The Danger of Equating Vatican II and the Liturgical Reform

New Liturgical Movement ^ | 1/20/2014 | PETER KWASNIEWSKI

[markomalley]

Pope John Paul II pointed out: “For many people, the message of the Second Vatican Council was perceived principally through the liturgical reform” (Vicesimus Quintus Annus, 12).

That’s just the problem in a nutshell, isn’t it? If the liturgical reform itself was bungled—and, in the wake of the scathing critiques of Gamber, Ratzinger, Nichols, Lang, Mosebach, Robinson, Reid, et alia, it is no longer intellectually honest to think that it was not, in some very important respects—and, what is worse, if its implementation was still further compromised by the prevailing secularism of the environment into which it was launched, one must ask: What version, or rather, what caricature, of Vatican II did those many people perceive whose idea of the Council came, perhaps exclusively, from the liturgical revolution?

They took in little or nothing of the authentic doctrine of the Council—the salubrious doctrine that, according to John XXIII’s intention and the very words of Vatican II itself, fully accorded with the teaching of former ecumenical councils, especially those of Trent and Vatican I. Instead of bread, the faithful were given a stone. Instead of substantive content, the faithful were given a hermeneutic, a manner of viewing the Church, her teaching, her tradition, her liturgy—and it was decisively one of rupture and discontinuity. To be Catholic in those heady days meant to be different, to be other, to be up-to-date; it certainly did not mean to be stably the same, consistent with one’s past, reliant on tradition. The Church was no longer the Mystical Body and Immaculate Bride of Christ; the Church was reform, reform without an end in sight, without even much of a plan, reform for the sake of reform. As the famous Protestant theologian Karl Barth asked in the wake of the Council: “When will the Church know that it is sufficiently updated?” I think that’s what you call a rhetorical question.

Tragically, generations of clergy have been trained in the same hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity, including most of the world’s bishops. That is why the unexpected resurgence of traditional forms of faith and worship among young people, mounting at times to passionate commitment, is a source of bewilderment, consternation, and even anger to them. Due to their training and mental habits, such clergy equate today’s liturgy and its multitudinous aberrations with Vatican II, and hence equate a love of or preference for the traditional liturgy and the culture surrounding it with a rejection of Vatican II. This might be true for some people, but it isn't true across the board, and it need not be true at all.

It does not seem to matter that the traditional liturgy and the integral Catholic life it sustains is, in fact, profoundly in harmony with the best and greatest teachings of the Council—one need only think of Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, and even Sacrosanctum Concilium. It does not matter that Pope Benedict XVI, the greatest theologian to sit on the Chair of Peter for centuries, saw continuity between his own liturgical doctrine and praxis and that of the Council to which he made significant contributions. No, it does not matter, because it doesn’t look that way to Catholics ignorant of the Council’s documents, ignorant of the liturgical patrimony of the Church, and poorly formed by almost fifty years of liturgical abuse.

Pasquale Cati, Council of Trent

What is necessary today is to show, patiently, persistently, and accurately, with the humility and confidence born of careful study, that the fathers of Vatican II did not desire or ask for the liturgical reform that came out of Bugnini’s Consilium, that the Novus Ordo Missae is not in full accord with Sacrosanctum Concilium (see here or here), and that the teaching of the sixteen official documents of Vatican II supports rather than dismantles traditional Catholic theology and piety. The least we can do, in any case, is not to allow ourselves to be tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of secondhand half-truths or tendentious readings that emphasize rupture, whether modernist or traditionalist in source.

It is true that there are problems, difficulties, and ambiguities in the conciliar documents. It is true that not every formulation is immune to legitimate criticism—even Ratzinger complained that parts of Gaudium et Spes were “downright Pelagian.” And it is beyond doubt that there were bishops and periti at the Council who sought to infuse modernism into the documents and, to some extent, succeeded in influencing the formulations. But it is still more certain that the final documents, reviewed so many times and passed through the crucible of papal and conciliar scrutiny, are, with few exceptions, sound in content and form; and it is most certain that they are free from error in faith and morals, being the formal acts of an ecumenical council and solemnly promulgated by the Pope. We must never, as it were, abandon the Council to the modernists; this would only play into the devil’s hands.

In any case, it is not simply this most recent Council that gives us our map and marching orders; it is the entirety of Catholic Tradition and the totality of the Magisterium for the past 2,000 years, of which this Council is but a part, and within which it is rightly understood. We know that in principle, no reading of Vatican II can possibly be right that results in formal contradiction between past and present. We are guided by all of the Church’s teaching, not just the most recent. Indeed, we are blessed to belong to a body that, while it develops over time, cannot essentially change. The partisans of perpetual change can have their bizarre liturgies and politically correct catechisms, but they will no longer—or not for much longer—be Catholics.

[Rich21IE]

Very true. All of which is why I abandoned my research because it became apparent to me that the modern world view of life itself is, on the one hand so pervasive, and on the other so corrupted that its pointless to address the problem from a philosophical perspective.

The worst part of all of this is that in abandoning Thomism, modern, (19th Century/20th Century) philosophers have entirely negated the existence of the human soul. The irony in this is that on the one hand, they attempt to explain human existence as “experience” while on the other, they indirectly deny the existence of the human soul which means that they have an essentially flawed understanding of what it is to be fully human. Its kinda like trying to explain the existence and life of the chicken all the while denying the existence of the egg.

[Rich21IE]

All quite true.

As I’ve read your post 3 times over, the idea came to me that in a sense, what you’ve described may lie at the core of my discomfort with Pope Francis. Francis seems to be coming from an entirely different angle and the problem with Francis is that it’s near impossible to decode his philosophical underpinnings which appear to be rooted in some convoluted South American experience which isn’t well documented in English.

[markomalley]

OK. Just wanted to make sure that we were talking about the same concept while using different terms. The immediate end to such a philosophy is pantheism...where we all are our little gods...and, of course, if we all are our own little gods then the ultimate end is that nothing is God.

[Rich21IE]

And therein lies the path to chaos.

[BlatherNaut]

Very true. All of which is why I abandoned my research because it became apparent to me that the modern world view of life itself is, on the one hand so pervasive, and on the other so corrupted that its pointless to address the problem from a philosophical perspective.

I agree with you 100%. The problem IMO would be most effectively addressed by a return to the scriptural understanding of the nature of man (God's metaphor of sheep) and a pragmatic approach encompassing the clear and succinct style of pre-VII teaching along with a re-integration of some of the pre-VII spiritual practices. How are people to know the truth if the shepherds deliberately avoid eschatological discussions? References to the eternal consequences of sin have become verboten. Human nature responds best to a combination of carrot and stick. And we sheep need structure as well as training. Since VII, many of the spiritual aids and guideposts that kept us walking toward the narrow gate (family rosary, novenas, saints, processions, litanies, devotions, etc.) are no longer actively encouraged, are viewed as anachronisms, and are sometimes even treated with contempt (Pope Francis: I received a letter from one of these groups, and they said: "Your Holiness, we offer you this spiritual treasure: 3,525 rosaries." Why don't they say, 'we pray for you, we ask...', but this thing of counting... And these groups return to practices and to disciplines that I lived through - not you, because you are not old - to disciplines, to things that in that moment took place, but not now, they do not exist today...").

Disparagement of the structures and prayers and reverent liturgy in the form of the TLM by spiritual elitists post VII who possess a naive view of human nature and who thus do not believe that an authentic relationship with God is served by the traditional practices that have produced countless saints has contributed to the unfortunate post-VII results ( e.g. loss of belief in the Real Presence, the empty confessional, the rejection of authority, shrinking attendance...).

[Rich21IE]

I agree but I don’t have any answers as to how to get this thing back on track other than to note that I’ve encountered several anecdotal reports to the effect that in Parishes where they’ve reintroduced the TLM they’ve seen a large uptick in attendance.

It may be the case that the Laity leads the Sheppard back to the true path.

[RobbyS]

It was as if Trent had been highjacked by Calvinists, and we did get a hint of what might have happened in that case in the Jansenist heresy. But what happened after the Council was that there was a rebellion in the Church by the lower clergy and by many orders of nuns, pretty much as there during the Reformation. But it didn’t start with the Council, it was that the council, like the Council of 1512, did not go “its job.” Did not contain a rebellion that was already, under the surface, already begun.

[RobbyS]

The reforms went against human nature. One does not suddenly tell people that the way they have worshipped all their lives, the way that their parents and grandparents had worshipped all their lives, was now to be disregarded. It was like Jacobinism, a devaluation of the past rather than building on it. A lot of lay people thought that if even the priests and nuns did not think it mattered, then to hell with it. So they stopped coming to mass, old and young alike.