College, MA and is the author of Reforming the Liturgy: a Response to the Critics, published by the Liturgical Press.
This is an extract from the text of the first Kevin Donovan Memorial Lecture, delivered by Baldovin at Heythrop College, University of London, on 26 September 2009 (source: The Tablet, October 3, 2009):
“By the eighth century the Roman Mass achieved a kind of stability in content and structure that would last up until the post-Vatican II reform. But the same certainly cannot be claimed for the way it was celebrated and perceived. When one considers the changes that took place between the eighth century and the twentieth, one has to take into account the following: the prayers at the foot of the altar, the virtual reduplication of the Canon during the offertory, enormous growth and complexity in the liturgical calendar, the placement of the tabernacle behind the altar, removal of the cup from the faithful and the use of unleavened bread, ever decreasing communion of the faithful, the multiplication of private Masses, the silent recitation of the Canon … I trust I have made my point.
The post-Vatican II reform of the liturgy was indeed a radical reform but one that had plenty of precedent in the way the liturgy had changed over the centuries and one that was badly needed.”
Quoting from another source —
“Celebration of the Eucharist in the middle ages seems to have varied rather greatly from city to city, region to region, and from religious order to religious order. Within these variations a number of distinct liturgical families can be discerned, both distinct rites, such as the various Easter liturgies, or the Ambrosian rite of Milan, and variations on the Roman pattern as in the English Sarum Missal . It seems that among these the liturgy of the Church in Rome was both particularly ancient and, owing to the position of the papacy, increasingly prestigious.
It was only with the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation, however, that a standard rite of mass was imposed on the entire Latin Church at the order of the Council of Trent (1545-1549, 1551-1552, 1562-1563). [No such imposition was made on the Eastern churches affiliated with Rome, and religious orders such as the monastic orders and the Dominicans were allowed to retain distinct variations.] This liturgy, popularly known as the “Tridentine Rite” was in effect a standardization of the liturgy used in Rome.”
(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/latinmass2.html)
Hello Joseph,
With all due respect, you make serious and unwarranted conflations.
Clericalism did not begin at Trent, and it certainly did not end at Vatican II or at Advent of 1969. And in any event your very argument is on its face a polemical one; you don’t deny the essential continuity of the pre- and post-Trent Roman rite, only arguing instead that it symbolizes a particularly mindset of some of the Church leadership. But can such mindsets really be confined to any one age or place? I am brought to mind of Chrysostom’s quip from the third sermon on the Acts “I do not think there are many among Bishops that will be saved, but many more that perish” – nearly 12 centuries before Trent.
Likewise with clerical sexual abuse, which we have seen revealed in appalling (but depressingly familiar) form most recently this week in Ireland. The evidence suggests that the periods – and many of the attitudes they embody – before and after the Council have no monopoly on inadequate priestly formation and episcopal coverups. Traditionalists can’t blame it all on the Sexual Revolution, but neither can we deny that so many of the worst coverups were done by Paul VI bishops, some (albeit not all) of them quite liberal, relatively speaking, and some western seminaries were a real mess in the 70′s and 80′s, to put it mildly.
Secondly…while we cannot skip over the role of the laity in the mass (A ‘chosen race, a royal priesthood” SC 14), it is also undeniable at a fundamental level that the ordained *are* central to the sacrifice of the mass, in that Christ “is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of His minister, “the same now offering, through the ministry of priests, who formerly offered himself on the cross” (SC 7) and that “the prayers addressed to God by the priest who presides over the assembly in the person of Christ are said in the name of the entire holy people and of all present.” (SC 33). That’s the council speaking, not Marcel Lefebvre.
I think you’ll wait a long time, and likely in vain, for Benedict to overthrow his liturgical sympathies.
It’s true that BXVI had but a short period during his priesthood when he was directly involved in pastoral work, but if his recollections are to be believed, it was a time of great satisfaction for him.
In “Memoirs 1927-1977,” the Pope, writing as Cardinal Ratzinger, wistfully recounted his pastoral experience, from August 1, 1951, to October 1, 1952, as the assistant pastor at Precious Blood parish in Munich. He appears to have had a busy 14 months saying Masses, preaching, administering the sacraments, providing catechesis, and being “totally responsible for youth ministry.” He noted that “[b]ecause of my scant practical training, I had at first some difficulty with these duties,” but after an adjustment period, his pastoral duties became a “great joy” to him.
When he was transferred to a seminary in Freising to teach theology, he was conflicted:
The transfer “aroused various reactions in me. On the one hand, this was the solution I had desired, the one that would enable me to return to my theological work, which I loved so much. On the other hand, I suffered a great deal, especially in the first year, from the loss of all the human contacts and experiences afforded me by the pastoral ministry. In fact, I even began to think I would have done better to remain in parish work. The feeling of being needed and of accomplishing an important service had helped me to give all I could, and this gave me a joy in the priesthood that I did not experience in so direct a manner in my new assignment.”
When I look at pre-Vatican II life that was informed by the Gregorian rite liturgy, I see a lot of problems, but I also see tremendous fruit. I see saints whom I love – from St. Francis to Dorothy Day – whose spirituality grew in the context of the bad-old-priest-with-his-back-to-the-people-lay-excluding Mass, both lay people, bearing great fruit. THey didn’t feel excluded. They didn’t feel as if the liturgy in that form excused them, as lay people, from being a light to the world.
Would that Commonweal host a discussion along these lines exploring that type of question, instead of the usual tired political, ideological angry, fearful cant.
On the Pope’s Amazon page, I count at least 5 books he authored on the liturgy. Although admittedly many of these books were compilations of lectures he has given over the years. How many lecture invitations does it take to make someone an expert? It is hard to say.
What is undeniable, imho, are the value of Pope Benedict’s insights, such as that of the “closed circle”
“The turning of the priest towards the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself. The common turning towards the East was not a “celebration towards the wall”; it did not mean that the priest “had his back to the people”: the priest himself was not regarded as so important. For just as the congregation in the synagogue looked together toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together “towards the Lord.” As one of the Fathers of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy, J. A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession towards the Lord. They did not close themselves into a circle, they did not gaze at one another, but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us.” (Spirit of the Liturgy)
Back up a second. Whose stereotypes is this confirming? Cui bono? Not the archbihsop of New York, imho.
So if I were Timothy Dolan, I’d be even more miffed at the Times than I was before. Not only does the Times reject my piece-even though I am the Archbishop of New York–it publishes this piece of dubious merit by a relative unknown, on a very arcane topic fairly removed from the concerns of the pluralist ublic square –which I’m trying to address, and to establish my authority, given my role, in addressing.
Moreover, I’d be annoyed that the heart and future of Catholicsm were portrayed in a way that, realistically speaking, is so at odds with mainstream culture–and the vision of warm, engaged,down-to-earth, “dynamic orthodoxy” that I’m trying to project.
So, whatever the traditionalists think should be the case, the overwhelming majority of American Catholics aren’t going that route. And the idea of a “counter-revolution” is going to seem odd, and at least vaguely unsettling to them–not to mention the non-Catholics in New York. The article itself seems, well, slightly off. Don’t forget the deep seated ideas that Catholics are going to work to make the Pope take over–why use a military term, if not to invoke this? I assume it’s the NYT’s term.
It subtly feeds into the stereotype of Catholics as pre-modern, anti-democratic, and not committed to playing by the rules of the ideas and ideals of our American polity. Oh, and don’t forget, slightly creepy too–the prejudice against hocus pocus and secrecy ( this came out the same week that the Irish scandal hit the papers, and that there is significant push back against the bishops’ involvement on health care.)
A month ago, Benedict XVI endorsed, at least in principle, the celebration of the liturgy using a prominent 16th century alternative to the Tridentine rite, the Book of Common Prayer.
I am not sure what we can extrapolate from this, but I am sure we can come up with some ideas that are as exaggerated as the claims of “counter revolution”:
The Pope is promoting liturgical variety like that before Trent.
The Mass is theologically the same despite differences in “content and structure” found in the various forms.
Standardizing liturgical forms was more a function of the printing press than of any spiritual impulse.
So the NYT publishes an obligatory article for Catholics today to acknowledge the first day of Advent. Fine. And the piece, furthermore, plays to the desires of some Catholic conservatives by focusing on the Latin Mass. Fine again. But, the article’s plot consists of a wild conspiracy theory constructed as follows:… an accused Freemason, Annibale Bugnini, infiltrated the Church, gained the trust of 4-5 Popes (Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II), fooled all the liturgists involved in Vatican Council II, and radically changed our centuries old mass structure. And now the supposed hero of conservatives, Pope Benedict XVI, the same Holy Father criticized by conservatives for writing the liberal *Caritas in Veritate,* is now slowly saving us from liturgical heresy. What stuff. Was the article written by Dan Brown, or by the author credited, Kenneth J. Wolfe? Wow. How did this get by the NYT’s religion editor? – TL
RM Lender–The issue you expanded on regarding who qualifies as a liturgist is an interesting one that I don’t have an expert answer to, if there is one. A couple things: One is that there is much lamentation from more traditional circles that too many people consider themselves liturgists and hence do what they like with liturgy. So it seems there would be some value to “credentialling.” Also, wouldn’t it be analagous to who can call themself a theologian? A lot of people could, and do, but I think calling Joseph Ratzinger a theologian rings truer than calling him a “noted liturgist.” And if that’s true, we get into the weeds of qualifications.
PS: JOseph Gannon, for all I know of Latin I should be deleting your comments for profanity!
Alas. Fact-checking at the NYTimes seems to have gone the way of the Dodo bird. I once wrote an op-ed in which I had to give a source for King Canute ordering the tide to stop. The NYT editor finally was only satisfied with a cite to the Hollingshead’s Chronicles. We have truly fallen on dark times when the Wolfe piece didn’t get a going over from beginning to end. A sign of anti-Catholicism or a sign of contempt that facts matter when it comes to Catholicism?
A quick google for conferences on the Pope’s liturgical thought brings up this little sample of conferences advertised in English in the last couple of years. Not to mention the many conferences headlined by then-Cardinal Ratzinger.
Cork, Ireland, July 12, 2008
Budapest, Aug 21-24, 2008
Oxford, Nov 1, 2008
Cremona, Italy, March 14, 2009
The Cork conference reprised in 2009 for 2 days and is scheduled again for 2010. How many conferences on a person’s thought on a subject add up to expertise?
Kathy, I think you confusing notoriety with expertise.
Michaele and Tareq Salahi are receiving a lot of coverage, but it’s a stretch to call them White House “insiders.”
What a piece of dribble with just enough skewed facts to make it seem a historical reality.
You all can argue all day long about the liturgical credentials of this pope but remember this – it was a general council that worked for over a year, voted on (only 4 negative votes), and implemented Sacrosanctum Concilium. Some of the posts above reference the classical work (supported by our Boston College colleague) The Mass in the Roman Rite by J.J.Jungman. If you read that work, it is very difficult to make some of the above statements…..except that the liturgy constantly changes by region, rite, locality, etc. The conclusions and assumptions expressed by Wolfe belong in the Wanderer not the NYT.
Some day, someone will write the history of the last 30 years (counter-revolution may actually be part of an accurate title) in which a small minority of men (again, not a church council) have launched a revanchist movement based on one pope’s motu proprio to overturn the litrugical initiatives and insights of Vatican II. This book will eventually show the behind the scenes (rivalling even Dan Brown) moves; the folks who were fired, condemned, silenced, or forced into retirement in the name of the “reform of the reform” and revisionist liturgy. Leading figures will be such astute folks as Ottaviano & Sacram Liturgiam, Medina, Pell, etc.
Liturgy is a lived expression of ecclesiology – would suggest that what you are seeing expressed by Wolfe is the ongoing fight over the future of ecclesiology in the catholic church. Do you really think that this article would even make sense in the southern hemisphere – Africa, South America, India/China, SE Asia. The Roman Rite outlined by Wolfe is the exhausted liturgy of Europe – an exhausted shell of the church. All B16 is doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic – e.g. his Anglican Constitution, his non-response to the Irish abuse reports, his revisionist moves about Vatican II.
David, are you seriously equating scholarly conferences with this week’s tabloid sensations?
Yes, Kathy, I’ve never made a more serious analogy in my life. Ever.
Today at Mass in my parish the Sanctus was sung in Latin as was the Agnus Dei. As far as I could tell I was the only one who sang along in Latin. Forgive me if I say it is so puerile to hint in any way that Latin makes the church holier. Before Vatican II there were so many who insisted that Latin was the only language to pray in. Some still do. It cannot be stressed enough that Latin was the common language and that is what Vulgate means which is the Latin translation’s name by Jerome. Whatever one wants to criticize what Jimmy wrote above, the fact is that the Mass advocated by Ratzinger and Wolfe is the Mass of Pius VI. 1500 years after Christ.
Lovers of the Tridentine Mass love to compare the bell ringing with holiness. They should know that the ringing of the bells at the Sanctus and consecration were originally reminders that the solemn part of the liturgy was beginning or happening because the Presider was so far away the people could not see him. Much less make it to communion.
Liturgy is sometimes described in purely human terms, as though the Mass is a form of human discourse.
Sacral discursive acts such as the tolling of bells and the use of sacral language have no place in human discourse. They are too unclear. But is sacral discourse appropriate as a language between God and human beings?
Kathy,
“closed circle” and “they did not gaze at one another” – whether your thinking (or your predictable regurgitations), Jungmann’s or the Pope’s – I don’t buy it. Are you, Jungmann and or the Pope denying that Christ becomes present in the bread and wine at consecration during the Liturgy of the Eucharist? In either orientation the priest and people are facing in the same direction – that is toward the Lord found in the body and blood. “Closed circle,” “gazing at one another,” “Priest turning his back on the people” and like analogies are fallacious appeals to someone’s/group’s emotions, if you ask me.
Hello Prof. Kaveny,
So if I were Timothy Dolan, I’d be even more miffed at the Times than I was before.
I agree entirely.
It’s a mystery to me. Like the piece or hate it, it is hard to understand why you would reject even a bowdlerized letter from Dolan, but print this instead.
All I can suggest – from some years working for a major daily – is that the typical newsroom simply does not “get” the Church. No, not even their “religion” staffer(s). It’s not to say they don’t try; but however bad one may think newspaper staffs are in regards to (say) business knowledge or science, they really are at sea on religious topics. It’s almost as if I can hear the conversation: “For God’s sake, I’m tired of the whining about Dolan’s letters – come on, Rita, give me whatever is on the top of the stack that sounds pro-Catholic and is short enough and let’s print it.”
In the choice of op-eds I think there is also naturally–and understandably and justifiably–a desire to provoke debate, and sometimes just to provoke. We see that all the time, and many such pieces are commented on (blasted) here all the time. (A recent favorite was the WSJ have Karl Rove rip into Obama for deficits that Rove helped create. That’s rich.) Such provocations can enlighten or foster debate, and often just tick us off. That’s all to the good. And there can be flat-out plain old opinions on issues of the day, the facts and parameters of which are known to all. But in this Wolfe piece and similar columns there is the tricky need to explain the facts and opine, and the latter have to be legit. Having a proponent of the old rite (whatever one wants to call it) defend and promote it is fine.
Hello David,
One is that there is much lamentation from more traditional circles that too many people consider themselves liturgists and hence do what they like with liturgy. So it seems there would be some value to “credentialling.” Also, wouldn’t it be analagous to who can call themself a theologian?
Well, the first thing I might say is that we have authoritative documents on who can call him/herself a “theologian” – but I am not aware of the same in regards to liturgists.
I don’t mean to re-fight liturgy battles here, but it’s all of a muchness with the position of one priest I knew who irritatedly insisted that he was his “own liturgist.” There is tremendous value in sacramental theological scholarship, but I truly wonder how much positive value we as The Church have gotten out of the flood of liturgists we’ve had over the last 40 years. It’s trite, but it’s not unreasonable: Say the black, do the red.
But now I’m off on a tangent I said I wouldn’t get off on. As I said before, if it had been my letter I would (among other things) have called the Holy Father a “theologian,” not a liturgist, which is not to say he can’t carry his own end of a liturgical conversation, which is all I was really getting at with my crack about credentialism.
“A recent favorite was the WSJ hav[ing] Karl Rove rip into Obama for deficits that Rove helped create. That’s rich.”
Some might even call it chutzpah. Or something unprintable.
is sacral discourse appropriate as a language between God and human beings?
God understands everything. Humans have a problem understanding anything. So I would guess that human language, using human symbols, would be the most appropriate choice for any dialogue between humans and God. I far prefer using English when I talk to my French brother-in-law, since he understand both and I understand only English.
Besides, God already chose to descend to our level, and speak our language, in an effort to communicate with us. I do not see why he would turn away from that.
Now if you want to defend sacral language as a human discourse, full of human symbols and devices to convey human ideas about God, you might be able to make a case for it. But it is going to be difficult to reconcile “full and active participation” by humans with the use of non human discourse.
David
Your insinuations are distasteful and merely reveal your ignorance of Latin. You asked a question. I proposed some wording. There is no one Latin word that is the equivalent of “counterrevolution” and in fact there is no one word that translates “revolution”. If you want information and are not willing to ask on the blog, send me an email.
Jim, while it makes sense that men speak a language they both understand, it also makes sense if people sometimes use language that says more than can be communicated in words. A man might kiss his wife–what does that mean? It’s a discourse appropriate to the relationship.
I think that God and human beings are called to intimacy, and this intimacy can be expressed in deep ways, which are symbolic.
Joseph Gannon, my sincere apologies. I am indeed fairly ignorant of Latin and was making a lame attempt at humor to indicate that. I truly appreciate your interventions and wish I knew enough Latin to better understand the words you were using to convey the sense of the term. Again, apologies.
Mr. Mickens,
You said:
“Pope Benedict XVI has not ‘slowly reversed the innovations of his predecessors’, but those mandated overwhelmingly by an ecumenical (universal and general) council of the Church and the bishops who then implemented them in concrete form. It should be noted that the Pope did so ‘motu proprio’, that is, of his own volition and, by all accounts, without widespread consultation.”
Please show me where the Second Vatican Council and “the bishops” mandated an all-vernacular Mass, Mass versus populum, etc. Here is something, however, that was mandated by the Council: “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Par. 36.) Apparently, “the bishops…overwhelmingly” mandated the changes, yet the synod of bishops rejected the Novus Ordo Missae in 1967. Paul VI went on with the Missal of 1969 anyway. So, saying that the New Missal was mandated by “Vatican II and the bishops” is wrong. A few bishops, a few priests, pushed for these radical changes and got their way.
As far as Benedict XVI and the motu proprio go, it is only a matter of justice. Benedict XVI clarified that the Traditional Mass was “never abrogated” after proponents of the New Mass stated for years that it was indeed abrogated. If you prefer the New Mass, fine, but let those of us who love the Traditional Mass have it. I think that we need to look at this issue with a genuine “liberal” approach, meaning, clergy, religious, and laity have access to both the new and old Mass. Let one decide for oneself which liturgy to go to.
Mr. Carrion – you state a list of events and a chronology that may have happened but you interpret your own way…..”apparently, the bishops….overwhelmingly, etc. Not sure that many historians would agree with your words or your statement that it is a matter of justice?
It may be a “graced” decision to allow access to this rite but it plays havoc with ecclesiology – that may be the point, I am no expert in that area.
Sacral language – my education was heavily informed by Rahner’s sacramental theology….not sure that sacral language was defined as bells, smoke, incense, etc.
Here is a much clearer statement about eucharist and liturgy from John Dominic Crossan:
The Christian Eucharist has two intertwined layers. First, it is bread and wine, the standard summary of a Mediterranean meal, the normal synthesis of Mediterranean eating. It is, in other words, about food. Throughout his life, Jesus insisted that food, as the material basis of life, was to be fairly and equitably distributed to all God’s children around God’s table. He imagined God-as-Householder (he said “Father” but that was patriarchal normalcy) of the House-World or Homemaker of the Home-earth. And his question was – as in any well-run family – whether everyone had enough or some members had far too much while others had far too little.
Second, none of that was about compassionate charity but about distributive justice. (The Roman Empire did not crucify you for insisting on the former but for insisting too much on that latter.) So Jesus, having lived for non-violent justice died from violent injustice. When one dies an ordinary death, we speak of the separation of body and soul. But a violent death – like crucifixion – involves a separation of body and blood.
In forging the magnificent eucharistic ritual, those twin layers were inextricably linked together to proclaim this: if you live for justice very strongly you could die from injustice very swiftly. When those earliest Christians participated in that ritual, they understood all too well what it meant and to what they were committing themselves. They were pledging themselves to a way of life by participating in the life (definitely) and death (possibly) of Jesus.
They did not have time to debate about the exact mechanics of the “transubstantiation” of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ (watch for red herrings, always watch for red herrings) because they were too acutely aware of their own “transubstantiation” from Roman citizens to Christian traitors.
Finally, then, we can face our question. In general: who should accept the eucharistic ritual? Those and only those who are intentionally, self-consciously, and publicly committing themselves to live like Jesus and, if unfortunately ever necessary, to die like Jesus. That is, of course, an on-going lifelong process and it is precisely such eucharistic participation that initiates, continues, and consummates it. The eucharist both proclaims and empowers a life, as Paul would say, “in Christ” or, better “in the body of Christ.”
So, for me op-eds such as Mr. Wolfe’s miss the penultimate point and focus/argue about accidents not essentials.
Kathy, the Cork conference was a get-together of well known pushers of the Extraordinary Form, not a disinterested scholarly conference.
A liturgist can be defined as one who has at least a PhD in Liturgy, and also as one who has taught it academically and been involved in liturgical formation in practice. A theologian likewise is one who has a doctorate in theology and who continues to participate in professional theological activity. Joseph Ratzinger has a doctorate in Patristic theology (Augustine) and a Habilitation on St. Bonaventure.
R. M. Lender, the article does mention Trent: “All this was a radical break from the traditional Latin Mass, codified in the 16th century at the Council of Trent. For centuries, that Mass served as a structured sacrifice with directives, called “rubrics,” that were not optional.”
I don’t share the view of Tridentine Catholicism as a bad thing; it was a school of saints. But Vatican II decided it was time for a new, more biblical and world-engaged style.
Goodness, I love liberal Catholics — I really do.
I commend the above writers who took the time to quibble with facts and points. The argument about whether it was fair to note the barely-a-decade parish work of Bugnini in light of the pope’s resume is an interesting one.
But, sadly, I see the same, tired arguments by most others above: Vatican II is settled, the novus ordo is set in stone until the end of the world and anyone who dares remind us there was a Church before the mid-20th century will be maligned as an univited guest.
Like it or not, Benedict XVI is a fan of traditionalists. Two of his biggest actions thus far into the papacy have been the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (essentially removing bishops from decisions regarding the traditional Latin Mass and all the pre-VII sacraments) and the un-excommunication of the four living SSPX bishops. Next up is to fully reconcile the SSPX.
Yet I see scoffing and Upper West Side-esque dismissal by those who (in my opinion) don’t want to face reality. The Church is swinging back to the right. You may not like that, and you are entitled to your opinion. But you ought to act a little less surprised and angry that a traditionalist viewpoint could be aired in the mainstream media.
Mr Carrion:
Sacrasanctum Concilium no. 36 includes four parts.
Indeed, the first says that “the use of the Latin language, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin rites”. But the second part says that “since use of the vernacular…may frequently be of great advantage to the people, a wider use may be made of it…”
The third part of SC 36 clearly states that “it is for the competent ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Article 22:2 (i.e. bishops conferences) to decide WHETHER, AND TO WHAT EXTENT, the vernacular language is to be used”. Those decisions “have to be approved, that is, CONFIRMED, by the Apostolic See”, this third part says.
And this is what happened.
Sacrosanctum Concilium — and a number of the implementing documents on the liturgical reform that came from the Holy See after the Council — clearly gave bishops’ conferences authority over this matter, including translations.
“Translations from the Latin for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority already mentioned (i.e. bishops conferences),” says SC 36 (4).
Whether the end result decades later was to the liking of this Pope or anyone else is another question totally. What cannot be disputed, however, is that the bishops, priests and people overwhelming chose to expand the use of the vernacular and this choice was consistently confirmed by the Apostolic See.
The measures taken in Rome over the past two decades or so to limit the authority of episcopal conferences could not have succeeded in the immediate aftermath of Vatican Council II. The Council Fathers would have protested.
Robert Mickens sets the record straight.
Since 1968 the Vatican has worked hard to rescind the authority recognized to the episcopacy by Vatican II. The way the bishops are dragooned into accepting the ghastly new translations of the Roman Missal are a stunning demonstration of how powerless episcopal conferences have become.
Fifty posts in just about 16 hours–not bad for the end of a long holiday weekend. It never ceases to amaze me how abortion and liturgy can set our hackles on edge. Wow. Wars, genocide, massive unemployment–ho, hum. But someone don a maniple or nun senza habit come down the church aisle in a liturgical dance and we dial 911.
Maybe we can get a great thread going on why this twin topics so excite us? Do they touch something deep down inside? If so, what is it? I really do mean this. Or maybe it just tends to arouse (pun intended) dotCommonwealers in a special way. If that is true, then why is that the case?
@Anthony Andreass – The answer seems fairly obvious to me: Those persons in favor of war and genocide seldom lay down their machine guns or log off stormforce for a long enough time to make it to the dotCommonweal blog… ;)
Without someone who supports those opposing viewpoints, all of us who support peace and human dignity would make for a pretty boring discussion – hence, it doesn’t happen much.
That being said, I assume that our nation’s current wars of aggression actually do get much more commentary on this blog than on much of the Christian blogosphere.
A query: any comments on the quality of the Latin in Eucharistic Prayers 2-4?
What is the provenance of these prayers? I think EP 2 is based on the Canon of Hippolytus.
I guess one issue that gets lost in this discussion of liturgy is the role of African and Asian bishops in Vatican II. I know Bishop (later Cardinal) Joseph Malula of the Democratic Republic of Congo was a proponent of the use of African languages in the liturgy. This wasn’t just a conspiracy theory as presented in the NYT piece, although it would make for a good B-movie. I would cast Mel Gibson as Paul VI in the film version.
“Goodness, I love liberal Catholics — I really do.”
And you should Mr. Wolfe! Our faults may be openly displayed on dotcwl, but without us the Latin Rite would have only paunchy men in red vests smoking big cigars, and doing poor imitations of Chesterton, Waugh, and Belloc. You’re lucky to have us–as long as we stay!
I don’t think these questions are profitably addressed in liberal – conservative terms.
The question is spiritual: is God in our midst or not? OonefromTobit rightly says that the Lord Jesus is present in the Eucharist. And yet the Mass is worship offered to the Father. It is made possible through our union with Christ.
Can we touch God in the Mass? How? How do we say and do this?
“but without us the Latin Rite would have only paunchy men in red vests smoking big cigars, and doing poor imitations of Chesterton, Waugh, and Belloc. You’re lucky to have us–as long as we stay!”
Really? So liberal Catholics are all young and svelte and trendy?
Take a photo at the next Call to Action conference and get back to me, Margaret.
Really not worthy of you.
Lord, none of us is worthy!
ick! – behold the uniform and ponderous masculine corpulence of the crowd that recently turned up for the first Extraordinary Form Mass in Knoxville in living memory.
!The horror!
;)
(Though I may be mistaken, my sense is that they are no more Caucasian than the regular commenters on this dotCommonweal…)
To get slightly off topic and to encourage more cross pollination with NLM articles, I recommend this recent essay from a California pastor who believes that the presence of the two forms of Latin Rite are mutually beneficial within his diverse parish.
Yet I see scoffing and Upper West Side-esque dismissal by those who (in my opinion) don’t want to face reality.
I presume the parts of the UWS that are home to Opus Dei and other realist Catholics are exempt from this characterization. I have to say, though, I didn’t hear a single person on the 1 train this morning discussing the traditionalist movement in the church, dismissively or otherwise. Maybe everyone was just worn out from shopping.
On Mr. Wolfe’s point on “liberal” Catholics. I’m sure he is well aware that the most “liberal” Catholic (in the purest sense of the word) are those denizens of the American right who think that they can marry Catholicism with the ultra-individualism of the Enlightenment. I, for one, find it highly ironic that those who yearn most for a Mass where the liturgical movements are heavily influenced by the French royal court are also those who are most closely aligned to the American evangelicals and their tawdry “liturgy”. And the notion of a papacy under the spell of a misguided archbishop is too paranoid and Weigelonian to be taken seriously.
All that said, I am sympthatic to some of Mr. Wolfe’s points. My Sunday Mass is a Latin Novus Ordo, and I do enjoy attending the extraordinary form when I can. I recognize its clear limitations (weak liturgy of the Word, lack of participation, and exagerrated sense of clerical superiority). I believe that Pope Benedict issued the moto proprio not to restore the tridentine Mass, but to improve the Novus Ordo, to make it more spiritual and serene, less dumbed-down and Protestantized. He said as much in his accompanying letter. My main problem with the EF Mass, however, is not so much the liturgy itself, but the people who attend it. As a traditionally-minded fellow once told me, those people are full of spite and bitterness, and he didn’t go to Mass to be spiteful and bitter. He has a point. Mr. Wolfe could easily make the points he wants to make without going over the top.
Can’t say I’m surprised at what an interesting thread that this has become.
As may be obvious from my comments by now, I am a younger Catholic with some sympathy for more traditional liturgy (as distinct from being a traditionalist as such). In this respect I can appreciate a lot of what Mr. Wolfe has to say even as I charitably quibble here and there with the manner in which he expressed it.
Likewise, I appreciate what Morning’s Minion just said in accusing traditionalists as being people who “are full of spite and bitterness.” I think there is some truth to this, but in my experience, and that of others I know, it’s unfair as a blanket accusation; it is there, but not so widespread. And I can sympathize with why they might be so: for many of these, especially those old enough to have lived through the change, a thing they loved and revered and had been raised with was suddenly taken away, and their desire for it was repeatedly stomped on as illegitimate; tolerance and indulgence would be extended to almost every group, but not theirs. Nonetheless, it doesn’t make this kind of attitude right or spiritually healthy. It’s my hope now that the traditional liturgy has been “freed” and becomes more widely available, that these attitudes will dissipate – and my impression is that this is happening, slowly, especially as new people without the baggage of those difficult years join such communities.
Charity is needed all around.
David Gibson
No need to apologize. I overreacted and now feel rather foolish about the whole thing.
As I read these comments, I was somewhat surprised at how threatened many liberal Catholics are at the very existence of the Latin Mass. Margaret Steinfels actually attempted an insult or two! Being a really nice lady (in addition to her brilliance and erudition) though, her insults were mild and somewhat humorous.
But really! I believe that you (liberal Catholics) ought perhaps to step back a little and look at the forest. You’re not in danger, unless you believe that Communion bells and an Agnus Dei or two will cause you to implode and attain annihilation. Wont happen.
As a liberal conservative, which I suppose would make me the most liberal commentator on this blog, may I suggest that this conversation does not “invite the systemic and calm examination of premises, arguments and conclusions” as referred to by Cathleen Kaveny on the previous blog. Perhaps it would be in the best interest of the Commonweal to calmly and systematically exam the premise, argument and conclusion of Mr.Wolfe’s op-ed piece. Then Mr.Wolfe perhaps would be willing to respond to Commonweal’s systematic examination of his premise, argument and conclusion.
I repeat the op-ed was trash and also the suthor’s rejoinder post, provoking(rightly) a few snarks back.
So much for the spirituality and ethics of blogging.
An interesting thread though.
I’m less than clear how Latin or thr Tridentine liturgy helps us “touch God?”
I also was confounded to know Nancy is a liberal conservative -whatever that means
Finally, to be brutally frank, I don’t give a damn how to say counterevolution in Latin.
Bob, a liberal-conservative is one who believes in conserving all of The Truth, and that The Truth is for all Persons.
To be frank, I see humor in many of David’s comments, but perhaps this blog needs not a correction so much as a “do over”.
At the risk of using an inapt metaphor: I really think the NY Times editorial staff exhibited a tin ear in running this piece. Surely the elephant in the room is the coming change in the English translation – an event that is sure to have a much greater impact on mainstream Catholics than the “traditionalist” movement has managed to achieve so far. The parallel was there for the author to draw – it was a batting-practice pitch, but he failed to so much as swing at it.
That sense of disconnection and bewilderment that folks apparently experienced in the ’60′s – not to mention the sense that changes were being foisted upon them whether they wanted them or not – would seem to be an important experience for pastoral leaders to draw on in preparing to implement the new translation. What did we do wrong then, and how can we do it better this time?
.
The overall narrative for many traditionalists is one of rupture: what had existed before, and was highly treasured, was taken away abruptly, and was replaced by something cheap and workmanlike. Wolfe’s piece certainly sounds this strain.
Yet the truth of the matter is that the liturgical reforms of Vatican II were many decades in the making, in the Liturgical Movement that began in the 19th century. Pius XII actually supported the movement in some ways, most notably by endorsing modern methods of biblical scholarship, but also in making some relatively modest changes of his own (I believe he revised/restored the Good Friday and Holy Saturday liturgies?)
Really, the reformed liturgy is itself the fruit of prayerful scholarship, reflection and experience with the so-called “Tridentine” liturgy. The one led to the other.
“I believe that Pope Benedict issued the moto proprio not to restore the tridentine Mass, but to improve the Novus Ordo, to make it more spiritual and serene, less dumbed-down and Protestantized.”
If that was his goal, he chose a circumlocutory way of achieving it. I’m not a fan of having the the extraordinary form exist side-by-side with the ordinary form.
The ordinary form is perfectly capable of achieving the solemnity and depth that tradtionalists long for. It can be celebrated in Latin, and sung from the Solesmes books or Palestrine polyphany, and so on. To reach those subliminal heights requires someone who is both learned in the art of liturgy and imaginative in applying it – in short, it requires that dreaded specialist, the liturgist.
Shunting traditionalists off to their own chapels and liturgical celebrations makes it less rather than more likely that the ordinary form will rise above the middling standards that so many parishes settle for.
The question of how to “touch God” comes second.
This is the first question: is there any room in our liturgies for God to enter? Or have we pre-empted the divine invasion? Have our liturgies resolved every question? Are all our symbols reducible to values? Is there any moment in which the vertical takes precedence over the horizontal–a moment in which we collectively cry out with Christ for the salvation of the world?
@Jim Pauwels
“Shunting traditionalists off to their own chapels and liturgical celebrations makes it less rather than more likely that the ordinary form will rise above the middling standards that so many parishes settle for.”
As far as can be seen from first 28 months of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio, you are essentially wrong. While long-term traditionalists may hypothetically be ‘escaping’ to their “their own chapels,” far more faithful and priests have come out of the woodwork and are empowered by the E.F. to improve the O.F.
Read the story that I linked above. If your mind can stomach it, read a few months worth of Fr. Zuhlsdorf‘s postings or New Liturgical Movement.
Many of the regular celebrations of the Extraordinary Form Mass which have commenced since 7/7/07 (or 9/14/07, if you prefer), have commenced at parishes which also have several Ordinary Form Masses each weekend as well. Indeed, the availability of the Extraordinary Form at those parishes which are consciously raising the Ordinary Form above “middling standards” is certainly out of all proportion to the availability of the Extraordinary Form in the Universal Church. (i.e., if 1% of all parishes have the E.F., I am willing to bet that 3% or 10% or 20% of those parishes where the O.F. exceeds “middling standards” are those parishes where the E.F. co-exists with the O.F. or will soon)
(This co-existence is only possible because of the grace of God and Summorum Pontificum)
The information is out there. You can find it if you want to. Stop making uninformed comments.
Hello Jim,
You are right to observe that the Liturgical Reform Movement began long before 1962; it did not spring ex nihilo upon an unsuspecting Catholic world. I know Mr. Wolfe had limited word count to work with, but this is not captured in his essay. Pius XII’s reforms of the Holy Week showed that it was possible, moreover, to make fairly major substantive changes to the order of the mass, and this became a kind of template for the consilium in the next decade.
But having said that…the rejoinder is to ask whether, or to what degree, the reforms we actually got in 1965-1973 really were a consummation of that movement, or something far more radical than most of its proponents envisioned? In respect to the Vatican II bishops, we must confront the reality many traditionalists tend to avoid: these same bishops who voted for what was a fairly restrained constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium – which let us not forget called for Latin to remain a key language of the liturgy and for chant to retain pride of place in its sacred music – by and large were the same ones who signed off on a lot of radical experiments even before the new missal was issued.
But it’s much harder to make the case for reformers before the Council; and some of those still alive in the late 60′s were already sounding notes of concern about where things were headed. There was something in the air, seemingly, and it swept all before it; I can at least understand how some who lived through it might have thought all this stuff was the movement of the Holy Spirit.
This gets to your point about “changes were being foisted upon” Catholics whether they wanted them or not. The foisting was a lot more widespread, as I just noted, than Annabale Bugnini or the Consilium; but it is not unreasonable to call it “foisting” in many instances just the same: A profoundly new missal, new lectionary, new rubrics, and a new (and very rushed) translation, at least in English. All in the space of a few years; without precedent in Church history. The new translation represents a much more modest development (and has been fought over for quite a stretch of time now), but I think you are right to warn against the dangers of history repeating itself.
I likewise agree that simply creating some new communities for traditionalists risks walling them off, even drawing off the very laypeople or priests most likely to work for such reforms of the ordinary form, rather than the kind of “mutual enrichment” the Pope spoke of. I think if the thing is to work you’d want to see some kind of presence, even if very minimal, of the 1962 missal in most parishes, eventually. But we are a long way off from that happening.
ps, to everyone – While I don’t expect it to trouble anyone here, the very title of this conversation (“How do you say ‘counterrevolution’ in Latin?”) concedes the argument so far as a traditionalist is concerned.
The Church, of Her nature, cannot be said to participate in “revolutions.” Any change or development is, at the most extreme, to be seen an “organic development” of what previously existed and was taught.
If the supporters of the “Bugninian” (sp?) interpretation of the Second Vatican Council view it as a “revolution” (against which a “counterrevolution” could now be said to be occurring), then they are – linguistically, at least – abandoning the possibility of a conversation that could bring the Kenneth Wolfes of the world into agreement with them.
Paul, it was Kenneth Wolfe who used the language of revolution, not those who support the liturgical reform/renewal. I think that’s your tell.
Jim P., a good point about the impact of the new translations versus the EF. (I love using acronyms that make me feel insider-y. I feel like I could get into a state dinner at the Vatican.)
On a general note, I think this thread (outside my own interventions, I suspect) has been largely well-behaved and informative, certainly moreso than the usual threads on liturgy. That is just by way of thanks.
David-
Great posting and the follow-up was good too. And most of us behaved (mostly). As we all know, we can be an unruly bunch.
I think when we discuss these hot-button issues, we should follow the sage counsel of a leading Jesuit spiritual writer (ahem Jim Martin) and remember that a healthy sense of humor is a prerequisite before commenting on postings like this and before almost everything in life. Otherwise, we can take our own opinions (as well as those of the hierarchy) far too seriously. And, again, if we can’t speak the truth, or what we perceive to be the truth in charity, then we should hold back our bloggings.
Anthony
About who is a liturgist?, it seems to me that there are two very different kinds — the historians and the artists who actually invent the new forms. They are not mutually exclusive, and both are necessary. HOwever, the artists are conspicuously lacking in the anglophone world.
In an effort to represent both sides in the argument concerning innovation and the “disruption” of tradition, here are some wise words from the poet T. S. Eliot about tradition and poetry which I think apply to tradition and liturgy.. While Eliot seems to be a staunch conservative, bear in mind that within the tradition of English poetry he wrote some of the most revolutionary poetry ever. There really is something here for everyons.
” We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. And I do not mean the impressionable period of adolescence, but the period of full maturity. 2
Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity. 3
No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities. We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. And I do not mean the impressionable period of adolescence, but the period of full maturity. 2
Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity. 3
No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities.”
From “Tradition and the Individual Talent”.
Hi, Paul,
Thanks for the link to New Liturgical Movement – looks like an interesting site – in fact, think I’ll bookmark it. Jeffrey Tucker is usually pretty interesting.
I’m already aware of Fr. Zuhlsdorf and his one-man vendetta against ICEL translations. No thanks.
St. Margaret’s sounds like an interesting place to worship – if we make it back to San Diego, perhaps we’ll be able to check it out (it has to be better than the dreadful liturgy we attended at their cathedral a couple of years ago). I don’t argue with anything in his homily.
Summorum Pontificum probably has had a big impact in places where it has had a big impact – which is to say, places with a sympathetic pastor who has traditionalist leanings. But there aren’t many of them. In most parishes and dioceses, to quote a friend with traditional sympathies, “it’s a dead letter”. There are many reasons for a pastor to simpy ignore it.
Btw, I suggested traditionalists were “being shunted” off to their own isolated communities. You took that as “escaping”. But escaping from something is a very different dynamic than being shunted aside. My fundamental quarrel with the extraordinary form is that its coexistence with the ordinary form is a breathtaking sign of disunity. If we can’t gather as one to worship, then what does unity even mean?
@ David Gibson – ah. oops. thank you for the catch.
That was a foolish thing for Wolfe to write, as I see it – but then, as I remarked above, this piece is not particularly well thought out.
That being said, I do like that the op-ed (currently 7th on the “most-emailed” list) is shining the 10,000 watt spotlight on episodes such as Pope Paul VI’s unawareness that he had abolished the Octave of Pentecost.
(or, I suppose we would now say that “he had abolished the Octave of Pentecost from the calendar of the Missal of the Ordinary Form Mass” – ?)
Hello Jim,
“My fundamental quarrel with the extraordinary form is that its coexistence with the ordinary form is a breathtaking sign of disunity.”
The obvious reply is that this unity effectively ceased to exist some time ago – that maybe all Summorum Pontificum does is recognize the reality. But having said that…there is a difference, I grant. Maybe there is something to be said for not making things worse.
One could also reply that liturgical diversity is nothing new in the Church: 22 sui juris rites, and now an expanded Anglican use; and before Trent, as we have mentioned in this thread, a good deal more diversity before the Roman rite supplanted what remained of most local rites in the West. But of course none of these affect the Roman rite as such; 2007 marks the first time we have two juridically recognized forms of the Roman rite.
All I can add is my suspicion that it reflects the Pope’s longstanding belief that the reform movement was a good and needed thing, but went off the rails, often badly; and frustrated by resistance in many episcopates to correcting the worst errors, Benedict decided to play for the long haul by creating a new, albeit initially small alternate center of gravity for a new spirit of the reform to gather around and ultimately have its effect on the ordinary form – and that this objective was viewed as worth the risk of potential greater disunity. Likewise that he felt that an injustice had been and was being done to traditionalists, and this in the end appeared the only way to correct it. Lurking beyond all this is the desire to end the SSPX schism; but I have always thought that a secondary motivation.
C.S. Lewis described in 1942 a tendency that has grown worse in our own age and extends far beyond liturgical matters:
“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
In some ways the Vatican II liturgical revolution or renewal, like many other revolutions, only consolidated an earlier retrograde movement.
“The obvious reply is that this unity effectively ceased to exist some time ago – that maybe all Summorum Pontificum does is recognize the reality. ”
Hi, RM, unity is more becoming than being. That we’re not perfectly united with one another isn’t an indication that our differences should all be catered to; it means that we’re called to set aside our preferences for the sake of the other and the sake of the church. It means that we’re called to give of ourselves in service to the church – including the entirely worthy and honorable task of making our worship better.
You’re right that there is liturgical diversity in the church. But parallels to the Anglican Use or the Eastern Rites aren’t perfect. Ecclesia Dei was a concession to those who were disgruntled about the changes – it was a temporary measure for the generations who lived through the reform. When we’ve died out, it should go away (at least, that was the original vision).
Ann, thank you for that wonderful excerpt from Eliot. Istm it applies equally well, not just to poetry and liturgy, but to the practice of the faith.
Hello Jim,
“That we’re not perfectly united with one another isn’t an indication that our differences should all be catered to; it means that we’re called to set aside our preferences for the sake of the other and the sake of the church.”
I fully agree with this. Not everyone can be made perfectly happy (in this life). But I think the argument is that this is more than just a preference or idiosyncrasy; or to the extent that it is a preference, it is a legitimate and even honorable one. In respect that we have never permitted such wide celebration of superseded missals, the argument likewise is that 1970 marks a (valid, mind you) rupture or break with 1962 in a way in which new previous new editions of the Roman Rite ever had before – literally, a “new order” of the mass. And more subtly, as the Pope’s letter suggests, that it was a rupture not always handled well and therefore that there is a necessity, even an urgent necessity, to make the traditional mass more fully available. To be perfectly blunt, pleas for more traditional rubrics or music are not often well received in many parishes and dioceses, even when advanced gently by non-bitter/spiteful jumper-clad traddies, and that’s been the unfortunate widespread reality for a long time. If there has been a lack of charity there has been plenty to go around.
But as I said, I think we are in agreement that 2007 marks a new kind of diversity that was not quite there before. We differ, then, on the necessity or legitimacy of that diversity.
I think the idea of an indult being for older priests/laity who had an attachment to the traditional mass was more true of the Pauline indults of 1970 than of John Paul’s in 1984 and 1988. The language of the indults shows a recognition that something else was going on; interest in/desire for the old mass was not dying away with those older Catholics. And in point of fact it has been true for some time that most traditional mass communities have a very young demographic profile, lots of large young families few of whom were likely alive when the Pauline mass was proclaimed. And not all of these are, say, die-hard Remnant readers. Some just pulled up stakes out of frustration with bad liturgy and deaf ears when the opportunity offered itself. I think this frustration is not fully realized or empathized with by more liberal Catholics relatively happy with the existing liturgy they experience.
I think had the reform been carried out in a way which kept essential continuity with the existing missal, as I think Sacrosanctum Concilium seemed to have in mind, at least in the letter, the need for such a drastic remedy would have been harder to discern. But that’s not what happened. We are left with an imperfect solution for a difficult situation.
Time will tell how it works out.
Patrick Molloy:
People have been doing ceremonial things unceremoniously for centuries. Today’s Latin Mass crowd would be scandalized by the colorful, gimmicky holiday masses of the Middle Ages.
Much more of a ‘modern habit’ is to Romanticize the past, to remove any humanity from holy rites. Consider that for many of these scornful romantics, the one thing that stains a holy rite is the people participating in it. Clearly, the priorities of such romantics are upside down, standing on their heads.
I admit I find Kenneth Wolfe hilarious and I still don’t know who he is during his fifteen minutes of fame. How close to the Pius X Society is he? Can anyone tell what traditionalist publication he has written. Did he pull one on the NY Times like those uninvited White House guests? I would like to get the Secret Service in on this. But first give me a credible profile on this wonder who made it to the op-ed of the Times.
ummm, I suppose you could ask him, but then, would you treat him like a guest? By the way, isn’t an uninvited guest, an oxymoron to begin with?
One oft-cited expression from Vatican II says that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” But is it, existentially?
Certainly it is *really*. It’s not as though we could re-present the one Sacrifice without the Mass. Whether EF or OF, NO or TLM, here is God, sacramentally present in the highest manner that can be realized for us here and now.
But existentially, is the Mass our source and summit? Are these the people to whom we most belong? Is this the highest form of prayer we experience?
“first Extraordinary Form Mass in Knoxville in living memory”
Someone needs to tell the women attending those masses that if they don’t cover their heads (kleenex boxes should be strategically place at the end of each pew) they may be guilty of at least a mortal sin. Of course, the male clerics in attendance have the final say on that.
If I may borrow and highlight some of Mr. Lender’s comments:
a) “the argument likewise is that 1970 marks a (valid, mind you) rupture or break with 1962 in a way in which new previous new editions of the Roman Rite ever had before – literally, a “new order” of the mass. And more subtly, as the Pope’s letter suggests, that it was a rupture not always handled well and therefore that there is a necessity, even an urgent necessity, to make the traditional mass more fully available. To be perfectly blunt, pleas for more traditional rubrics or music are not often well received in many parishes and dioceses, even when advanced gently by non-bitter/spiteful jumper-clad traddies, and that’s been the unfortunate widespread reality for a long time. If there has been a lack of charity there has been plenty to go around.
Rupture – would the 4,000+ bishops of this world agree with the pope’s description? Would these bishops even see this as one of the most important tasks or challenges facing their people in the pews? Would these same bishops agree that a pope can just over-ride or interpret years later a different meaning to what a church council did? How many catholics over the last 30 years have really asked Rome for permission to celebrate the EF?
b) you state: “….indult being for older priests/laity who had an attachment to the traditional mass was more true of the Pauline indults of 1970 than of John Paul’s in 1984 and 1988. The language of the indults shows a recognition that something else was going on; interest in/desire for the old mass was not dying away with those older Catholics. And in point of fact it has been true for some time that most traditional mass communities have a very young demographic profile, lots of large young families few of whom were likely alive when the Pauline” ……can you document that “lots of large young families requrested this EF?
c) you state: “I think had the reform been carried out in a way which kept essential continuity with the existing missal, as I think Sacrosanctum Concilium seemed to have in mind, at least in the letter, the need for such a drastic remedy would have been harder to discern. But that’s not what happened. We are left with an imperfect solution for a difficult situation” Guess it is all in the lived experience but would suggest that your interpretation has little documentation; doubt that it really reflects what most of the church faces; and leaves nothing but assumptions, guessed at motivations, etc. to leap to the “drastic remedy” to address the “imperfect solution for a difficult situation”. Wonder how you would describe this difficult situation if you had been a 20 year member of the ICEL and in one swoop your carefully researched liturgical efforts are thrown out the window. Doesn’t sound like this small minority of non-liturgists learned much from what you describe as a rupture after Vatican II?
Wolfe, you, and company sound like you are playing this by ear; making assumptions with little current liturgical expertise and research behind your rupture, reform of the reform, drastic remedy, etc.
With Jim and as I have previously stated, liturgy is a lived expression of our ecclesiology – this drastic remedy seems to have now created even more ecclesiological confusion – unlike you, I wonder if the schism of SPPX has not been the driving force all along? For what? 90% of the catholic church could care less about this group – whatever their future status may be.
Hmmm, It does not seem that Brian understand Patrick at all. Patrick is simply trying to point out that sacred rituals are best when the participants realize the ritual is a sacred one and allow themselves to be subsumed by it; that sacred rituals are best when performed in a sacred manner. And certainly Brian has never seen a Holiday Mass of the Middle Ages; nobody alive today has.
After a good hearty laugh, Bill will bird dog the effort of running down the background of this Wolfe fellow with keen inquiries e.g., “Have you now, or have you ever been, a member of Pious X Society?” and the like. Nancy is correct of course, and the answer to the question you pose Kathy, is quite simply “Yes”.
Oh and Jimmy Mac; try not to worry so about the ladies in Knoxville. They are capable women and as you mentioned, in conjunction with the local priest, will resolve the important matter you cite.
After my rather long comment, how much is this also about collegiality and subsidiarity? It appears that the current liturgical decisions (for whatever reasons) have overturned what Vatican II expressed about collegiality and returning bishops/conferences of bishops back to the center in terms of how best to live their liturgies. Yes, Vatican II never really articulated or was allowed to lay out how Rome/Curia would implement the directives on collegiality/subsidiarity. That is now unfortunate – the counter revolution- has buried any further attempts that Vatican II made in its ressourcement of the early church’s understanding of episcopal and collegial history.
This is the rupture – Vatican II has been replaced by a continued effort to reinforce the anomaly of Vatican I with its centralization, infallibility, and undue clericalism.
If true be told monarchical Catholicism has been fighting Vat II right from the beginning. Cardinal Spellman promised that it would not get past the Statue of Liberty. That is the reason there are so many clauses and inconsistencies in the documents. Those in the renewal let things go so at least some progress was made.
The apparent but not substantial progress was made by the orthodox on the young at all the Theology on Tap meetings. Under the guise of meeting other young available people of the opposite sex bishops and Cardinals dropped in to persuade youth that the Mass of Pius V has to be restored. The youth had no idea what was happening. They just wanted to meet other young people.
The Vatican lost the Neo Catechumenates, the Focolare but made some progress with Opus Dei and the Legionnaires. But now all the right wingers are running from the Legionnaires. Where are you on the Legionnaires, Mr. Wolfe and Co?
R.M. Lender, I am not making “unwarranted conflations.”
Serious, yes. Unwarranted, no.
Recent revelations of widespread clerical sexual abuse in the U.S. cover a period only back to 1950. God knows what we will never know about sexual abuse and other wrongdoing committed by the ordained. Fact is the Tridentine mass — with its imposed passive role for the laity — merely reinforced a culture of clerical privilege, i.e., the elevation of the ordained and subordination of the laity. Why? Because the sacred liturgy is *the* central expression of corporate life in Catholicism.
As for a mass requiring the presidership of an ordained minister, this view reflects doctrine, not history. Indeed, the primitive Christian communities did not have ordained priests. Everybody, male and female alike, was a priest by virtue of his or her baptism, according to St. Paul. Ordination did not enter the picture for at least a hundred, perhaps as many as two hundred years, after the Lord’s resurrection. Fact is Jesus and his disciples knew only the Jewish priesthood. In the primitive communities, i.e., those people closest to Jesus and his disciples in time and place, worship was chaired by the presbyter or episkopos — title depending on particular community usage (and not to be confused with nomenclature today).
As I’ve reminded bloggers elsewhere (citing one of my favorite quotes), “[F]acts, as history teaches, carry more weight than pure doctrine” (Joseph Ratzinger, HIGHLIGHTS OF VATICAN II, Paulist Press/Deus Books, 1966, p. 16). History tells us that ordained ministry was a historical development.
Given what we’ve seen recently in a stratified church, I think we need to dispense with clericalism. One good place to begin is the liturgy.
CLARIFICATION 3rd paragraph:
“God only knows what we will never know about sexual abuse and other wrongdoing committed by the ordained before then.”
OK. Fess up. Time for a show of hands. How many posters here believe the story of Paul VI weeping over the fact that he could not wear red vestments during the Octave of Pentecost, that he himself suppressed? The story was reported by none other than Fr. Z, who is about as unbiased about traditionalism in the Roman Mass as you can get:
Many years ago, as a seminarian in Rome, I was told a story by one of the papal masters of ceremony for Paul VI. This story has gotten around the web a bit, but I am the original teller in English. I included it in The Wanderer and in the original Catholic Online Forum years ago, but it is worthy offering again. The Novus Ordo – with so many changes to the liturgical calendar – went into effect with Advent in 1969. When Pentecost of 1970 rolled around, Paul VI was surprised to find green vestments laid out for his morning Mass instead of the traditional red for the Octave of Pentecost. When he asked about the unthinkable green vestments, he was told that it was now Ordinary Time. The Pope responded “This is the Octave of Pentecost.” The reply came back that the Octave of Pentecost was abolished in the new calendar. “Who did that?”, asked the Pope. “You did, Your Holiness. And Paul VI wept.
Does this tale not have all the trappings of an urban legend? Could Paul VI really have forgotten what he had done? Would he have wept about it? Would a sacristan (as reported elsewhere), or even a papal master of ceremonies have confronted the Pope on this issue? Is the account not self serving for those devoted to restoring the Octave of Pentecost (at one time there was a petition circulating to that effect)?
And still it is published in the NYT as though it is fact. Remarkable. This alone should discredit the op-ed.
Thanks for that context, Alan. (My hand is not up, for what it’s worth!)
Some of you have already discovered this, but for those who haven’t: our friend Fr. Francis Clooney responded to the op-ed on America’s blog today.
Mollie:
Thanks for the link to Frank Clooney’s excellent America post. As long as I have known him, now 39 years, he has always been the voice of reason and charity.
F.Y.I.- Pope Benedict XVI in his own words:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/b16SummorumPontificum2.htm
A) @Alan – as the first to ‘hi-lite’ this Fr. Z. disclosure within Wolfe’s piece, I will state that my hand is up. Whatever the quality of Fr. Z’s advocacy, I have no reason to doubt the honesty of his recollection or that of the person he is quoting. (If his ability to relate history is obviously off-kilter, please provide us links to his lies and misdirections.)
In addition, I think your urban legend analysis is completely off-base: It is completely conceivable to me that Paul VI would have been unaware of what the Missal of Paul VI had wrought. However limited the merits of Wolfe’s NYTimes article are, I think one related grain of truth it is that Pope Benedict is the first pope in several decades to seriously think about Catholic liturgy and to act in accordance with his thoughts. To me, John Paul II (and probably Paul VI) was brought to Rome from somewhere else and became caught up in the busyness of being Pope – weekly audiences, writing encyclicals, traveling to foreign lands, trying to repair relations with the Orthodox, with the world, (“fighting communism”…) etc.
In contrast, Joseph Ratzinger was uniquely situated for many years to think about what it is that a Pope can actually demonstrate and effectively lead. To me, his pontificate has, thus far, made fairly good use of that reflection. I recognize that most here will disagree with that judgment.
b) @Mollie, as it were – Fr. Clooney states “Yet even today, I doubt very much that even newcomers will confuse Catholic and Protestant Sunday worship.”
While that statement may be true, as far as it goes, I would offer the following counter-statement:
As one who was baptized Christian by Lutheran parents (LCMS) and grew up Lutheran to adulthood (despite four years of attending a suburban Catholic high school), I can say that I was all but inoculated against ever understanding Catholic belief in the Real Presence by these twin facts:
a) Lutherans and Catholics seemed to use 99% of the same words in their communion services,
and
b) students at the suburban Catholic high school showed / demonstrated no more Eucharistic piety than Lutherans in their services.
In summary, while it is true that I would not have confused the two – when I was Lutheran, my weekly service music (Luther and Bach) easily outclassed the Haugen (who was raised by Lutherans …, ick) and Haas that they always imposed on the Masses at the suburban Catholic high school – the close similarity of the wording and the congregational (“rubrical”?) acts certainly did blind me to the claims of the Catholic Faith.
(Thanks be to God that in college I was finally exposed to those claims when I ran into Catholics who actually knew their Bible and their Tradition and could be used by God to undo the mis-education that I had previously received from typical Catholics and (what I perceive to be) typical suburban Masses.)
Hello Mr. DeHaas,
a) “Rupture – would the 4,000+ bishops of this world agree with the pope’s description?”
That would depend on what the antecedent of “rupture” is. Are we talking about the Council or some aspects of its implementation?
b) “……can you document that “lots of large young families requested this EF?”
That is not what I said. What I said is that this is what characterizes the demographic profile of most traditionalist communities. A random visit to Sunday mass of any FSSP or ICKSP parish will give you the flavor of what I’m talking about.
Documentation…of pre-1984/88 requests for the traditional liturgy…I don’t know that anyone has ever tried to document the petitions from that era in any systematic way. It’s certainly before my time. I am aware of petitions to local chanceries in the last few years in which most of the signatories were under 40. That’s as much as I’ll say right now.
c) “Guess it is all in the lived experience but would suggest that your interpretation has little documentation; doubt that it really reflects what most of the church faces; and leaves nothing but assumptions, guessed at motivations, etc. to leap to the “drastic remedy” to address the “imperfect solution for a difficult situation”.”
I wonder who is really making the unfounded assumptions about what “really reflects what most of the Church faces.”
I readily grant that at present traditional-leaning Catholics constitute a small minority in the Church. I think the number less than enthralled with the liturgy they regularly experience is considerably larger. And I think that point worth pondering when we consider how mass attendance has dropped from over 70% to less than 25% in the U.S. At this point in the discussion we can hear the usual rejoinders about Humanae Vitae and larger cultural changes – which I would readily concede as possible, even probable causes – but given that attendance began dropping as early as 1964, when the first changes began to be implemented, I think it’s putting your head in the sand to dismiss any possibility whatsoever that the radical changes in liturgical celebration in 1964-1973 didn’t have some impact on mass attendance.
“Wolfe, you, and company sound like you are playing this by ear; making assumptions with little current liturgical expertise and research behind your rupture, reform of the reform, drastic remedy, etc.”
And here we go with the credentialism argument again.
I am not a liturgist. I do have an advanced theology degree.
“With Jim and as I have previously stated, liturgy is a lived expression of our ecclesiology”
But doesn’t this beg the question of what ecclesiology we’re talking about?
“For what? 90% of the catholic church could care less about this group – whatever their future status may be.”
Is this to be the standard for pastoral care for any group within the Church? That a large number must “care” about their needs or concerns? What percentage really care about (say) more progressive women’s religious orders in the U.S.? Even if it were few, I would never think to advance this argument against their concerns.
I’m probably biased in thinking that the way to recover a truer sense of liturgy is by recovering the music that is most basic to the Mass: the Gregorian Ordinaries and the antiphonal propers.
Most parishes probably sang O Come, O Come, Emanuel last Sunday, or People Look East, or Creator of the Stars of Night.
But what if we sang this introit with its Psalm? “To you, my God, I lift my soul, I trust in you; let me never come to shame. Do not let my enemies laugh at me. No one who waits for you is ever put to shame.” Psalm 25:1-3
To my ears, this is a deeper expression of the mystery of theological hope than any of those other songs, good though they may be.
By many (and respected) accounts Paul VI had the strongest background for carrying out the papal ministry of any pope in the last two centuries.
To give just some idea of his role in the liturgical reforms of Vatican II I provide the following information from Documents on the Liturgy, 1963-1979:Conciliar, Papal and Curial Texts (1982). Most of the texts mentioned below are totally devoted to the conciliar liturgical reform; some treat the reform in passing or as a point of reference.
1.Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium Solemnly Promulgated By His Holiness Pope Paul VI on December 4, 1963
2. Apostolic Constitutions — 11
3. Apostolic Epistle — 1
4. Apostolic Exhortations — 6
5. Apostolic Letter — 1
6. Papal Bull — 1
7. Concessions — 3
8. Encyclicals — 3
9. Epistles — 15
10. Epistles (autograph) — 3
11. Homilies — 10
12. Joint statements — 5
13. Message, televised, 1
14. Message, written — 1
15. Motu Proprio — 16 (INCLUDING, Mysterii paschalis, approving the general norms for the liturgical year and the new General Roman Calendar, 14 February 1969)
16. Solemn Profession of Faith (Credo of the People of God) — 1
17. Remarks at the Angelus — 2
The first of these documents came in November 1963, five months after Paul VI’s election. The final document in June 1978, two months before the Pope’s death.
With reference to the above I suggest the following;
Peter Hebblethwaite, Paul VI: The First Modern Pope (1993); Cristina Siccardi, Paolo VI: Il papa della luce (2008); Andrea Tornielli, Paolo VI: l’Audacia Di Un Papa (2009); Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-1975 (1990); Piero Marini, A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal (2007)
Also, on the background to the liturgical reform, especially in North America: How Firm A Foundation: Leaders of The Liturgical Movement, compiled and introduced by Robert L. Tuzik (1990)
I think Pope Benedict’s “reform of the reform” is a good idea. There were positive changes that came out of Vatican II. There are some pretty poorly celebrated Novus Ordo masses going on, but there were obviously certain laudable intentions behind the development of the NO mass. In Summorum Pontificum, the Pope indicated that he hopes that the two rights of the mass will have some organic interplay.
I don’t see the death of the Novus Ordo anytime soon. But, as more Catholics get a fresh look at the Tridentine Mass, maybe we really will rediscover some of the riches of our past. Does anyone honestly think that “Sing a New Church” is better than the Missa de Angelis? More prayerful? More orthodox?
We have such a rich liturgical tradition. God bless our Pope for inviting us to explore it.
I risk trying your patience. The Wolfe piece is replete with unanchored innuendo and insinuation. There is also misrepresentation, notably in the reference to Pius XII’s Mediator Dei (not 1949, but 1947). See nos 7-10 of the encyclical.
But this bothers me particularly since it borders on the slanderous. “Bugnuni fell from grace in the 1970s. Rumors spread in the Italian press that he was a Freemason, WHICH IF TRUE WOULD HAVE MERITED EXCOMMUNICATION.” (emphasis supplied). But Archbishop Bugnini was never excommunicated. So why is this old, threadbare canard trotted out for the umteenth time? (See practically any “traditionalist” blog.) Archbishop Bugnini died in a Rome hospital (The Pius XI Clinic) in 1982. Mass and burial followed according to all the rites of Holy Church. I suggest that the archbishop’s family and/or the Congregation of the Mission
(Vincentians) should sue The New York Times.
What if last Sunday’s Mass began like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZQTL1mbnZU
In the listing that I made in the small hours of this morning in an effort to show Paul VI’s deep invovlement in the implementation of the liturgical reforms I left out papal addresses on the subject:
General Audiences — 24
Episcopate–20
Various — 29
I do not understanbd why Paul VI (a man of wide learning, including theological, and deep culture) must be portrayed by some as an incompetent naif, who brought disaster to the Church, in order to sing the praises of the present pontiff. Yes, saints were nurtured by the Missal of Pius V. So too, over the past four decades, by the Missal of Paul VI. Several weeks ago Pope Benedict XVI went to Brescia, the birthplace of Giovanni Battista Montini, to honor the great pope who courageously made the decision to continue the Council when, after the first session of same, he was elected pope on 21 June 1963.
It sometimes feels like the Church is simply going to be hollowed out by arguments like this one. First, there is a notion that seems to be deeply embedded that there is a “best way” that borders on the “only way” of doing things. If, for instance, as the Pope and more than a few commenters here say from time to time, that the future of the Church is in the southern hemisphere, I defy you to try arguments in favor of the Tridentine mass in Haiti or Brazil or Nigeria. No doubt, there may be a place for it, but in all these places cultural context has been openly imported into day to day Catholic ritual. Yes, Christianity “began” in the West, but that doesn’t make Latin “universal” in any sense that the church is now universal.
Making Paul VI seem like a dupe of his bishops isn’t just unbelievable, it completely sidesteps the rather important question of why those bishops, raised in the same place, time, and cultural milieu as the Pope, could or would recognize the benefits of a changed worship. So much of the arguments in favor of the Tridentine seem to be essentially aesthetic, and as a lover of beauty I don’t mind that at all, but I do mind the assumption that because one finds something aesthetically pleasing or conducive to one’s own spiritual growth, that necessarily makes it holier or more spiritual as an absolute matter. Go to an evangelical church and their idea of showing the spirit is loud and sometimes raucous, and this style of worship is common to many cultures, including some that are Christian. If your ideal of holiness rests on the color of your vestments during the Pentecost, you have bigger problems than you realized. I don’t know when red dye became common, but it was a long time after Jesus lived.
It just seems that too many people are proceeding on the assumption of a counterfactual — that without VII, the Church itself would not have been riven by disruption. But by 1969, the exodus of the religious was already well under way, and it is this, I submit, not the novus ordo, that has defined the Church’s failings in the new era. You can’t elevate the status of the clergy and then produce fewer and fewer priests, drawn less and less from the people in the pews. That is more likely the genesis of a truly circular and insular church.
@John Page – I do not believe Pope Paul VI to have been a incompetent naif. If true, the events recounted by Fr. Z. would not prove that he was an incompetent naif. If true, these events would only suggest that many of the particular implementations of the “reforms” received but a papal “rubber stamp” after being devised by the Concilium.
You have listed many of Pope Paul Vi’s documents and speeches related to liturgical reform. Any literate person knows that the bishops at Vatican II called for liturgical reform. And I would expect that any pope at the time would have been involved in the reform, to some extent, when not otherwise engaged with the shepherding of Christ’s flock.
The present debate however concerns the particular “reforms” which were meted out in the 60s and 70s. I have reviewed what appears to be the most on-point document you have cited, the motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis (14 February 1969). If this document included, right above the signature of Pope Paul VI, a particularized reference to the abolition of Pentecost’s Octave – then I would take that to be pretty good evidence that the events recounted by Fr. Z (17 May 1970) did not actually constitute ignorance by Paul VI as to what Paul VI had approved. Instead the document basically approves the calendar as proposed by Concilium, without going into many specifics.
That being said, I am willing to be corrected on this point: if your further research does turn up a smoking gun in further papal discourse or writing (dated prior to 17 May 1970) stating specific papal knowledge of the abolition of Pentecost’s Octave, I am willing to reject my prior position.
You will not try our patience: Return to your research!
;)
Paul,
Mysterii Paschalis has no reference to Pentecost or to the Octave. May 17, 1970 could not have been the day that Paul VI forgot he has suppressed the Octave of Pentecost, because it was Pentecost Sunday itself, as his Angelus remarks on that day clearly indicate:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/angelus/1970/documents/hf_p-vi_reg_19700517_it.html
Do not miss the reference to the role of reforms of the Council in handing on and renewing of the tradition. He seems to be very aware of the changes brought about by the Council on this very important feast of the Church.
My mistake (i.e., not Fr. Z’s).
@John Page – Your research may include one additional day! :) Please let us know what you find dated prior to 18 May 1970.
@Alan C. Mitchell – Here’s what GoogleTranslate gives me for Mysterii Paschalis – while there is a reference to studying the Council, I see nothing here which responds to the questions that have been directed to John Page or other intrepid researchers.
David Gibson,
Don’t you also view Benedict as a radical reactionary? Obviously, you and Mr. Wolfe disagree about whether this is good or bad, or how popular it will be among the laity, but isn’t your assessment of the facts rather similar?
As opposed to say, Fr. Komonchak, who usually makes a comment or two suggesting that Benedict is perhaps center-right figure in interpreting Vat. II.
Strange bedfellows, eh?
Well all the lay-wrangling over Tridentine versus Novus Ordo mass aside, I am glad Pope Benedict has taken up the matter. Obviously the variations in the manner in which the Novus Ordo were getting out of hand, “hard to bear” as it were.
These things cannot be left soley to the laity. In our parish, we (the laity) cannot even decide as a group whether we will stand, sit or kneel during distribution of the Eucharist, and this I imagine, is a source of some amusment to our priests :)
Lay-involvement has basically lead to the tired old folk-guitar mass, the electric guitar with electric drums mass, the tedious modern music with so many en persona Cristi lyrics, etc. which of course were just getting to be too much. The polka masses I have seen were uniquely nauseating. All of these various “variations” in the Novus Ordo are distracting enough in their own way and lead to a sullen, silent congregation that stoically suffers through the chior’s “concert performance” each Sunday morning. Choirs do not need microphones or amplifiers, and I do not know what some choir folks apparently have against standard piano or organ music. Add to this the pre-reading explanations that have popped up in our parish and many others, and you really have a crashing bore. Some lay person gets up before each reading and gives a notably condescending “explanation” of the reading before the lector reads each reading. This of course is just a way of taking time away from the priest, who of course is quite capable of explaining the readings and naturally would do so during his homily. Now, these folk know full well that Mass is meant to be an hour long, and so by hogging the priest’s time like this, they effectively cut his semon off short. Ugh.
One the other hand, Vatican II was quite relevant and among many things, produced a broader set of readings to be used at Mass, and these of course add a lot.
Regarding the old and the new forms, Benedict is reported to have hoped than one will influence the other, and I think that is a good notion.
Our priest is staying with the Novus Ordo mass, but has begun to incorporate Latin into it or more accurately, since the New Order of Mass is actually written in Latin to begin with, which is then translated into English for use as the priest sees fit, our priest is simply using less English during mass than he did before. I imagine that in parishes where they have the Tridentine form of Mass, they will eventually incorporate the broader set of reading used by the Novus Ordo, and that will also be an improvement.
As a side note, it is interesting that most people refer to the New Order of Mass – which most often is offered in English – by its Latin name, the “Novus Ordo” Mass.
It is nice to hear the Greek Kyrie, an occasional Ave Maria, and Panis Angelicus is always beautiful.
And so it seems a good idea to have both forms (old and the new) in common use.
JC: You are assigning views to me that I do not have and have not expressed. No, I don’t view Benedict that way–though I think in many respects he is (proudly) radical in the sense of getting back to the roots of traditions in many respects. And no, Mr. Wolfe and I aren’t two sides of the same coin. I wasn’t so much disagreeing with him as pointing out that he has his history wrong. It’s not a question of a disagreement over the facts.
I think I used to run into Ken Wolfe on AOL discussion boards about a million years ago. Hi, Ken :-).
A couple of minutes of Googling turned up an article by him in this lovely little journal (Wolfe’s article begins on page 17).
http://www.rcf.org/pdfs/AMDGWinter20062007.pdf
The article includes this bio: “Wolfe attends the traditional Latin Mass in Washington, DC and occasionally writes for the Remnant.”
David G.,
I’m sorry to misrepresent your view.
It is posts like this one that gave me this impression: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=5102
So, you would agree that Benedict is not trying to undo Vatican II?
JC: Yes, you do misread me. I would have a somewhat more nuanced (and fact-based) view than Mr. Wolfe, I believe.
“Most parishes probably sang O Come, O Come, Emanuel last Sunday, or People Look East, or Creator of the Stars of Night. But what if we sang this introit with its Psalm? “To you, my God, I lift my soul, I trust in you; let me never come to shame. Do not let my enemies laugh at me. No one who waits for you is ever put to shame.” Psalm 25:1-3 To my ears, this is a deeper expression of the mystery of theological hope than any of those other songs, good though they may be.
”
Kathy, I agree with you. The current missal can be celebrated in a very traditional way. And (to carry your example further) the Introit text could be set in many different ways, from plainchant in Latin to the stanzaic English translation in the Tietze Introit hymnal to the Haugen/Haas Psalms for the Church Year setting to any of the hundreds of other published settings of that psalm, in a variety of styles.
Now – it’s unlikely (although not unthinkable) that we would chant the appointed Introit at my parish for a Sunday mass. Our pastor and music staff usually lean to more contemporary music. Perhaps that’s true for many/most parishes. But, if that’s a problem at all, it’s a problem of pastoral implementation of the missal, rather than a problem with the missal itself. I don’t see that promulgating an alternative missal that will never be used in most places addresses that (alleged) parish grass-roots problem.
Ken, if not the laity, who? My cousin is a classically trained pianist and organist who gave up a more lucrative career to work, almost literally for a song, full-time as a music minister, but can only support himself by doing it for three parishes at a time. In my view, they are incredibly lucky, but it’s catch as catch can in most places, where the music minister (who may not even be an employee) may or may not be knowledgeable about the kind of things Kathy is speaking of, and has the time and talent to make it happen. One reason why most masses use a guitar and not an organ is because more people play the guitar. It’s as simple as that, and in my experience, however much you don’t like all that guitar strumming, there is almost nothing worse than hearing more formal music badly rendered. Talk about killing the spirit!
And what is true for instrumental music is about 10 times as true for the vocal kind. Imagine the Tridentine mass badly done — because that is how many parishes would do it, if forced to, not because they want to but because of the limitations of what they have to work with.
Hello Barbara,
And what is true for instrumental music is about 10 times as true for the vocal kind. Imagine the Tridentine mass badly done — because that is how many parishes would do it, if forced to, not because they want to but because of the limitations of what they have to work with.
I think this is a point not always appreciated by traditionalists: The current arrangement does, at any rate, tend to guarantee that what traditional masses are celebrated are almost always celebrated very well and even quite beautifully. This was not always the case in the years before the Council. Anyone going to a nearby traditional high mass is going to see the traditional rite at its best, most of the time.
On the other hand, a mass poorly or irreverently celebrated is bad thing, no matter which form it is. There is the argument that the wide array of options and rubrics may encourage sloppiness and experimentation more than the traditional mass did.
I am not a fan of guitars in the mass. Charismatics often use them to moving effect; but most of the time, I think that if the musical proficiency is really lacking (and I do agree that good organists are hard to come by, in part because they are so poorly paid), it is probably best to leave off instrumental accompaniment altogether. A choir is much easier to come by and train.
What can one add to a thread like this? You could earn a liturgy degree in the time it would take to read it.
At root the aspiration of traditionalists is to legislate quality by fiat. I don’t see that succeeding. The Roman Missal was designed for a wide swath of implementation: with bishops and full-scale music, art, and architecture all the way to the most humble circumstances among a few select strangers.
The art of pastoral liturgy is always to be found in the local expression, one hopefully more engaged than, “Let’s get these people out of here as quickly as liturgically possible,” or “Why spend money on a music director when the parish school needs a football coach and computer tech teacher?”
I’m always amused when the usual boogeymen are trotted out for display in a discussion like this. Don’t like the voice of God? You’d better duck when the gospel acclamation verses come out, or when the introit Invocabit Me is on the docket. Complain about the non-use of Mass propers? The folk groups and other choirs were justly criticized for a weekly program of new music nobody knew. The SLJ’s, among others, utilized the antiphon + psalm verse format for most of their music. They were hammered in the 70′s for not being hymn-playing organists.
Really, the TLM folks have it easy these days. They might have one Sunday Mass, High or Low–pick ‘em–a week. I’d like to see them scramble in a real suburban parish with a weekend full of High Masses, plus a few funerals, a wedding, a school Mass, and a few baptisms. No wimping out with Low Masses either. Most of us Catholic music directors have long had to stretch thin resources for good liturgy with the understanding that we always offer our best, whether the Mass has a thousand people and several priests, or the sacrament is simply and humbly celebrated with just a handful.
Give me one special Mass a week, and I’ll kick TLM’s liturgical butt up and down the center aisle.
In truth, we have many intentional Catholics. Some few are attached to their experience of the TLM. A good quantity more are devoted to God through the modern Roman Rite.
Most other Catholics would more or less accept whatever was put in front of them, assuming the time is convenient, the parking is ample, and their kids get into the parish school. Mr Wolfe seems less concerned with the latter group–that’s my target for evangelization as a parish liturgist, not catering to the special interest groups that inhabit any faith community. The modern liturgist is concerned less with the details of Psalm 25 or the fabric of vestments or the number of candles on the altar. I would adhere to Paul’s philosophy of being all things to all so that some may be saved. Jesus also nailed it: the Sabbath was made for us, not we for the Sabbath.
Barbara,
I said “These things cannot be left solely to the laity” and I should explain. I mean that while of course the laity is involved, the priest should help with his guidance. Take for example (in our parish) the phenomenon of the laity not knowing how to conduct ourselves during communion. Some folks sit, some stand, and some kneel. It seems to me this is a situation in which the priest should take the time to speak with members of the laity and render his decision about how things will be done in this parish.
Apparently the Roman Missal has little to say regarding this because, if we laity were in clear violation of something important, I am sure the priest would let us know. No, this confusion has sort of drifted into our parish and masses during the last few years and needs to be resolved. As a practical matter, when you decide to sit because those in front of you are sitting, and the person behind you is trying to kneel, your head and shoulders will be in their way and they will have their nose almost in your ear. If you site down carelessly, you might even bump them in the face. Some decide to avoid this by standing, but that is awkward if everyone else is sitting or kneeling. And so if the person in front of me is sitting and the person behind me is kneeling, I usually sit uncomfortably on the edge of the pew balancing between both people, or I stand.
Now all of this is nonsensical (a bit comical at times), but it illustrates how we laity have trouble resolving simple things like this and how the priest should step in and use his authority to help us laity settle the matter. There are other more serious examples, but I think this one sufficiently proves my point.
As for music, it is very important. Few parishes have paid Choir directors and frankly, it should not be a paid position. Provided the music is straightforward and traditional, and that the priest points out to the people that it is their responsibility to sing, the laity will sing along with the piano or organ easily enough. Just post the song numbers on the board and people will sing along. Frankly I prefer masses in which there is no choir; the people are more encouraged to (forced to) sing along.
However if the music person chooses songs with odd or hard to follow melodies, nobody will sing along. The people can and will sing the classical standard church songs with which they are more familiar, and some of the newer ones as well, provided they are familiar with it and that the melody is one they can follow. In my opinion, a formal choir is best reserved for use by the parish only on special occasions like masses during the Christmas and Easter seasons, or selected other special masses.
I would not worry about a “badly done” Tridentine mass; it not common enough to even see a Tridentine mass, much less witness a “badly done” one.
Still, you are correct that regardless of form, the participants in any Roman Mass i.e., the priest, the servers, the lectors, and the laity, should all pay attention to what is happening and should each in their turn, try to make things and sacred and reverent as possible.
“My cousin is a classically trained pianist and organist who gave up a more lucrative career to work, almost literally for a song, full-time as a music minister, but can only support himself by doing it for three parishes at a time. In my view, they are incredibly lucky, but it’s catch as catch can in most places, where the music minister (who may not even be an employee) may or may not be knowledgeable about the kind of things Kathy is speaking of, and has the time and talent to make it happen. One reason why most masses use a guitar and not an organ is because more people play the guitar. ”
I pretty much agree with Barbara on this. For what it’s worth: I’m a little unclear on overall supply and demand, but believe that there is a shortage looming (or maybe it’s already here) of church organists. No kids take organ lessons anymore, but many of them have synths and other electronic keyboard gizmos. The quintessential church organist around here is a grey-haired woman, and like the rest of us, they aren’t getting younger with the passing years.
Two of my kids take guitar lessons now, and it’s been an eye-opening experience for me. When I took piano lessons as a kid, it was all classical repertoire. But my kids only learn Green Day and other rock stuff, and the place where they take their lessons forms students into rock bands. Their “recitals” take place at a blues bar in the next town, with amplification and the whole nine yards. Those are our future (and current) church musicians.
Also, it’s pretty generally acknowledged that certain denominations pay their musicians better than Catholic parishes do. Hence a Lutheran congregation might be paying their music director more than the Catholic parish on the next block, even though the latter has four times the number of registered parishioners. (Like Catholic school teachers, Catholic musicians are victims of the-nuns-used-to-do-it-for-practically-free mindset.)
FWIW – I’m not an organist, either. I took piano lessons when I was a kid. That’s what I play in church. I can do a very amateurish job on an organ or a synthesizer if need be, but the necessity must be exigent :-).
“As for music, it is very important. Few parishes have paid Choir directors and frankly, it should not be a paid position. ”
Ken – there is a huge contradiction in those two sentences!
A gentleman above wrote: “The Wolfe piece is replete with unanchored innuendo and insinuation. There is also misrepresentation, notably in the reference to Pius XII’s Mediator Dei (not 1949, but 1947). See nos 7-10 of the encyclical.”
Good eye. The error (a copy desk mistake, not mine) was in the print edition. It was corrected online very early.
I must say I have enjoyed this thread. What separates me from some trads is that I read a ton of your (liberal) writings, both online and in print, even if at the library or bookstore. Perhaps, in an ecumenical spirit, Commonweal (and America) readers can subscribe to The Remnant and Catholic Family News (print editions) to see what our end of the world believes. Considering it is a growing movement (who saw Benedict offer the novus ordo ad orientem a few hours ago…?) it would strengthen your arguments a bit at worst and change your perspective at best.
If you take a narrow view Jim, you are correct. However it is best to consider the entire statement, in context:
—————————
“As for music, it is very important. Few parishes have paid Choir directors and frankly, it should not be a paid position. Provided the music is straightforward and traditional, and that the priest points out to the people that it is their responsibility to sing, the laity will sing along with the piano or organ easily enough. Just post the song numbers on the board and people will sing along. Frankly I prefer masses in which there is no choir; the people are more encouraged to (forced to) sing along.
However if the music person chooses songs with odd or hard to follow melodies, nobody will sing along. The people can and will sing the classical standard church songs with which they are more familiar, and some of the newer ones as well, provided they are familiar with it and that the melody is one they can follow. In my opinion, a formal choir is best reserved for use by the parish only on special occasions like masses during the Christmas and Easter seasons, or selected other special masses.”
——————————
For years until I moved out of state, I usually volunteered for our local church choir; Christmas and Easter and other special masses. The choir had kids and adults and it was fun. I recall our choir director was a local woman, a farm wife. She enjoyed music, was blessed with musical talent herself, and directed the choir for many, many years.
I recall that she would usually review the list of songs with the priest, and if Father wanted a different song, or is he wanted the songs in different order, she would make the changes accordingly. We sang the traditional Christmas songs like Silent Night (English with one verse German), Adeste Fideles (Latin), Hodie Cristus Natum Est (Latin), Christmas Rose (English), Little Town of Bethlehem (English), Hark the Herald Angels Sins (English and Latin), Christ is Born in Bethlehem, and others. Usually one of the ladies sang the one of the classical versions of the Ave Maria solo, which of course was beautiful.
It always took several weeks’ practice (i.e. several Saturday afternoons before confessions began at 4 pm), but it was great fun and very nice. We would sing on Christmas Eve Mass, the late mass on Christmas Day, and the next Sunday as well. Then we would basically be adjourned until Easter Sunday
We sang at a one special mass that was for the local priest’s 25 year jubilee. We even had someone play the trumpet! We practiced a lot and it was fun; it turned out very nice.
That then, is how I prefer a choir be used to enhance parish life.
and Bye Bye Lu Ly Lu Lay also – How could I forget that beautiful song!
My small parish of about 400 active souls has a music budget (including a paid music director) of just shy of $100,000 per year. Our MD is a resigned priest who is a pro at integrating the music selections with the seasons and mass readings.
We are known throughout our Archdiocese (San Francisco) as having one of the best liturgies and music programs of any of the parishes. Cdl Levada said that and Abp Niederauer has let it be known.
We do a wide variety of music (some Latin, some Orthodox, some traditional, some classical, some Protestant and some contemporary) and there is a great deal of congregational participation. Our music is not a concert to entertain with operatic and instrumental excess. We do have 3 paid singers and periodically use a few paid musicians. Hence the size of the budget.
Putting your money where your mouth and dreams are can make all the difference in the world when it comes to liturgy.
I forgot to mention: we learn new music ALL the time! If a culture of congregational musical participation exists, people will join in readily and easily. That’s even with some of the hard ones, too.
Dr. Page – thanks for your valued input and corrections in terms of the historical decisions by both Paul VI and Annibale Bugnini.
It is interesting to me to see the B16 changes and interpretation (center/right of center/who knows) in relation to reading and studying Bugnini’s own book. Emphasis, focus, etc. can be very different from decisions over the last 10 years.
You make a comment about Bugnini and Freemasonry and the Vincentians. It is amusing to me that the Vincentian community can have a Bugnini and a Rohde…..so very different in their theological roots, leadership styles, manner of supporting the church’s future. Both Vincentians but from different provinces and traditions within the family of Vincent dePaul.
You might want to suggest to Rev. Gay (current Superior General of the CMs in Rome and an American from the US eastern province and Panama, their vice-province and missionary territory that he take the NYT to task. In reality, it has always amazed me that any Vincentian rises to bishop (except in missionary lands) much less even higher …..not exactly the Vincentian mission or call.
Appreciate your input and clarifications. It seems to me that this post and the above post on the orthodox talks both center around how collegiality/subsidiarity are lived and operated. If you study the evolution of ICEL to the “new” ICEL + Vox Clara; the new Roman Missal begun in secret by non-experts; the document Liturgiam Authenticam and its genesis – you can only stand confused by the mixed messages coming out of Rome. Do we support collegiality? or is primacy more – it appears to reveal itself at times in power and control and liturgy seems to be its favorite battleground.
Then, suddenly, there appears to be an invitation that opens another door (but guess this invitation truly must come from the primate?).
Another fine post from Bill D.
It ties to the new threads on dialogue with the Orthodox and the primacy issue and the new thread on liturgy and Fr. Taft.
Hopefully that won’t run to 130+ posts where many (as Barbara correctly notes) are about peoples” aesthetics.
Mr. Mitchell,
I don’t know if you are still checking in on this post, but a Priest I know once alerted me to the Paul VI story in a brief article he authored. Instead of “suppressed,” the Priest used the word “abolished.”
My question for him was…how does he/those believers of the urban legend reconcile it with following:
Benedictus PP. XVI “LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPS ON THE OCCASION OF THE PUBLICATION OF THE APOSTOLIC LETTER “MOTO PROPRIO DATA” SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM ON THE USE OF THE ROMAN LITURGY PRIOR TO THE REFORM OF 1970”:
“As for the use of the 1962 Missal as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.”
Curiously the debate shifted to Archbishop BUGNINI-Masonic conspiracy theories. I never really did get an answer – do you have one?
P.S. Has anyone ever considered that Paul VI could have been experiencing tears of joy?
The new America has apiece by Fr. Mike Ryan, pastor of the Cathdral in Seattle urging his fellow priests, laity and lay councils to ask their Bishops not tpo implement the new translation.
A word from the bottom up which will be disregarded?
A counterrevolution proposed that would make Mr. Wolfe growl?
It is an excellent article, Nr. Nunz, but, just like with the sexual abuse crisis, the priest in the parish will remain obedient and silent which will override his commitment to the gospel first; pastoral duties second; and only then to the institution and its bishops.
The silence of our priests has contributed greatly to the crisis in the current church. Their first duty is not blind obedience.
Well, so much for Mike Ryan’s chances of making bishop or cardinal someday :)
But I applaud his move and that of others like him.
If Vatican II’s healthy liturgical trajectory is saved, it will be done by concerned laity and a relatively few presbyters like Ryan.
I tip my hat to this man and others like him.
May I be permitted to offer readers of Commonweal’s blog something I wrote back in 2009, on the “liturgical revolution”:
“….The late Msgr. Richard Schuler of St. Agnes Church in St. Paul, Minn., had the misfortune of observing [Archabbot Rembert] Weakland closely as he led the liturgical wrecking crew that had commandeered the newly formed Church Music Association of America in 1964. Msgr. Schuler wrote in A Chronicle of the Reform: Catholic Music in the 20th Century (Sacred Music: 1990) that Weakland and his co-conspirators around the world were united in their opposition to the liturgical renewal called for by Vatican II. They routinely ignored appeals from the Holy See to stop their “useless and harmful” innovations. They carried on a massive public relations and propaganda campaign in both the secular and Catholic press, as well as in deceptive, official- sounding communications to priests and religious, distorting what the Church desired in terms of sacred art and music.
In his Chronicle detailing the debacle that Weakland (and his co-conspirators, notably Fr. Frederick McManus) caused, Msgr. Schuler wrote: “The records of the meetings of the members of the commission on sacred liturgy, together with the suggestions of periti and the final discussion of the document in St. Peter’s, form the foundation for future study of what was exactly the intention of those who gave us Sacrosanctum concilium.
“Several things concerning sacred music were crystal clear: Gregorian chant is the special music of the Church and must be given primacy of place; the long tradition of sacred music in all styles must be fostered and used; the purpose of music in the liturgy remains the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful; the reforms begun by Pius X must continue and grow, especially the active participation of the people. The council clearly reaffirmed the musical traditions of the Church and at the same time gave ample challenge to musicians to continue and enlarge their work in the service of God’s worship.” From the time Sacrosanctum concilium
was released, Archabbot Weakland dissented. He especially could not give his assent to the use of Gregorian chant. As Msgr. Schuler noted: “A meeting was sponsored in Kansas City, Mo., November 29 to December, 1966, by the American Liturgical Conference. Opposition to the sixth chapter of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was voiced by Archabbot Weakland who said that ‘ false liturgical orientation gave birth to what we call the treasury of sacred music, and false judgments perpetuated it.’ Those ‘false judgments’ seem to have been made by the fathers of the [Second Vatican] Council who ordered that the treasury of sacred music be preserved and fostered. . . .
“This was the beginning of efforts that have continued over the past 20 years to undermine the intentions of the council fathers and the work of the Consociatio Internationalis Musicae Sacrae, founded by Pope Paul VI for the express purpose of implementing the directives of the Vatican Council in matters of liturgical music. Those who were unhappy with the role given to sacred music in the sixth chapter of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy have never ceased to oppose what the Church has ordered for sacred music in its liturgy.
” They have by their actions set Church music back to a state far worse than when Pope St. Pius X began the work of reform in 1903. They have promoted their own ideas of what music and liturgy should be, but these fail to correspond to the decrees of the council or the documents that followed after the close of the council. A careful analysis of the legislation given for the universal Church and the reality as it is presently promoted in the United States exposes a considerable divergence between the two . . .
“Since liturgy expresses belief, the importance of using it to diffuse errors is clear. Most Catholics know their Church and their faith chiefly through the Sunday Mass. When their worship is turned about, so will their very religion follow. When liturgy becomes entertainment, secularized and profaned, then its role as the expression of Catholic dogma is weakened and even lost for those who look to it for their spiritual sustenance, the ‘primary source of Catholic life,’ as Pope Pius X called it.
“The resurgence of modernism or neo-modernism was well organized all over the world. It spread with incredible velocity and efficiency. Indeed, there are those who think that an international conspiracy was operating. An agency called the International Center of Information and Documentation concerning the Conciliar Church (IDOC) promoted the tenets of neo-modernism and functioned on an international level with associates in every country. All areas of Catholic life came under its scrutiny, and the names of those working under its direction included some of the best known scholars, religious, and clergy of this country. Their aim was the same in liturgy, catechetics, religious life, education, the press, social action, and even Church music.
“What was happening was not without direction and purpose. To counter required equal if not greater organization, and such was not at hand. The results of the greatly advertised ‘ changes’ introduced into the postconciliar Church by the modernist camp can be seen in the catastrophe we have witnessed in the closed schools, defections from the clergy, decayed religious life, fewer converts, a substantial drop in attendance at Sunday Mass, theologians who defy the Magisterium, fewer vocations to the priesthood, and the banality, profanity, and ineptitude of what is now promoted as liturgical music.
“Who is responsible? In the field of liturgical music, those who voiced their opposition to the conciliar directives at the congress in Chicago and Milwaukee were associated with the National Liturgical Conference, Universa Laus, the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy and the Music Advisory Board organized under that committee.
“The activities of these groups in the years following the Fifth International Church Music Congress provide the answers to many of the questions asked by Catholics who wonder what has become of their musical heritage, what has happened to deprive them of the sacred worship of God that the liturgy should be. They wonder, in a word, why the clear orders of the Second Vatican Council on the reform of sacred music, set out in the sixth chapter of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, have not been heeded and implemented in the United States,” wrote Msgr. Schuler.
Msgr. Schuler’s essay, available online at http://www.musicasacra.com/pdf/chron.pdf, also details how Archabbot Weakland and his co-conspirators arrogantly and consistently defied clear instructions from the Holy See with regard to liturgical music and music programs, and even explicit commands to dissolve the organizations that were destroying the legacy of sacred music that began with Pope Pius X. Their efforts culminated in the “hootenanny Mass.”
Msgr. Schuler recalled: “Typical and perhaps most interesting of the innovations engineered through the Music Advisory Board by Fr. McManus, Fr. [Godfrey] Diekmann, and Fr. Weakland was the ‘hootenanny Mass.’ The scenario began in April 1965, when Fr. Diekmann delivered an address entitled ‘Liturgical Renewal and the Student Mass’ at the convention of the National Catholic Educational Association in New York. In his speech, he called for the use of the ‘hootenanny Mass’ as a means of worship for high school students…..”
I understand if this is painful reading for some here, but there really was a revolution, and Benedict is leading a counterrevolution. He is making more progress than did his predecessor, who was committed to the same cause, because so many of the revolutionaries have passed from the scene.
for more information, see:
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=2571