Posted on 10/22/2006 1:33:05 AM PDT by Antioch
While the contents of what Pope Benedict XVI may eventually say about the pre-Vatican II “Latin Mass” remain a tightly guarded mystery, that vacuum hasn’t stopped Vatican officials, bishops and liturgists from pondering the possible fallout – from the political to the eminently practical.
In the Vatican, one concern is that such a move would be seen as an ideological statement about the general direction of the church, and especially its commitment to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). They insist that Benedict XVI’s motives are actually pastoral rather than ideological.
Some bishops, meanwhile, hope that if a ruling does come, it will still allow them discretion to regulate use of the old Mass, making judgments about whether it might put unacceptable strains on priests and parishes in given locations.
“The bishop has to be able to make decisions about the liturgical life of his diocese,” Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an Oct. 18 interview.
Finally, liturgists find themselves pondering the practical dimensions of a potential Vatican ruling, meaning its possible implications for seminary training, church architecture, even something as banal as Mass schedules.
All of this suggests that the question of whether there will be a papal document may, in the end, prove less puzzling than what to do with it if it ever arrives.
Speaking on background because no public decision has yet been taken, Vatican officials insist that while Pope Benedict XVI has a personal preference for more traditional forms of liturgical expression, he has also made it clear he does not want new liturgical upheaval. Hence, they insist, his motives for contemplating a more liberal stance on celebration of the old Mass are actually pastoral, not political.
They lay out the argument as follows: First, the pre-Vatican Mass was celebrated by the church for five centuries, so there’s no question of it being “abolished”; second, if a small group of faithful are attached to it, and if wider access might bring some of them back into communion with the church, why not?
The reference is to the followers of the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who broke with Rome in 1988 in part over the question of the older Mass. Members of his Society of St. Pius X are conventionally numbered at perhaps one and a half million worldwide.
Most Vatican officials argue that the number of Catholics likely to seek out the old Mass is relatively small, less than one percent of the total Catholic population, and hence that the impact of broader permission would be limited.
Moreover, officials argue, even within Latin Christianity there is a history of diversity in liturgical rites. In earlier centuries of church history, different geographic areas celebrated the Eucharistic according to their own customs, and some of these rites survived until quite recently: the Celtic, North African, and Gallican rites are all well-attested. Others are still in use today, such as the Mozarabic rite in Spain and the Ambrosian rite in Milan.
(This is a precedent many liturgists would contest, on the grounds that these are rites circumscribed by a particular culture and region, while the pre-Vatican II Mass is not.)
While all of that may be grist for the mill for historical and theological debate, liturgists also have to contemplate the practical dimensions of the question. What would it mean to restore in a more systematic way a rite that has not been widely celebrated for almost 50 years?
Viatorian Fr. Mark Francis, superior general of the Clerics of St. Viator and a distinguished American liturgical writer, spelled out at least seven questions that occur to him in an Oct. 17 interview with NCR: • Aside from the Mass itself, will priests also be expected to offer other sacraments according to the pre-Vatican II rites, such as funerals, weddings, and baptisms? If many priests lack familiarity with the older Mass, even fewer would feel at ease with more “occasional” sacraments; • Will liturgical preparation in seminaries need to be revised? “If there is going to be a universal indult, then seminaries would feel honor-bound to offer courses to prepare priests to celebrate both rites,” Francis said. • What about church architecture? “It’s difficult to celebrate the Tridentine rite in a Vatican II space,” Francis said. “Will we have to move the altars back and forth? Will we have to install altar rails?” • Assuming the liberalization applies to the 1962 version of the Roman Missal, the last before Vatican II, where will people find it? It would have to be reprinted and distributed quickly, Francis said – joking that in the end, the 1962 Missal might make the rounds more quickly than the new English translation of the post-Vatican II Mass, a project that has been in the works for the better part of a decade. • Will the normal expectation be for celebration of the “low Mass” according to the older rite, or the far more complex “high Mass?” If the latter, then various other ministers and a choir conversant in older musical scores, at a minimum, would be required, and that could be problematic in many places. • Will some of the older disciplines that surrounded the pre-Vatican II rite be restored, such as Benediction after Mass, which is actually forbidden under current liturgical law? In some cases, the older Mass was celebrated in the presence of the exposed sacrament, also currently prohibited. How will such canonical conflicts be sorted out? • Finally, if the church allows traditionalists attached to the old Mass to hold onto their customs despite official changes in policy, what would prevent more liberal Catholics, for example, who oppose the new, more “Roman” English translation of the post-Vatican II Mass from requesting permission to use the previous English version? “Are we creating a procedural monster?” Francis asks.
“It seems to me there’s a pretty vast set of implications here that have not yet been adequately thought out,” Francis said.
For his part, Francis is not enthusiastic about the prospect of a return to wider use of the pre-Vatican II rite.
“The way you celebrate the liturgy is a theological act,” he said. “It enacts the relationship the church believes it has between itself and God. In the Tridentine rite, we’re saying that the priest is the principal mediator, and the baptized don’t have much of a role. That doesn’t reflect anymore who we are as church, which is the reason the liturgy was reformed in the first place.”
Critics, on the other hand, sometimes argue that it was precisely the excesses of post-conciliar liturgical reform that have created an appetite to return to the pre-Vatican II rite.
“People are tired of not knowing what they’re going to find” when they go to Mass, said Jesuit Fr. Joseph Fessio, editor of Ignatius Press, which has reissued a number of liturgical classics over the years. “Benedict is saying, ‘The people have a right to the immemorial spiritual customs of the church.’”
Skylstad said he hopes that whatever comes down the line will not dislodge the post-Vatican II Mass as the normal way of celebrating.
“We’re a church of unity and of common worship,” Skylstad said. “The thrust of Vatican II calls for more active participation on the part of the faithful in the liturgy itself, and from my standpoint trying to move further in that direction would be most helpful.”
“On the other hand, the Holy Father is trying to reconcile with the Lefebvrite group, whose members have an attachment to the older Mass,” Skylstad said. “To date, those efforts have not been successful, but we are always in the business of reconciling, healing and unifying. Perhaps some further accommodation can be found.”
He seems to be bothered by the Real Presence too: "There's more to the Real Presence than the Eucharist." Let’s not confine the Real Presence. While Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is central to our identity as Catholic Christians, we risk impoverishing our rich tradition by an exclusive focus on Christ’s presence under the appearance of bread and wine.
If the Universal Indult is received, there will be thousands of protestations of horror and complaints about disunity and the cost. These will be coming largely from liberals who's emotional volatility makes reading to the end of any church document difficult. Once they finally do get it that the celebration of the Latin Mass will be voluntary, they will complain that the celebration of a Latin Mass will be divisive and destroy the Church. (despite the Novus Ordo Mass being instrumental in driving half of Catholics from their churches in the last 40 years.
The "Novus Ordo" had squat to do with Catholics leaving the Church. The culprit behind THAT problem is the absolute collapse of catechesis (see "Cathechisms and Controversies" by Msgr. Werner for "whodunit"). By this time, two whole generations of Catholics are totally uneducated in what it means to be Catholic.
I think it was sort of a combined effect. The NO by itself is a somewhat flat liturgical form, but had it not been for the bad catechesis and in fact the acceptance of blatant heresy into much parish-level Catholic teaching, its effect probably would have been somewhat limited. Also, I suspect that many changes would have been made to it that actually would have resulted in making it more of an adaptation of the Tridentine rite than it is now.
"Clown masses" were not specifically or even indirectly recommended by Vatican II; but the weakened teaching that, unfortunately, emanated from many Vatican II documents, plus the loss of control at the local level, led straight to clown masses and the flight of large numbers of the Catholic population to just about anywhere other than the Church. And sadly many of those who stayed seem to be those who had no idea why they were there in the first place, but liked the social club aspect of it and the fact that Catholicism made far fewer demands on them than other forms of Christianity. Sad, when you consider that Catholicism was once the most demanding form, not only intellectually, but in daily practice.
The reference is to the followers of the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who broke with Rome in 1988 in part over the question of the older Mass. Members of his Society of St. Pius X are conventionally numbered at perhaps one and a half million worldwide.
*This makes no sense. They already have the Mass and while it is illicit, and while they illicility operate in the Jurisdiction of legitimate Bishops, I see no reason to accomodate this protestant cult. They don't desire accomodation. They desire the Living Magisterium surrender to their hatreds and heresies.
If anything, the Pope should issue a warning that he considers anyone who attends one illcit sspx liturgy shall incur an automatic excommunication. Then, POpe Benedict could pick a date, say May 15 (Feast of St. Dymphna), and declare that any in the schism who have not reconciled with the Catholic Church by then will be formally and publicly excommunicated en masse and no further talks will be held with the schism. It is LONG past time to stop pretending the schism is salvagable.
Fellay teaches the Normative Mass is evil. Fellay teaches Vatican Two is heretical. Fellay teaches the Jews are cursed. He is clearly a heretic riven with antisemtism and insanity and it just makes no sense to try and make a deal with such a man. Any deal with such a man will be as unreliable as all the former deals made with lefevbre. lefevbre could not be counted upon to keep his word either. Like schismatic father, like heretical son.
Well, I somewhat agree---but the contribution of the NO rite is tiny compared to other problems.
"The NO by itself is a somewhat flat liturgical form, but had it not been for the bad catechesis and in fact the acceptance of blatant heresy into much parish-level Catholic teaching, its effect probably would have been somewhat limited. Also, I suspect that many changes would have been made to it that actually would have resulted in making it more of an adaptation of the Tridentine rite than it is now."
Which is what appears to be in the offing. The problem is with the "Latin uber alles" types. The question was asked on another thread here in this forum: "If the Latin Mass was retained EXACTLY AS IS, but celebrated in the vernacular, would that be acceptable"---the answer from the LUA types was, of course, a resounding "NO!".
The notion that Latin is somehow "magick", "sacred", or any of the other terms used to describe it's "specialness" is as ludicrous for Catholics as the idea of "sola scriptura" is for Protestants.
*Yep. I think you are on to something. Almost everyone I knew back in the 60's who was Catholic no longer is one. All those I grew up with and stood in LONG Confessional lines with are now prots or non-church goers. Many are divorced and remarried and yet all of us back then were regular attendees of CYO (Catholic Youth Organisation) and we were all well-catechised.
But, our "christianity" was unacknowledged. We were Catholics and we had rules and regulations, dammit!!! As to a personal relationship with Jesus? Please. Who among us back then were taught to trust Jesus totally? Nobody I grew-up with. We conversed often about going to Confession, and not missing Mass, and not eating meat on Fridays, etc. It was all about formal, external, and legalistic attachment to rules and regulations. Our Liturgies were austere, formal and bereft of beauty. Our old Liturgies were said in about 30 mins , even on Sunday, by our old priest and we went through the motions of kneeling, standing, etc all in perfect unison in a liturgy drained of significance and meaning. It was there. We had to go or go to Hell. We went. And then suddenly, everybody stopped going.
So sad...
I don't know what Catholicism you grew up with, but mine sure wasn't formal, legalistic and devoid of a personal relationship with Our Lord. Nor do I recall that we were urged to adopt that type of relationship.
Everybody, from cloistered nuns to the little old lady in the back pew conversing with Our Lady to Father reading his breviary, knew what it was all about. The problem was that the ill-advised "reforms" that followed Vatican II took away the structure that supported all this and even condemned the people who practiced it. I once remember hearing the new, improved Fr. Bob (generic term - I don't remember his actual name) announce that the Church had moved beyond the Rosary - which was the standard Biblical/devotional reflection and prayer that had sustained generations of Catholics - because the "Church" (his, at least), no longer approved of private, non-collective prayer.
There was an excellent article in First Things last month by Joseph Bottum, "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano," which described the destruction of the intricate "nests" of Catholic piety and religious life by the out of control, misunderstood and misused trends that came out of Vatican II. I don't agree with all his conclusions, but I think he was very right about the fact that we had a rich and diverse world of very deep piety, combined with practices that kept it alive, which was somehow destroyed almost overnight, and that this destruction was is what sent Catholics fleeing and drove the "swallows" away from "Capistrano."
If we have to "seek out" a Mass, that seems to presume that it wouldn't be easily available.
"There's more to the Real Presence than the Eucharist."
Hmmmm. He's being sloppy with that term, intentionally using it in a manner in which it has not been used by the teachers of the Church.
"This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."203
203 Paul VI, MF 39.
I'll second that.
And we moved fairly often when I was a kid, so it wasn't just one parish.
I went to Mass yesterday morning, N.O. of course. Took about 30 minutes. Even with a substantial homily.
Actually, I don't mind when it is shorter, since most of the time I am gritting my teeth. Between the horrible music and the homily which is, generally, full-blown Pelagianism and full of gushing about how wonderful we are, I figure about a half-hour is all I can bear!
Here's a link to the Bottum article, btw: http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0608/articles/bottum.html
I'm not entirely in agreement with some of his conclusions, but I think his image of the destruction of the intricate nest of Catholic practices and piety, built up over centuries, and the resulting "homelessness" of its former residents is a very accurate one.
Bears repeating!!!
It seems a standard and silly complaint to me that in the olden days Father used to zoom through the Mass in a half hour. That's about how long a daily Mass without music takes today.
No one seems concerned about that but it's a standard complaint about how sterile things were in the pre-VII days.
So much handwringing over the possibility that someone, somewhere might celebrate a Mass according to traditional rubrics...yet, those with legitimate concerns about blatantly illicit liturgies are largely ignored by these same people.
That's true, I do remember that that was a complaint. They were pretty speedy, too; I remember timing a 12-minute low mass once! This was at a downtown church where people went to mass on their lunch hours.
One of the things that made the mass shorter then, however, was that Communion practices were speedier. Having people come to the altar rail, kneel, get up and be immediately replaced by another communicant while Father moved along the line was actually quite efficient. The current practices, particularly those where people stop, take communion in the hand and consume it before moving on, and where the congregation has to stumble through a forest of EEMs cluttering up the front of the church, make it much slower. So probably, all things being equal, we're back to the 12 minute mass!
**If the Universal Indult is received, there will be thousands of protestations of horror and complaints about disunity and the cost.**
What do you see as the "cost"? Loss of members? That would be one I would cite, and I am not a flaming libe
and I am not a flaming liberal.
**The culprit behind THAT problem is the absolute collapse of catechesis**
Totally agree with you. People were not educated in the ways of the church.
“The bishop has to be able to make decisions about the liturgical life of his diocese,” Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane,...Thus spake the man who has REFUSED the Indult in spite of a HUGE Latin Mass community here. He also led us into bankruptcy and now a Federal Court rules the Diocese as Bp. Bill spends the cash to zero, beggaring the schools and the retirement funds for the priests.
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