A Mass by any other name...

With a motu proprio entitled Summorum Pontificum, made public on July 7, Pope Benedict XVI has provided for a much broader use of the Roman Missal of 1962, explaining that he hopes to encourage "interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church."

Of course, this decision by the Holy Father has no practical effect on the Ruthenian Church; but, as a Roman Catholic serving in an Eastern Catholic eparchy, your Priestly Pugilist is understandably interested; and wishes to address some of the misrepresentations that have been made, both within and without the Latin Church, regarding this important event.

First of all, a motu proprio is a decision or decree drawn up and issued by a pope on his own initiative, and not conditioned by any petitionary requests. Pope’s issue decrees motu proprio all the time, though most effect individual situations, a single person or group of people. In this case, the Pope has made a decision effecting the whole Latin Church.

So, what does this particular motu proprio say? Basically, it says that any priest of the Roman Catholic Church can celebrate Holy Mass according to the missal of Pope John XXIII, promulgated in 1962. That missal was the last revision of the so called “old Mass” of Pope St. Pius V (promulgated on July 14, 1570), prior to the adoption of the current missal of Pope Paul VI currently in use. In the motu proprio, the Holy Father corrects a misconception, that the 1962 missal was somehow forbidden by Vatican II. This was never so, says Pope Benedict; and, to emphasize this point, he now decrees that any Roman Catholic priest can use this missal for offering a private Mass without the need to seek permission from anyone. Moreover, the faithful, if they wish to, may attend these Masses. Priests in parishes may also use this missal for parish Masses on weekdays, and for one Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, if there are people in the parish who wish it.

Misinformation #1: Pope allows Latin Mass. Wrong because Mass in Latin was never disallowed. In the back pages of every Paul VI missal (the so called “new Mass”) is the text of that Mass in Latin. No priest ever needed permission to say the “new Mass” in the Latin Language. In fact, Pope John Paul II, before he died, reminded everyone that Vatican II, while it allowed Mass in the language of the people, emphasized that Latin was still the “normal” language of the Mass, and encouraged it’s use. To quote Vatican II: “...the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites” (cf. the entry for 2/6/07 for the complete citation). The Language of the Mass was never the issue. Every Roman Catholic priest has always had the ability to offer Holy Mass in Latin, either in whole or in part.

Misinformation #2: The motu proprio rolls back the reforms of Vatican II. Wrong because Vatican II never said anything about forbidding one Mass and using another. The missal of Pope Paul VI wasn’t composed until long after the Second Vatican Council was over, and the bishops attending the Council had little to do with it. Prior to becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger often questioned whether the missal of Paul VI was the kind of reform the Council Fathers were asking for. At one point, he even called the missal of Paul VI a “manufactured, on-the-spot product.” He has not repeated those words since becoming Pope, but he has repeatedly said that the Missal of John XXIII was never forbidden by Vatican II or anyone else.

Misinformation #3: In the “old Mass,” the people don’t participate. Wrong because that’s what the revision of Pope John XXIII was all about. One of the most important ways that the missal of Pope John XXIII changed the missal of Pope Pius V was in allowing for the active participation of the faithful in singing the responses - which is why Vatican II said, “...the faithful should be able to sing or say in Latin the parts of the Mass which concern them” (cf. the entry for 2/6/07 again). And if you’re inclined to say, “How can we participate if we don’t know Latin?” the answer was given by Pope John XXIII at the time of his revision: get yourself a missal that has the English text in it next to the Latin, and you’ll know everything that’s going on. And that’s exactly what most people did for many years.

Misinformation #4: The Pope only did this to try to win over those kooks who left the Church over Vatican II. Wrong because, as I said, Vatican II had little to do with the “new Mass.” Anyone who left over Vatican II per se isn't going to come back anyway, since denying the authority of an ecumenical council is heresy. But many so called “kooks” didn’t leave over Vatican II; they left because a form of worship that was near and dear to them had been forbidden to them by overzealous reformers who didn’t bother to read Vatican II before they started to destroy things they didn’t like. Pope Benedict, in his motu proprio, acknowledges those mistakes, and says he wants to make things right. But more to the point, the Pope goes on to say that this decision isn’t intended just for them, but for everyone. Far and wide, the Pope acknowledges, the Mass of Paul VI has been celebrated poorly because those who celebrate it have ignored it’s rubrics. Exposure to the Mass of John XXIII, he hopes, will help to instruct both priests and lay people about how the Mass should always be celebrated, regardless of which missal is used.

As you can guess, anti-Pope reactions are ringing from shore to shore in this country, in statements ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. The Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal O’Malley, wins the prize for the most non sequitor comment: “This doesn’t apply to our country.” Of course, nothing in the motu proprio says that, but I guess Archbishop Sean is hoping that enough simple minded folk who don’t know how to read will believe him. Why is there so much consternation? Check back the entry for 02:30 PM 5/11/2007, in which your Priestly Pugilist made this unusually lucid remark:

The missals of Popes Pius V and John XXIII incorporated a sly knowledge of human psychology: even if the priest celebrating the Mass had lost his faith completely (let’s hope not, but what if...), the rubrics of the missal still made the Mass seem solemn, beautiful, uplifting and mysterious to the faithful. The missal of Pope Paul VI, while in itself a harmless “watering down” of the Mass into something that needed a particularly devout priest to do properly, became a playground for those who had lost their faith but who couldn’t admit that to themselves, choosing instead to redefine the faith as they saw fit and using the Mass as it's expression. As a consequence, people walked away from Mass thinking that it was all about togetherness and warmth and the like, and not about God and Christ and salvation and heaven and hell. Check out the entry for 3/31/07.

To use words used by Pope Benedict in the motu proprio itself, lex credendi (the law of faith) and lex orandi (the law of prayer) have to be saying the same thing. If people don’t believe anymore, maybe it’s because the current Mass as celebrated in many parishes isn’t asking them to.

[As a companion to the previous post, your Priestly Pugilist includes here part of a homily he preached back in 1994 while he was parochial vicar in a Roman Catholic parish.]

Before I talk about today's Gospel lesson, I want to say a few words about the use of the Latin language in the celebration of Mass. As you know, one of the liturgical reforms called for by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council was to give to local bishops the authority to allow the celebration of Mass in what is called the "vernacular" language, meaning the spoken language of the people. But the fact that almost every Mass you attend today is in the vernacular has led many people to believe that it was the intention of the Council to eliminate the use of Latin altogether; and some have even adjusted their spirituality of the Mass to include the peculiar notion that they cannot participate fully in the celebration unless it is in a language they can understand. But this was not the intention of the Council.

While the Second Vatican Council did allow for the use of the vernacular tongue, in no way does it require it, and, in fact, lays great stress on preserving the use of Latin in the liturgy, as evidenced by the decree from Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy, which reads, "All the faithful should be able to sing or say in Latin the parts of the Mass which concern them" (SC, Art. 54). Later, after the Council, the Church, in it's instruction concerning sacred music, would remind bishops that, while they may allow the use of the vernacular in public worship, they are to take special care to see that the use of Latin does not disappear completely, either by the celebration of some Masses completely in Latin, or by celebrating parts of the Mass in Latin and other parts, particularly the readings, in the vernacular.

Now, some people will argue that, if people want the old Mass, they can drive over to the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament in Raritan and have the old Mass, and that the rest of us shouldn't have to hear it. But I'm not talking here about the old Mass. When Pope Paul VI composed the Mass we use today, he did so in the Latin language, and gave it to the Church in the Latin language. The differences between the old Mass and the new Mass have nothing to do with language.

Other people will sometimes object that they are not able to fully participate in the Mass if the Mass, or parts of the Mass, are not in their own language. But this betrays a real defect in their understanding of the Mass and the way they approach the whole subject of participation. If these objections were correct, then we would have to assume that no one, prior to the Second Vatican Council, participated fully in the Mass (and some people would probably maintain that). We would also have to maintain that someone traveling in another country, and unable to hear Mass in his own language, could not participate fully in the Mass; and this is simply ridiculous. Liturgical participation, as the Church understands it, has little to do with physical activity and the pronunciation of words; it has to do with prayer. To maintain that I cannot participate in the Mass unless I understand every word is to reduce the notion of participation to a mere function.

On Feb. 24th, 1980, our present Holy Father, Pope John Paul, wrote a letter to the bishops of the Church regarding "The Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist." In part of that letter he reminds the bishops of why the Council of Trent chose to maintain the use of Latin in the liturgy even though it has long ceased to be a living language. He said that the use of Latin, in his own words, "in all the world was an expression of the unity of the Church and through it's dignified character elicited a profound sense of the Eucharistic Mystery" (Dominicae Cenae, Art. 10). In other words, what the use of Latin does is give us a sense of the Church throughout the world as a single family, undivided by language and culture; that we are not so much members of a parish community or a diocesan family, but members of the one Church of Christ which is united in the one celebration of the Eucharist. For this reason in particular, says the Holy Father, "The Roman Church has special obligations towards Latin, the splendid language of ancient Rome, and she must manifest them whenever the occasion presents itself" (Ibid.). And even the new catechism, in addressing the subject, points out that while it is important for the liturgy to allow for the expression of different cultures throughout the world, it is always crucial to remember that the liturgy of the Church is not submissive to culture, but rather it generates and shapes it (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Art. 1207).

These, among others, are the reasons that I will sometimes offer the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass in Latin, as I will do today. Clearly it's not something that should be done every Sunday, and I would not do that. But it's my hope that by offering the Eucharistic Prayer in Latin we will come to deepen our appreciation for the Eucharist as a Mystery of Faith, and be drawn ever more closely in unity with the whole Church throughout the world which, in union with the Vicar of Christ, and in the words of St. Paul, is "his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way" (Eph. 1:23).

by Priestly Pugilist

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Deus Vult!