Posted on 04/03/2004 9:38:01 AM PST by ultima ratio
Worse Than Deja Vu All Over Again:
Vatican caves on meaningful reform of disastrous New Mass
Thomas A. Droleskey, Ph.D.
“Certainly, we will preserve the basic elements, the bread, the wine, but all else will be changed according to local traditions: words, gestures, colors, vestments, chants, architecture, decor. The problem of liturgical reform is immense.”
--Pope John Paul, while still Bishop of Krakow, as quoted in Mon Ami: Karol Wojtyla. P. 220
When last we left the saga of the Novus Ordo Missae, Pope John Paul II promised Catholics worldwide that a new set of instructions to correct liturgical abuses would be drawn up and issued by the Holy See as a follow up to his Ecclesia de Eucharistica encyclical letter. This caused many well-meaning Catholics in the Novus Ordo community to jump up and down for joy, believing that the long awaited crackdown from Rome was forthcoming. Some commentators said at the time that the Pope’s encyclical letter was just the word “we needed” to have during the Easter season. Others of us said that the Holy Father’s encyclical letter made many of the same points as his 1980 Holy Thursday letter to priests, Dominicae Cenae, which promised a set of instructions to correct liturgical abuses.
Well, if a news report from Catholic World News’s website is to be believed, the forthcoming document from Rome about the liturgy is worse than deja vu all over again. The 1980 instruction, Inaestimabile Donum, issued by the then named Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship, did list the major abuses in the new Mass and called for them to be corrected. This gave much hope to those of us who did not then have the grace of tradition. Indeed, I waved copies of Inaestimabile Donum in the faces of offending priests for a year or two before I realized that Rome wasn’t going to enforce anything, including the reaffirmation of the ban on girl altar boys. Many of us did not realize at the time that the abuses were simply manifestations of the false presuppositions of a synthetic liturgy that sought to empty the Mass of its authentic tradition while claiming positivistically that tradition had been maintained as it was “updated.” There was no correcting the Novus Ordo then. There is no correcting it now. There will never be any correction of abuses in the Novus Ordo.
According to the CWN.com news story, the new document from Rome dealing with the liturgy will not mandate any disciplinary measures against liturgical abuses. It will merely call for an adherence to existing norms by “proper training” in the liturgy. If true, this is actually worse than Inaestimabile Donum. All of the thunder made by Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, in the immediate aftermath of the Pope’s encyclical last year was merely rhetoric, which yielded in the final instance to the desires of the ideological descendants of the late Archbishop Annibale Bugnini to keep exploding the liturgical time bombs that Michael Davies has noted with great precision were placed into the Novus Ordo as it was being created synthetically by the Consilium. Although this was entirely predictable, the fact that the new document will not represent the salvation of the Novus Ordo, which admits of so many legitimate adaptations and exceptions as to make any discussion of a liturgical “rite” an absolute oxymoron, should give traditionally minded priests who remain in the diocesan structure a wake up call. Rin Tin Tin and the Cavalry are not coming from Fort Apache.
All discussion of a “universal indult” for priests to offer the Traditional Latin Mass evidently has disappeared from the final text of the soon to be released liturgical document. Of course, Quo Primum is the only universal and perpetually binding indult any priest has ever needed to offer the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. The powers that be in Rome, however, do not want to admit that on behalf of the Holy Father, who must give his approval to the new document. Thus, those traditionally minded priests who thought that they were going to get a golden parachute from the Holy See so as to be able to offer the Traditional Latin Mass in the daylight rather than in the underground have been deceived. As good sons of the Church, many of these priests wanted to wait and see, although the outcome was predictable. Now that the outcome is clear, it is time for these priests to respond to this wake up call. They will receive no help from this pope.
Indeed, Pope John Paul II is wedded to the liturgical revolution, and has been since the Second Vatican Council. He is not going to be leading the cavalry over the hill. The late Father Vincent Miceli gave me a very important insight into the mind of the Holy Father back in January of 1983. As a self-deceived Catholic conservative who held out high hopes for the pontificate of the former Karol Cardinal Wojtyla when he was elevated to the Throne of Saint Peter on October 16, 1978, I was flabbergasted that the Pope had appointed the then Archbishop of Cincinnati, Joseph Bernardin, to succeed the late John Cardinal Cody as Archbishop of Chicago. Bernardin? Chicago? That was the stuff of Father Andrew Greeley. I had written a priest-friend in Canada in 1979 at around the time Greeley began to push Bernardin for Chicago, that “this will never happen in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Father Miceli took a few bites out of his meal at a diner in Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York, looked at me and said, “The Pope’s a liberal. Bernardin is a friend of his from the Second Vatican Council. They are fellow progressives. Don’t kid yourself.” He continued eating his meal in perfect peace. Well, although I filed Father Miceli’s wise counsel away, I didn’t want to believe it at the time. He was, of course, quite right.
To wit, I received a letter from a reader of Christ or Chaos (which is going to become an online publication by the end of February) that contained a nugget from a 1980 book, Mon Ami: Karol Wojtyla, written by a fellow named Malinski and published in France:
"In 1965—when Pope John Paul II was still the Bishop of Krakow, he discussed the phenomenon referred to as inculturation with a friend, saying: 'Certainly, we will preserve the basic elements, the bread, the wine, but all else will be changed according to local traditions: words, gestures, colors, vestments, chants, architecture, decor. The problem of liturgical reform is immense.'" (page 220)
The reader, Mr. A. E. Newman, had a pithy comment or two of his own in his letter to me: “Tell me, what hope is there from a man who thinks like this–what hope for a stable liturgy, for upholding of age long traditions? What hope from a man who flies in the face of his predecessors? Now that his reign is drawing to a close I can answer that [there is] no hope! My own view is that in the eyes of history the last three popes will bear a heavy responsibility for our present shambles and [the loss] among the faithful of millions. Just at the moment when Islam is strong. We can credit him for one thing: he followed through! God will deal with him, but we [will deal] with the deformation of our Faith.”
Although the fodder for an entire series of articles, the comments of the then Archbishop of Krakow are quite instructive. They should serve as a sobering reminder to good priests and laity who believed that the Novus Ordo can be reformed that the problem rests in the new Mass itself. Not much time needs to be wasted on this as the proverbial handwriting is really on the wall. Those traditionally minded priests who have remained in the Novus Ordo structure should stop believing that their words or even their presence can counteract entirely the harm to the Faith contained within the new Mass, admitting that there are priests within the diocesan structure who are zealous for the salvation of souls and who spend themselves tirelessly for the flock entrusted to their pastoral care. They should, as painful as it may be for them to consider, simply follow the courageous examples of Father Stephen P. Zigrang and Father Lawrence Smith. They should assert their rights under Quo Primum no matter what unjust ecclesiastical consequences might befall them. Many of their sheep will follow them, and those sheep will provide for their temporal needs, as is happening at Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel in Garden Grove, California, where hundreds upon hundreds of fed-up Catholics have found their way to the Catholic underground simply by word of mouth. It is simply time to force the Novus Ordo structure, built on quicksand, to collapse of its own intellectual dishonesty and liturgical incompleteness. It is time for good priests to say goodbye to a synthetic concoction and to bravely embrace the glory of Tradition.
Each priest must make his own decision in this regard. It is, though, a grave disservice to the faithful to try to pretend that the Novus Ordo itself is not the problem and/or that the problems will get better over the course of time. They will not. The Novus Ordo remains the prisoner of its own false presuppositions and of the devolution of liturgical decision making to local level, as was envisioned in Paragraph 22 of Sacrosanctum Concilium itself on December 1, 1963.
What applies to priests applies as well to the long-suffering laity who have waited for such a long time to see the abuses that have their origin in the Novus Ordo itself come to an end. So many good people, who dearly love God and want to save their souls, have fought valiant but ever failing efforts in most instances to keep the liturgical time bombs from exploding in their own local parishes and dioceses. Some of these people have tried to equip themselves with the latest “information” from Rome about what is licit and illicit in the context of Holy Mass. What these good people need to realize, though, is that the Novus Ordo is impermanent and unstable of its very nature. The new Mass is entirely predicated upon the idiosyncratic predilections of a bishop or a priest or diocesan and/or parish liturgical committees.
The Mass of Tradition has always been beyond even the realm of a bishop to change for reasons of “inculturation” or the “genius of the peoples.” The Immemorial Mass of Tradition gives God the fitting and solemn worship that is His due, communicates clearly and unequivocally the nature of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice for human sins, and provides a permanence and stability that are reflective of the nature of God Himself and of man’s need for Him and His unchanging truths. It is time for good lay people themselves to say goodbye to the angst and confusion and anger generated by all of the problems associated with the Novus Ordo Missae.
Enough said.
Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.
Are we reading the same thing?
" the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification."
I guess the reference to minor adjustments is in the footnotes available to a select few.
What makes a litugist great? That his thoughts might support yours?
The statement of yours that the new mass was created "whole-cloth" is not supported either by Klaus Gamber or Cardinal Ratzinger. "Whole-cloth" would be something entirely new, containing nothing resembling the old. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the similarities.
Similarities with what? A Lutheran service?
Peace and joy to you as well.
Prediction time: you'll hear about blind obedience...
Ha, you are right, to which I will counter:
Mark 10:52 "Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
Luke 18:42 Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you."
2 Corinthians 5:7 We live by faith, not by sight.
Blind obedience is just the acknowlegment that we are living by faith and not necessarily sight. Many Catholics tend to use their sight and see the visible Church, and are repulsed, but it takes faith to see the invisible church that the catechism speaks of, and the result is awe and attraction.
You must be a genius.
No, I'm just a Catholic.
No need to explain in detail that the term "Whole-cloth" is an extreme exageration then. I can only assume that you derive a whole lot of pleasure from deriding the Holy Mass that millions upon millions receive the graces that come from assisting at it.
When it comes to salvation, there is no safety in numbers.
No, it was after he collapsed on the altar, after having offered the Holy Mass, and receiving a vision of the state of the Church as it is today.
EXACTLY!
So John Kerry is safe.
The Pius XII quotation from Mediator Dei refers only to minor adjustments to the ancient liturgy.Wrong. You are confusing what you want desperately to believe with what he said. He didn't say "minor adjustments," he said,
--ultima ratio
"... the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to INTRODUCE and APPROVE NEW RITES, as also to MODIFY [ not "minor adjustments" but MODIFY ] those HE [ NOT YOU ] judges to require modification.
--Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, Nov. 20, 1947
Not in his wildest dreams did this good pope ever suppose his successor would do so rash and foolish a thing as to invent a mass out of whole cloth and then ban the Mass of the Ages.Wrong again. First, you pretend to possess certainty about that which you cannot be certain. You don't know what Pius XII thought his successor might do. Secondly, his successors did not "invent a mass." Nor did they "ban the mass of the ages." So at least we can be certain about this: You really don't know what you are talking about.
--ultima ratio
By approval of "new rites" he certainly did not mean the destruction of the ancient Roman Rite itself which he took pains to argue had evolved for more than a thousand years under the guidance of the Holy Spirit Himself.Once again (as usual), you are completely wrong. The Tridentine Mass is still said in dioceses where the local local Bishop has given his approval for this. Although the Pope has the authority to do away with it, he hasn't. He (not you) has been given the keys of the kingdom. Besides making clear that the Sovereign Pontiff has the right to introduce new rites, Pius XII made clear that the Roman Rite is not superior to other rites but on a par with them:
--ultima ratio
If in this encyclical letter We treat chiefly of the Latin liturgy, it is not because We esteem less highly the venerable liturgies of the Eastern Church, whose ancient and honorable ritual traditions are just as dear to Us.Just because you have a preference for the Roman Rite does not give you a license to dismember the earthly Body of Christ with your schismatic views. Why don't you put your bloody hatchet away and just attend an approved Tridentine Mass somewhere?
--Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, Nov. 20, 1947
In fact, he says that there are parts of the ancient Mass so sacred that no man--not even a pope--dare even touch them to modify them. Certain slight adjustments were indeed permitted, therefore--in rubrics, in minor textual additions or subtractions, but nothing substantive might ever be changed. This message was the whole tenor of Mediator Dei--an argument to liturgists, in fact, to keep hands off the Sacred Liturgy. To use this encyclical, therefore, as if that pope would have approved of the radical institution of a whole new rite is not only dishonest--it does Pius XII a disservice and perverts his message.The perversion of his message is yours. The Pope said the Sovereign Pontiff had the right to introduce a new rite in Mediator Dei. That was cited above. And yet you still charge:
--ultima ratio
To use this encyclical, therefore, as if that pope would have approved of the ... institution of a whole new rite ...Are you capable of reading anything but your preconceived delusions into the words of the Popes? Your silly interpretation of what he said is not what he said. Try to grasp this: The POPE has the authority to determine what is substantive and what isn't. NOT YOU. Whatever PETER (not you) binds on earth is bound in heaven. It doesn't matter what your trite opinion of his decisions is.
--ultima ratio
You jam more distortions and illogical trash into a few paragraphs that anybody I have ever read. Sheesh! Who has time to respond to it all? I certainly don't. So I will just respond to one more ridiculous notion of yours:
It is not true that Greek was used several centuries before switching to Latin--a common misconception. Scholars have found evidence of the use of Latin in the earliest days of Christianity in Rome and have revised their thinking on this. Check the scholarship.The official transition from Greek to Latin liturgy took place in the reign of Pope Damasus (366-384 AD). The church had already converted the entire known world by then (without the help of the Tridentine Mass). Take a look at Patrology by Johannes Quasten, Volume II, page 154. Reprinted by Christian Classics TM 1983.
--ultima ratio
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