Posted on 01/15/2003 4:14:42 AM PST by ultima ratio
By the Time We Got to Woodstock: Vatican II and The Spirit of Woodstock
Christopher Ferrara COLUMNIST, New Jersey
IntroductionNational Review Meets Woodstock
Thirty years ago today, August 15, 1969, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, some 500,000 young people made their way to Yasgurs Farm in upstate New York to participate in three days of peace, love and music. The gathering was advertised as the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, although Yasgurs Farm was actually located in the nearby hamlet of Bethel. Bethel means house of God in Hebrew, but those half-million souls were not seeking Gods house that late-summer weekend. This I know, for I was one of them. Yes, I confess it here and now: I went to Woodstock. Unlike so many of my contemporaries, however, I have no drug-laden past to unbosom. Even in the midst of my youthful wandering from the Church, I never ceased to view the drug culture with utter repugnance. There were no trips to the Aquarian pharmacopoeia for me. Not once. Not even close. Not even at Woodstock. No, my occasions of sin lay elsewhere back then, as they do now. Nor was I interested in any of the utopian nonsense surrounding the event. I was one of those who were just there for the music, as the hippie purists rather contemptuously described the children of the suburbs who had actually paid for their Woodstock tickets. And although I was a serious musician at the time, pursuing the foolish dream of becoming one of the worlds leading drummers, I had not entirely lost the capacity for right reason. How many avid readers of National Review were there among the 500,000 rock pilgrims at Bethel? I feel safe in saying that I was very probably the only one.
By the time we got to Woodstock the plans were in place for the destruction of the Roman Rite. Only three months after the festival of peace, love and music had ended in Bethel, Paul VI announced the decision that would bring peace, love and music to the Roman liturgy. Five years post-Woodstock I was out of the music business, God having patiently but firmly arranged things so that I would follow a different path. In 1974, my first year of law school, I became fast friends with a Jewish classmate who gave me Malcolm Muggeridges Jesus Rediscovered to read. This was the first step on my way back to the Faitha journey God in His mercy allowed me to make without falling into hell. By 1974 the Age of Aquarius had thoroughly infected post-conciliar Catholicism. Pope Paul had taken to publicly wringing his hands over the rocking and rolling of the Church to a tune for which he himself had counted off the first measure: one, two, three, FOUR, the Latin Mass will be no more.
Vatican II: An Ecclesial Woodstock
We should have seen it all coming in the giddy, almost hippie-like locutions of Gaudium et spes. One can imagine Wavy Gravy (a kind of hippie bard who made public announcements from the Woodstock stage) reading various passages from Gaudium et spes, including: Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. Right on. Groovy. Of course, an evolutionary concept of reality leads inevitably to the negation of any fixed distinction between one thing and another (what Romano Amerio has called the loss of essences in post-conciliar thinking), ending in the impossibility of thought itself, which is replaced by a series of phenomenological intuitions masquerading as genuine ideas. Such intuitions are the basic stuff of the post-conciliar novelties. For example, there is the intuition that there can be Christian unity without the abandonment of Protestant confessions and the return of heretics and schismatics to the one true Church. This notion is not really a thought as such, for no one can provide an intelligible explanation of how such a thing could be possible; it is a mere feeling that Christian unity can somehow be achieved without all Christians belonging to one and the same Church.
In the evolutionary tenor of Gaudium et spes we see quite clearly the influence of that Woodstockian acid voyager of neo-modernism, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Citing a German study of Teilhards influence on the Council, the always-helpful Cardinal Ratzinger explained it this way:
"The impetus given by Teilhard de Chardin exerted a wide influence [on the Council]. With daring vision it incorporated the historical movements of Christianity into the great cosmic process of evolution from Alpha to Omega: since the noogenesis, since the formation of consciousness in the event by which man became man, the process of evolution has continued to unfold as the building of the noosphere above the biosphere. [Far out, man!] That means evolution takes place now in the form of technical and scientific development in which, ultimately, matter and spirit, individual and society, will produce a comprehensive whole, a divine world. [Right on!] The Councils Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World took the cue; Teilhards slogan Christianity means more progress, more technology, became a stimulus in which the Council Fathers from rich and poor countries alike found a concrete hope . . ."[i]
In short, the influence of the great charlatan induced the Council to say something very much like this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Indeed, can it not be said that Vatican II was the Churchs own Woodstock, a kind of ecclesial walk on the wild side, with its own spirit of Woodstock which came to be known as the spirit of Vatican II? Ratzinger himself confirms this very impression:
"Anyone whose ear is still attuned to the speeches made during the last session of the Council knows how eager the Fathers were . . . to do something for mankind that would be concrete, visible, tangible. The feeling that now, at last, the world had to be, could be changed, improved and humanizedthis feeling had taken hold of them in a way that was not to be resisted. After all the surprises (!) that had emerged in the realm of theology proper, there reigned a feeling at once of euphoria and of frustration. Euphoria, because it seemed that nothing was impossible for this Council which had the strength to break with attitudes that had been deeply rooted for centuries; frustration, because all that had thus far been done did not count for mankind and only increased the longing for freedom, openness, for what was totally different."[ii]
What other council in the entire history of the Church was possessed by such a spirit?
The Conciliar Spirit of Woodstock
To our great misfortune, the spirit of Vatican II, unlike the spirit of Woodstock, did not vanish as soon as the event was over. No, it hung around the Church like the last holdouts at Woodstock, who sat dazedly in the garbage-strewn mud-bowl that was Yasgurs Farm. What are we to make of the fact that more than 20 years after the Council the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was still describing as a daring vision the same Teilhardian claptrap about the noosphere and noogenesis which had been condemned by the pre-conciliar Holy Office? It seems that some Churchmen have never lost their nostalgia for those heady days of the longing for freedom, openness, for what was totally different. The silly notions of a theological mountebank like Teilhard are cherished like the vinyl record albums some members of the Woodstock generation still hoard in their attics. But, like the spirit of Woodstock, the spirit of Vatican II has produced no change for the better in humanityonly a huge mess that will take a very long time to clean up.
The Churchs own version of the spirit of Woodstock persists to this day, prowling about in search of the new humanity extolled in Gaudium et spes and the new advent of the Church connected with the approaching end of the second millennium proclaimed by John Paul II in Redemptor hominis. The neo-Catholic commentators obligingly keep the restless spirit of Vatican II alive. In the November-December 2000 issue of Catholic Dossier, for example, the neo-Catholic luminary Janet Smith wrote, in all seriousness, that soon we may see the Church the Council envisioned. And what Church, exactly, would that be? Smith cannot say, exactly. Neither can anyone else.
According to Cardinal Ratzinger, writing 13 years earlier, the real reception of the Council has not yet begun . . . The task, therefore, is not to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in light of present experience.[iii] Ah, so in order to find the real Church, which the Council envisioned, it will be necessary first to find the real Council. And what, exactly, is the real Council? Cardinal Ratzinger cannot say, exactly. Neither can anyone else. But according to the Cardinal, the search for the real Council means that the Church must relinquish many of the things that have hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted. She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely in the shield of faith.[iv] Which things, exactly, must the Church relinquish, and which bastions must she demolish? Cardinal Ratzinger cannot say, exactly. Neither can anyone else.
More than thirty-five years after the Council we are still bobbing in a tempest of ineffable intuitions, passed off as developments of Catholic doctrine. At least Joni Mitchell could offer us the clarity of a metaphor when she sang of bombers turning into butterflies above our nation. What can the connoisseurs of post-conciliar ambiguity offer us for a vision of the future? Not even a metaphor.
The Phenomenology of World Youth Day
The spirit of Vatican II goes on and on in search of some epochal manifestation of itself, a kind of lost soul in search of its body. Since 1985 we have been told that the World Youth Days the Pope invented are just such a manifestation. At World Youth Day 2000, Cardinal Stafford pointed to the throngs of youngsters gathered in Saint Peters Square and declared: Here are the children of Vatican II! Here indeed they are. But how many of these children of Vatican II could answer correctly ten basic questions about the Catholic faith? And how many of the children of Vatican II from the first World Youth Day in 1985 are practicing the faith today, including the Churchs teaching on marriage and procreation, now that they have reached adulthood? Such questions do not trouble the promoters of these spectacles. For them, the emotion engendered by cheering crowds who make the Pope happy is sufficient evidence of ecclesial well-being. Staffords gushing over World Youth Day 2000 is typical of this mentality:
"As Pope John Paul II looked out at the vast throng of joyful youth, hearing their shouts of Viva il Papa and Giovanni Paulo and JP II, we love you! ringing in the aireverywhere they gathered with the Holy Fatherno wonder he wiped tears from his eyes, swayed with the young as they sang, waved his arms in the air, and let a glorious smile break through, again and again. Here he saw, before his very eyes, the fulfillment of the words of Vatican II to the young, in its blossoming and growth (since the first World Youth Day, over 15 years ago)."
So, an ephemeral outpouring of mass sentiment from a boisterous crowd is the fulfillment of the words of Vatican II. The crowd sways. The Pope sways with them. All is well. The phenomenon of feelings is the fruit of Vatican II. All empirical evidence of the actual condition of the Church is ignored in favor of a phenomenal event.
It is not merely facile to say that World Youth Day is the Catholic version of Woodstock. We have heard the same extravagant claim for both events: that the world can be changed for the better if only vast numbers of young peoplejust because they are youngcan be gathered together in one place for the promotion of love and peace. Cardinal Stafford, quoting one youngster, enthused that WYD 1997 in Paris was nothing less than a revolution of love. But the revolution of love in Paris was evidently not accompanied by a revolution of honesty. According to the Catholic World News service (CWN)) the French bishops conference was left with $5 million in debts because only about 100,000 of the 500,000 participants in WYD 1997 paid the registration fee.[v] Oddly enough, the proportion of gatecrashers at Woodstock was about the same. As Bishop Michael Dubost complained: I see many of the youngsters buying T-shirts, Coca-Cola, and numerous unnecessary objects, but not [registration] badges which shows they are not prepared to help. Neither was this revolution in love accompanied by a revolution in generosity to the Church. A collection taken up from the 1.3 million people who attended the Popes outdoor Mass at a racetrack yielded $330,000an average of 33 cents per congregant. The same people undoubtedly expended vastly more money for Parisian souvenirs.
Nevertheless, WYD 97 was pronounced a papal triumph by CWN. Had not the Pope attracted a huge, cheering crowd? What is more, 400,000 young people took to the streets of Paris, spreading out across the roads, and at precisely 10:50 am joined their hands in a human chain that stretched over twenty miles. What was the point of this human chain? According to CWN, the chain faced away from the center of Paris because the organizers had sought to demonstrate the commitment of young people to be open to the world, and a press statement explained that this was a symbol of friendship, of gathering, and an overture to the five continentsa universal appeal for peace. Openness to the world, friendship, gathering and peace. Secular aims for what was, in essence, a secular festival. As CWN notes: Tolerance was also the theme of the papal message on Saturday. In the morning at the church of St. Etienne du Mont, speaking to delegates of the World Youth Day crowdrepresenting the 140 countries which sent contingents to Paristhe Pope said: The Spirit of God sends you forth, so that you can become, with all your brothers and sisters throughout the world, builders of a civilization of reconciliation, founded on brotherly love. Nothing too terribly Catholic there. The crowd at Woodstock would have eaten it up.
The Kingship of Christ Forgotten
Of course, this civilization of reconciliation does not mean anything like the Catholic social order presented as the ideal in the teaching of the pre-conciliar Popes. That ideal has been replaced by something quite different. As the Pope would later observe in his Message for World Day for Peace 2001:
"Dialogue leads to a recognition of diversity and opens the mind to the mutual acceptance and genuine collaboration demanded by the human familys basic vocation to unity. As such, dialogue is a privileged means for building the civilization of love and peace that my revered predecessor Paul VI indicated as the ideal to inspire cultural, social, political and economic life in our time . The different religions too can and ought to contribute decisively to this process. My many encounters with representatives of other religionsI recall especially the meeting in Assisi in 1986 and in Saint Peter's Square in 1999have made me more confident that mutual openness between the followers of the various religions can greatly serve the cause of peace and the common good of the human family."
There is no question here of making converts of the followers of other religions in order to save their souls, nor any mention of Our Lords admonition about the consequences of the worlds rejection of His Gospel and His Church: Do not think that I came to send peace upon the world: I came not to send peace but the sword. (Matt. 10:27) Also forgotten is the teaching of Pius XI in Quas Primas that there can be no peace worthy of the name without the Social Kingship of Christ over every man and every nation. That is not what World Youth Day and the civilization of love are all about. That is not the program of the post-conciliar Vatican apparatus.
Yes, World Youth Days are filled with exhortations that young people who are already baptized Catholics follow Christ, but only in the context of a pan-religious brotherhood in which the beliefs of others are respected and even admired, not viewed as forms of darkness from which souls must rescued. And yes, there are outdoor Masses with pop-rock liturgical music, and an opportunity to go to confession, whereas Woodstock was simply and only a pagan festival. But trendy Mass liturgies and even confession can be had at any local parish. Clearly, it is not these things which draw the vast World Youth Day crowds. The rock music, the camaraderie, the chance to be close to a great celebritythe Woodstock of it allare what attract so many of the same youngsters who would, with equal alacrity, attend a performance by Britney Spears, Nine Inch Nails or the out-of-retirement Black Sabbath.
The Sacrilege of Pop Catholicism
There is great danger in this use of pop culture to entice Catholic youngsters to attend huge festivals in faraway places. Putting aside the Woodstockian temptation which arises when thousands of immodestly clad teenage girls are thrown together in a bivouac with thousands of teenage boys, there is the incalculable potential for sacrilege. Gerry Matatics attended WYD 93 in Denver. The enactment of the Stations of the Cross with a woman in the role of Jesus was nothing compared to what he saw at the outdoor papal Mass:
"We had camped out the night before on the ground to be sure that we would have a place for the papal Mass. We all had grimy faces and sleeping-bag hair. The assisting priests who were to distribute Holy Communion, implementing enculturation, accommodated themselves to the heat and humidity by wearing tee shirts, shorts, flip-flops and baseball caps along with their stoles. Priests similarly attired were listening to confessions beforehand."
The crowd had been roped off into quadrants, about a hundred of us in each one. When the time came for reception of Holy Communion I knelt at the front of my little quadrant in an attempt to receive the Sacred Host my knees. Hosts were being distributed from big, shallow bowls that could have been used for punch or potato chips. People were reaching over each others shoulders to grab the consecrated Hosts from the priests. I saw Hosts falling into the mud, where they were being trampled on. I reached forward and rescued as many as I could and consumed them.
I had been going to the Tridentine Mass since the Fall of 1992 and the Novus Ordo on weekdays. At that moment I realized that if this kind of sacrilege could occur at a papal Mass because of the Novus Ordo rubrics, I could no longer be a party to the new liturgy. It was the last Novus Ordo Mass I ever attended.
Michael Matt offers testimony perhaps even more horrific: At the outdoor papal Mass in Des Moines during the papal visit of 1980, consecrated Hosts were being distributed from cardboard boxes. A group of Hells Angels was given Holy Communion in the hand. I saw them washing down the Body of Christ with cans of beer. I was only a child then, but I will never forgot that awful sight as long as I live. (The practice of communion in the hand ensures that even the papal Masses in Saint Peters Square will result in sacrilege, including the spiriting away of Hosts by Romes many Satanists.)
At Woodstock, thousands of people (myself included) degraded themselves by lying in the mud for the sake of rock music. But we did not watch God Incarnate fall in the mud and trample Him under our feet. The Hells Angels were at Woodstock, and they drank a lot of beer, but not as a chaser for the Body of Christ. Sacrileges unimaginable in 1965, even at Woodstock, are now commonplace on the Popes endless road trip in search of the civilization of love, the new humanity and the new Advent of the Church. One must ask how any alleged spiritual good from these events can possibly outweigh the mounting insults to God which their very structure engenders. Who will make reparation for these sacrileges, heaped upon all the others made possible by the post-conciliar reforms?
The grotesque attempt to fuse Catholicism with pop culture, to make a Woodstock of the faith, is perhaps a last desperate struggle by the spirit of Vatican II to find a place where it can be seen to live. Everywhere in the Church the awful experiment is being tried. The Pope has allowed his personal (and suitably non-denominational) prayers to be recited on mass-marketed CDs by the likes of Britney Spears and the lead singer for Aerosmith, a Woodstock-era band still plying its trade on the concert circuit. The Popes life has been made into a comic book which he heartily approves. (Karol, Karol, look out!, shouts one of Wojtylas friends as he runs after a soccer ball with an opposing player in hot pursuit.) There is even a Vatican-branded VISA card (raising an interesting question about the application of Church teaching on usury). The Woodstock of the Faith is now complete with merchandising tie-ins.
Catholicism for Morons
In America the fusion of Catholicism and pop culture has already reached its absolute nadir. One of the most striking recent examples to come my way is a magazine called Envoy, whose editorial policy seems to be that Catholicism must be pitched to the level of a moron in order to be attractive to young people.
Envoys website has an animated cartoon that must be seen to be believed: It begins with a 98-pound weakling, a Catholic named Joe, being confronted at the beach by a Protestant Bible-thumper, who kicks theological sand in Joes face by quoting Scripture passages to support his attacks on the Catholic Church. Having been embarrassed in front of his bikini-clad girlfriend (who is lounging on the sand with her belly-button in view), Joe goes home and bones up on Envoy magazine. We next see Joe in front of a mirror admiring his now-massive physique, covered only by a pair of bikini-briefs, and exclaiming: Boy it didnt take me long to brush up on my catechism. Now I have a deeper understanding of my Catholic faith, and a deeper faith too! (Joes deeper faith apparently does not include any sense of modesty.) In the next panel Joe is back on the beach quoting Scripture to the Protestant bully, as his bikini-clad girlfriend (still lounging on the sand and displaying her belly button) exclaims Wow! The strip concludes with the girlfriend rubbing up against Joe and clutching his brawny bicep as she oozes: Oh, Joe, you make me proud to be a Catholic. In the background, another bikini-clad girl lounging on the beach says: What a masterful grasp Joe has of the truth and beauty of the faith. To which her boyfriend replies: Hes an Envoy reader.
Envoy is in trouble. The website reports that Envoy cannot survive unless it immediately obtains 50% more subscribers. That is hardly surprising. Envoy can be expected to fail, along with the entire post-conciliar venture of debasing the Faith in a vain attempt to make it more appealing to an unbelieving world. The same lack of subscribers is what plagues the Church throughout the world today. For those who now govern the Church have renounced the divine aloofness which makes Our Lord Himself, and thus His Church, so attractive to the world-weary soul in search of the narrow road that leads away from this place to eternal beatitude. Yes, Our Lord entered the world to be a friend to His fellow man, a friend par excellence. But that friendship is premised on obedience to Him who is our King as well as our friend. And who would dare to slap this Friend on the back as one would some merely earthly companion!
A Contemptuous Familiarity
The post-conciliar program of openness to the world is precisely an invitation to backslapping familiarity with the Bride of Christ: See? The Church is your friend. The Church can speak your language, after all. After so many centuries of preaching to you, the Church now wishes to understand you and dialogue with you. The Church has come to recognize your good faith, even if, in the exercise of your religious liberty, you choose not to believe. The Church no longer wishes to address you from on high or to frighten you with the prospect of Gods eternal punishment. The Church now wishes, instead, to accentuate the good in all people, all cultures, and all religions. Look!, we have provided music and festivities for everyone, and even a new liturgy that will be more to your liking should you care to join us. Come, link your hands with ours in the human chain of peace, along with the members of every religion or no religion at all. Oh, and yes, we do invite you to consider the Gospel of Christ, which we now, at last, present to you in a non-threatening, less ecclesiocentric way. For the Church has discovered, after many centuries of presuming the contrary, that all or most of you are following the one path of Christ in your own way, whether you know it or not. Let us proclaim to you the good news of your salvation.
And the world replies: Since you are now open to the world, to the good in all religions, to different points of view, since you no longer threaten us with hell if we reject what you teach, since you say that we are in good faith, why must we listen to you? And what, in the end, do we really need you for?
Conclusion
In 1973, four years after he had authorized the sacking of the Roman Rite, Paul VI gave a speech in which he lamented that the opening to the world became a veritable invasion of the Church by worldly thinking.... We have perhaps been too weak and imprudent.[vi] As the Church continues to suffer through its self-inflicted Woodstock, we can say that the perhaps in Pope Pauls remark ranks among the greatest understatements in human history.
The Church will survive this crisis, just as she has all the others. And even in the midst of it there remain islands of sanity, many within the Churchs official structure. These havens of Catholic calm and sacrality remind me of the very ample tent in which my Woodstock companions and I were able to offer shelter and food to a starving hippie, who had crawled under the tent flap to escape a driving rain in the middle of the night. Thank you, man, he said. Thank you, God, we say, in gratitude for the spiritual food and shelter we find in those few places where one can still worship as our fathers did, in peace and dignity, and pass on to ones children an unreconstructed Catholic faith.
History demonstrates that the Churchs human element is all too fallible; yet it always learns from its mistakes and moves on, having undergone a true reform like that which followed the Council of Trent. The human element of the Church will outgrow its Woodstock, just as most members of the Woodstock generation managed to outgrow theirs. The post-conciliar debaclewhich began in earnest, fittingly enough, in the year of Woodstockwill pass into history and assume its proper place and proportion in the scheme of things. Just as the summer of love in 1969 ended with fatal drug overdoses and the killing of rock fans at other rock festivals, so will the oft-mentioned but never seen civilization of love end in nothing but death and disillusionment over the false promise of world peace without submission to the Prince of Peace. The opening to the world at Vatican II will be remembered, if at all, with the mortification its ruinous results have warranted.
How much longer the Churchs mortification will go on, only God knows. After all, Our Lord deigned to suffer the ultimate mortification of public execution on a darkening hill before He raised Himself from the dead in a blaze of heavenly light. Whether we have passed the point of the Churchs crucifixion in this crisis cannot be determined; for all we know, we have yet to reach Golgotha. What sustains us now is the certain knowledge that there will, in time, be a resurrection, a setting aright of all that has gone wrong in the Church. Lord, may we see it soon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] Ratzinger, Joseph. Principles of Catholic Theology. Ignatius Press: San Francisco (1987), p. 334.
[ii] Id., p. 380.
[iii] Id. at 391.
[iv] Id.
[v] CWN report, August 26, 1997.
[vi] Address of November 23, 1973, cited in Iota Unum, pp. 9-10.
There are many priests who will not celebrate the Tridentine Mass, and they should not be forced to.
I don't think marshmallow is advocating forcing priests to say the Latin Mass, marshmallow is saying that those who want to supply the demand should be allowed to do that.
The "NO LATIN MASS!" types are as bad as the "NO NOVUS ORDO MASS!" types. What is either side afraid will happen if they don't get their own way? Does it change one's faith in God? Personally, I encounter many more "NO LATIN MASS!" types - mostly among the ordained and religious. But most of the ordained and religious here in Boston are to the left of center.
I'm reminded of the Novus Ordo on EWTN... I read that Mother Angelica was taken to task by her bishop for using "too much Latin" and she had to tone it down. Why? If a Mass is said reverently and validly, what is the problem if it is either all in English, all in Latin or a mixture of both? And the latter is the preferred Mass of Paul VI, I believe.
Silly.
A non-existant problem but for what it's worth, I agree.
The problem is the opposite. The restriction on the supply of the Tridentine Rite to those who would avail themselves of it.
Definitely! When I have to drive to the third diocese to the west just to attend the Indult, it certainly proves your point. Why do the bishops of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and the Diocese of Greensburg both refuse obedience to JPII in making the Indult widely available?
Their intransigence and malfeasance and disobedience have precipitated the formation of far right wing schismatic mass groups in both dioceses (even farther from the Church than the SSPX.)
Why fear the Indult? Why refuse its availability to millions in this country and others? Indeed, why not let the "Free Market" decide.
Could be that they perphaps have not kept up with their Latin?
1. With great affliction the Church has learned of the unlawful episcopal ordination conferred on 30 June last by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which has frustrated all the efforts made during the previous years to ensure the full communion with the Church of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X founded by the same Mons. Lefebvre. These efforts, especially intense during recent months, in which the Apostolic See has shown comprehension to the limits of the possible, were all to no avail.(1)
2. This affliction was particularly felt by the Successor Peter to whom in the first place pertains the guardianship of the unity of the Church,(2) even though the number of persons directly involved in these events might be few. For every person is loved by God on his own account and has been redeemed by the blood of Christ shed on the Cross for the salvation of all.
The particular circumstances, both objective and subjective in which Archbishop Lefebvre acted,provide everyone with an occasion for profound reflection and for a renewed pledge of fidelity to Christ and to his Church.
3. In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act.(3) In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on 17 June last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.(4)
4. The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, "comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth".(5)
But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.(6)
5. Faced with the situation that has arisen I deem it my duty to inform all the Catholic faithful of some aspects which this sad event has highlighted. a) The outcome of the movement promoted by Mons. Lefebvre can and must be, for all the Catholic faithful, a motive for sincere reflection concerning their own fidelity to the Church's Tradition, authentically interpreted by the ecclesiastical Magisterium, ordinary and extraordinary, especially in the Ecumenical Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II. From this reflection all should draw a renewed and efficacious conviction of the necessity of strengthening still more their fidelity by rejecting erroneous interpretations and arbitrary and unauthorized applications in matters of doctrine, liturgy and discipline.
To the bishops especially it pertains, by reason of their pastoral mission, to exercise the important duty of a clear-sighted vigilance full of charity and firmness, so that this fidelity may be everywhere safeguarded.(7)
However, it is necessary that all the Pastors and the other faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty of unity in variety: of that blended "harmony" which the earthly Church raises up to Heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.
b)
Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council's continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.
c) In the present circumstances I wish especially to make an appeal both solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfil the grave duty of remaining united to the Vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church, and of ceasing their support in any way for that movement. Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offence against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church's law.
(8) To all those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition I wish to manifest my will to facilitate their ecclesial communion by means of the necessary measures to guarantee respect for their rightful aspirations. In this matter I ask for the support of the bishops and of all those engaged in the pastoral ministry in the Church.
6. Taking account of the importance and complexity of the problems referred to in this document, by virtue of my Apostolic Authority I decree the following:
a) a Commission is instituted whose task it will be to collaborate with the bishops, with the Departments of the Roman Curia and with the circles concerned, for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals until now linked in various ways to the Fraternity founded by Mons. Lefebvre, who may wish to remain united to the Successor Peter in the Catholic Church, while preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions, in the light of the Protocol signed on 5 May last by Cardinal Ratzinger and Mons. Lefebvre;
b) this Commission is composed of a Cardinal President and other members of the Roman Curia, in anumber that will be deemed opportune according to circumstances;
c) moreover, respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962.(9)
7. As this year specially dedicated to the Blessed Virgin is now drawing to a close, I wish to exhort all to join in unceasing prayer that the Vicar of Christ, through the intercession of the Mother of the church, addresses to the Father in the very words of the Son: "That they all may be one!".
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's. 2 July 1988, the tenth year of the pontificate.
Joannes Paulus PP. II
<> So, we have an "expert" from the FSSP, a member of an order specifically approved by the Pope, acting against the very wishes of he who created the order. What tactical brillance...
Those who do support The Indult had better tell their leaders to shut-up and knock-off the schismatic attitudinising or their Indult will be pulled.
I mean, can you imagine being a Pope who creates an order and having so-called experts of that order you created "correcting" you in public?
Try to imagine the Excommunicated Lefebvre standing for that from one of his "experts" at Winona.
Talk about insane, self-destructive arrgoance. Do the suporters of The Indult think the next Pope wil have the same sort of heroic patience as this one? The FFSP "experts" are placing their own necks in the guillotine and their folowers are right in line behind them<>
Last summer, I attended a bishop sanctioned Tridentine Mass. Having been raised in pre VCII, I fully expected to feel like "going home". On the contrary! It was like stepping into some time machine where the next stop was 1965. Young ladies sported the long skirts that were fashionable back then. All the women wore mantillas; I felt totally out of place with just my hair to cover the head. My missal came in handy so that I could follow along ... and, therein lies the problem. The ONLY thing I could do was "follow along". It is a non participatory mass, where one is a spectator.
The most beautiful aspect of the Novus Ordo mass is watching the priest consecrate the host. It still sends chills down my spine. The congregation is enjoined in the mass through responses and music. Perhaps the highest level of Nordus Ordo mass is the one televised daily from the chapel in Hanceville, AL on EWTN. That mass combines the best of the Tridentine rite with the Novus Ordo and, to my mind, exemplifies what Second Vatican Council intended.
We need to move forward, not backward. This is especially true insofar as safeguarding the present church from abuses of every kind. Many catholics simply do not take the time to familiarize themselves with church doctrine, accepting whatever their pastor dishes out. The same can be said for American citizens who never bother to read the constitution. The Novus Ordo mass opened the doors to many 3rd world peoples by allowing the mass to be said in their native tongues. And the results, from that perspective alone, have been most positive. The catholic church is alive and growing in Africa and other parts of the globe. These peoples could not identify with embroidered vestments, incense and the Latin tongue. Through the Novus Ordo mass, many souls that might otherwise have perished, have come into the catholic church.
Exactly! What's the big deal there are good things from both which Father Fessio I think points out in his work on the docs of Vatican Two as regards Liturgy.
OK. The Wavy Gravy part is amusing....rhetorically. Points for comedic effect. ...Although many of today's cultural casualties of neo-modernism may not be familiar with the name, image, waistline, or damaged brain cells. Still, a fat acid clown from the 1960s would make a good poster boy for some ecclesial antics in the US Church since then. (footnote: Although a critic of the sillier and clownish varieties of neo-modernism, I am not a schismatic - just so that's clear) That that great cultural vortex which spanned between, say, Easy Rider and Saturday Night Fever had parallels in ecclesiastical subculture was unfortunate. If the point were pressed, Wavy Gravy may have been rather tame compared with more recent specimens of clerical counter-culture. In the realm of the secular and the banal...we now have...Eminem. Something to ponder for those seeking "dynamic and evolutionary" concepts of "reality."
The real problem with the Novus Ordo is not the Mass itself, but the liturgical abuses and general lack of sanctity that have flowed from it.
I posted this comment once before on FreeRepublic, and I'll repeat it here:
Imagine taking a non-Christian friend to a Tridentine Mass, and then taking him to a Novus Ordo Mass. If you ask him afterward which of the two had an atmosphere that had a real sense of sanctity and reverence, which (honestly) do think he would identify? Which would he identify as a truly Catholic form of worship?
I left the Mass perplexed and thinking deeply and have been doing so, on and off, ever since. My first reaction was that the Tridentine Rite was not all it's cracked up to be. Then I started to ask myself whether the problem wasn't with the Mass, but rather with me and my understanding of the Mass. I can remember when the Novus Ordo was introduced and thinking exactly the same thing: i.e. "this is terrible." So I think much of my reaction is really due to habit and what I have become accustomed to. Over the years I have become used to the Novus Ordo without really noticing it.
Overall, I think that the Readings and the Gospel need to be in the vernacular but the remainder of the Mass should be celebrated as per Tridentine Rite. Facing the altar. I feel that the "non-participatory nature" of the Tridentine Rite is really it's strength. The silences. The opportunity for uninterrupted prayer and devotion. What some would call "participation" I think is really too much activity. We've become too busy at Mass. Stand up, sit down, kneel down, stand up etc etc. Busy, busy. Turning the priest around to face the people was one of the contributing factors in some of the so-called innovations which have been inflicted upon us. It turned the priest into an entertainer who could now see his audience. The focus now became the "audience" rather than Jesus truly present.
There are many "rites" within the Catholic Church. Melkite, Syro-Malabar, Chaldean etc etc. I think there ought to be room for the Tridentine also. It's the rite of most of the saints on our current calendar. It must have something going for it.
There is a specific passage in the New Testament that applies to these people, and it's a rather grim one. Something along the lines of a warning from Christ that He would "vomit the lukewarm from My mouth."
What people in the Catholic Church seem to have forgotten is that Christ Himself said that the gate to eternal life is a narrow one. Pretending that it's 75 miles wide doesn't do anyone a favor.
Indeed. I love this newspaper. Enormously interesting and educational. I encourage everyone interested in Catholicism to subscribe.
Having said that, I can assure you that what I've said is true. There is a certain cohort of people who like to complain about everything that has happened to them since they passed the age of 5, and I've noticed that I seem to run into an unusually large number of them when I'm in a group of these Latin Mass people.
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