Posted on 02/28/2011 1:02:22 PM PST by NYer
Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta holds a monstrance containing the Eucharist (Photo: CNS)
The current Catholic Herald debate on the collapse of the doctrinal discussions between the Vatican and the SSPX is getting a substantial response, and has been noticed elsewhere in the blogosphere. The whole debate, according to one blog, The Sensible Bond, was predictable: “On the one side, high-minded papal loyalists cannot say enough about how disobedient the SSPX is, or how proud. On the other side, SSPX tub thumpers jeer about the hierarchy’s tendency to wink at all rebellions apart from the SSPX’s, and the busted flush of Benedict’s papacy which has seen him gravitate from liturgical traditionalist to Assisi tribute act in a mere four years”.
Well, I can’t say I’m neutral between the two points of view, definitely tending towards being a “papal loyalist” (despite some discomfort over Assisi, I think it’s just about defensible), though how high-minded you need to be to hold such views I’m not sure: it seems to me it’s a perfectly normal for a mainstream Catholic to be loyal to the pope.
The real question is whether there was ever any realistic prospect that there might be any kind of rapprochement. Rome’s view is that the SSPX can be as critical as it likes about the distortions of Vatican II – what Pope Benedict calls “the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” – but in the end it has to accept the essential Catholicity of the Council itself. This seems to me entirely reasonable. SSPX actually demands that Rome should repudiate the Council and accept that the Mass of Paul VI is invalid, even Protestant.
This is grotesquely unreasonable. It is inconceivable that the Vatican would simply turn against an ecumenical council of all the world’s bishops. SSPX must have known this: so it has been playing an elaborate game whose outcome was probably clearly foreseen by Bishop Fellay. The Pope, on the contrary, clearly had hopes that the schism might be overcome. Well, he has done everything he could to explore every avenue towards reconcilation. Now it is over.
The issues involved, however, will be with us for some time, and still have to be faced, since the casual acceptance of some supposedly “traditionalist” views has done considerable damage. One of these was summed up by one participant in the ongoing Herald debate: his view is essentially that the Novus Ordo is an invalid rite:
“The Novus Ordo does not signify the Catholic theology of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is ambiguous – deliberately so – and tends toward giving a Protestant understanding of the Lord’s Supper, which gradually will replace the Catholic Mass in the eyes and psyche of whatever remaining “Catholic” attend it. It is simple: no sacrifice = no need for a sacrificing priest = no need for an altar but merely a table for a commemorative meal over which the presbyter presides and in which the people of God exercise their universal priesthood and so they, not any priest, worship God in their way instead of in His.”
This is a grotesque distortion – no, worse, an actual direct untruth – simply asserted as though it were self-evident. The Novus Ordo is very clearly a valid Catholic liturgy, in which the doctrine of the Mass as sacrifice is both assumed and unambiguously stated. Consider the following, from the current English translation of Eucharistic prayer III:
Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious Resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.
Look with favour on your Church’s offering, and see the victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself. Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.
May he make us an everlasting gift to you and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles, the martyrs, and all your saints, on whose constant intercession we rely for help.
Lord, may this sacrifice, which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the world…
That is quite unmistakeable, and clearly, intentionally and unambiguously expressed: what is being offered is a “holy and living” sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary. Or consider this, from Eucharistic prayer IV:
…looking forward to his coming in glory, we offer you his body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world.
Lord, look upon this sacrifice which you have given to your Church; and by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this one bread and one cup into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise.
Lord, remember those for whom we offer this sacrifice, especially [Benedict] our Pope, [name of local bishop], our bishop, and bishops and clergy everywhere…
I find the accusation of “deliberate ambiguity” particularly interesting, since many years ago, when I was training to be an Anglican clergyman, I once had to write a long essay comparing the language and theology of the then recently authorised Anglican and Catholic rites: the Novus Ordo and what was then called the “Series III” service of Holy Communion of the Church of England. My conclusion then (it was one of the factors that led me, about a decade later, to understand that I had no alternative but to become a Catholic) was that the chief linguistic difference between the rites was that Catholic language was, precisely, deliberately unambiguous and Anglican language (because the same Eucharistic prayer had to gain acceptance from Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals alike) was inevitably ambiguous.
Take the words of the epiklesis, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, in the Roman rite: “And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this Eucharist.” That’s the epiklesis of Eucharistic prayer III: but the same doctrinal point has to be made about all four prayers: the assumption here is that the Eucharistic elements undergo an actual and supernaturally effected change: there is an actual point at which they become, in very truth and not merely symbolically, the body and blood of Christ.
The equivalent Anglican words at this point are “grant that by the power of your Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be to us his body and his blood”: the notion of a moment at which change is effected is deliberately avoided: an Anglo-Catholic can assume it, but an evangelical can see these words as referring simply to a mere subjective view, that the bread and wine in some way “to us” symbolise Christ’s body and blood. The idea of the Eucharist as sacrifice is deliberately excluded by the words which follow “we celebrate and proclaim his perfect sacrifice made once for all upon the cross”: in other words, the sacrifice of Calvary was in no way repeatable, and what we now do is simply a distant and subjective memory of it.
Whether you like the new prayers of the Roman Rite or not (personally, I think that Eucharistic prayers III and IV are magnificent, especially in Latin but, though more evidently in the new translation, even in the current English version) it is ludicrous, ludicrous, to claim that they tend towards Protestantism.
The Novus Ordo is a valid Catholic Mass, written in unambiguous language. Let us all, whether or not we like the way it is sometimes celebrated, or the way it was originally translated, agree on that. If we can’t, we’re all in trouble.
Hmmm. There’s alot I’d like to say but with the way “caucus” threads have been under attack lately, I should just shut it.
Maybe I’ll just make some benign comment, like “nice monstrance” or something.
SSPX is the protestant order. It’s been done before, same arguments.
If their problem is the Novus Ordo, they don’t have to use it. They can still hold Trinitarian Latin masses.
The *real* issue is that they don’t wish to subordinate themselves to the Chair of St. Peter. So, until they do so, they will be Protestants, of the fruits of Luther and Calvin.
I agree, it “trends toward”.
Not my place to comment on the validity.
What are “Trinitarian” Latin masses?
How can it be protestant to celebrate the liturgy that existed in the Catholic Church for ~1,000 years?
Other than the author's decision to quote from a sedevacantist source at 2 points (one was historical, one was polemical), it is utterly devastating against the Novus Ordo.
The paper can be read at The Roman Rite: Old and New
Key excerpt:
In regard to the changes made in the Gospels and Epistles, we remark with Mgr. Gamber in “The Reform of the Roman Liturgy” (ch. 5), that “what is in part a fifteen-hundred-year Tradition has been interrupted without anything better being put into its place.” We conclude that if, in relation to the Council’s desire to “set the table of God’s Word more richly”, the new readings are richer quantitatively, they are poorer qualitatively: that is, in their doctrinal content. In fine Mgr. Bugnini’s criticism of the readings of the Old Rite may, as Fr. Bernward Deneke acutely observes, be more readily applied to the New Rite readings: for here the Word of God has been “ alterata…mancante, deformata, scheletrita: altered, represented in insufficient measure, distorted, skeletalized” (La Riforma Liturgica p. 59).
The mass celebrated before the Novus Ordo.
>>How can it be protestant to celebrate the liturgy that existed in the Catholic Church for ~1,000 years?<<
It can easily be argued that the same people who disobeyed the Vatican order to use the Novus Ordo as the Ordinary Form of the Holy Mass, were still disobedient. They protested. So while is is not “Protestant” (the organized religion), the people who protested can be categorized as protestant (those who protest). These groups who stuck with the TLM aren’t much different than those who pick and choose any other rule to disobey.
However, now we are allowed to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass freely. Thank You Lord!
“How can it be protestant to celebrate the liturgy that existed in the Catholic Church for ~1,000 years?”
How is it Catholic to insist that Peter change to accommodate you? Again, they are not forced to use Novus Ordo, if they do not wish to do so.
It’s “Tridentine”, and is derived from the Latin word Tridentinus, which means “related to the city of Tridentum (modern day Trent, Italy)”. It was in response to a decision of the Council of Trent.
“These groups who stuck with the TLM aren’t much different than those who pick and choose any other rule to disobey.”
Precisely so. This includes appointing bishops without the approval of the Vatican.
The issue is obedience and subordination to St. Peter. This whole attack on Novus Ordo is a sideshow.
Exactly.
Thank you for the correction! I was trying to think of the word.
No problem at all!
Not exactly. Besides the liturgical changes, traditionalists, both those affiliated with the SSPX and those who are attached to the "indult" (the indult was replaced by the motu proprio) communities, also have theological issues with the documents of Vatican II, which, as Pope Paul VI himself admitted, was a pastoral council, not a dogmatic one.
Thank God for Bishop Fellay and the SSPX
“Not exactly. Besides the liturgical changes, traditionalists, both those affiliated with the SSPX and those who are attached to the “indult” (the indult was replaced by the motu proprio) communities, also have theological issues with the documents of Vatican II, which, as Pope Paul VI himself admitted, was a pastoral council, not a dogmatic one.”
They have issues with obedience in appointing bishops without approval of the Vatican. The world waits to see whether they will submit or stand alone.
The body is much larger than just the SSPX. Many of us made the conscious choice to submit to St. Peter despite our reservations over Novus Ordo. I don’t think it’s too much to ask of you what all of us had to go through.
Not according to Pope Benedict XVI and his PCED. They are indeed in an irregular juridical status, and they lack jurisdiction. Their sacraments are valid, but illicit.
But like it or not, if you revere the Holy Father, then you must assent to his position that they are Catholic, and cease claiming otherwise.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.