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 Popes encyclical letter was just the word we needed to have during the Easter season. Others of us said that the Holy Fathers 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 Newss 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 wasnt 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 Popes 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 Popes a liberal. Bernardin is a friend of his from the Second Vatican Council. They are fellow progressives. Dont kid yourself. He continued eating his meal in perfect peace. Well, although I filed Father Micelis wise counsel away, I didnt 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 1965when 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 thiswhat 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 mans 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.
And I will ask the Father: and He shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever: The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him. But you shall know Him; because He shall abide with you and shall be in you. ... the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you. ... when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will teach you all truth.We have it on the promise of Christ that the Holy Spirit will be present in the Church forever and will guide it to all truth. This is why we accept the official teachings of the Church and abide by the decisions of its Councils. You refuse to do that. You place your private opinion and the opinions of individual liturgists above the authority of the Church to modify the liturgy. You lead others into your misguided ways. For the sake of those who might actually take you seriously I offer the following thoughts:
--John 14:16-17,26; 16:13
The Church had already converted the known world before the official transition of the liturgy from Latin to Greek under the reign of Pope Damasus (366 to 384 A.D.). So you see, the Tridentine Mass is certainly not essential to the Catholic faith. Here are some excerpts from descriptions of the Mass by St. Justin, who was martyred around 165 A.D.
On the day which is dedicated to the sun, all those who live in the cities or who dwell in the countryside gather in a common meeting, and for as long as there is time the Memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are read. Then, when the reader has finished, the president verbally gives a warning and appeal for the imitation of these good examples.Now that certainly doesn't sound exactly like a Tridentine Mass, but it is obvious it is the Mass and there were many who attended Masses like the one described above who were martyred for the faith. So it appears heroic holiness can be achieved without the Tridentine Mass.Then we all rise together and offer prayers, and, as we said before, when our prayer is ended, bread is brought forward along with wine and water, and the president likewise gives thanks to the best of his ability, and the people call out their assent, saying the Amen. Then there is the distribution to each and the participation in the Eucharistic elements, which also are sent with the deacons to those who are absent. Those who are wealthy and who wish to do so, contribute whatever they themselves care to give; and the collection is placed with the president, who aids the orphans and widows, and those who through sickness or any other cause are in need, and those who are imprisoned, and the strangers who are sojourning with us - and in short, he takes care of all who are in need.
--First Apology of Justin
Here is an excerpt from the catechetical instructions given to the newly baptized by St. Cyril of Jerusalem around 350 A.D. St. Cyril is teaching them how to receive communion:
In approaching therefore, come not with thy wrists extended, or thy fingers spread; but make thy left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is to receive a King. And having hollowed thy palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying over it, Amen. So then after having carefully hallowed thine eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, partake of it; giving heed lest thou lose any portion thereof; for whatever thou losest, is evidently a loss to thee as it were from one of thine own members. For tell me, if any one gave thee grains of gold, wouldest thou not hold them with all carefulness, being on thy guard against losing any of them, and suffering loss? Wilt thou not then much more carefully keep watch, that not a crumb fall from thee of what is more precious than gold and precious stones?So, things change. The church went from communion in the hand to receiving on the tongue and back to receiving communion in the hand in our own time. We no longer touch the Eucharist to our eyes or touch our lips while they are still moist with the precious blood and then touch our eys and ears. What would seem irreverent in our time was seen as showing great reverence in another. Things change.Then after thou hast partaken of the Body of Christ, draw near also to the Cup of His Blood; not stretching forth thine hands, but bending, and saying with an air of worship and reverence, Amen, hallow thyself by partaking also of the Blood of Christ. And while the moisture is still upon thy lips, touch it with thine hands, and hallow thine eyes and brow and the other organs of sense. Then wait for the prayer, and give thanks unto God, who hath accounted thee worthy of so great mysteries.
--Lecture XXIII, On the Sacred Liturgy and Communion
The church has the right to change them. It has done so for centuries. And there have always been those misguided souls like ultima ratio who think the liturgical practices can't ever change from what they are used to. It is dead things that don't move or change. That is because they are not animated by a spirit. The church is alive. It is animated by the Holy Spirit. Those who possess the Spirit change with it. No, we don't change in essentials. But we leave it up to the Holy Spirit in the Church to guide it in making necessary changes to non-essentials. Don't entrust your immortal soul to the silly, amateur opinions of ultima ratio or individual liturgists like Klaus Gamber. Entrust your immortal soul to the Holy Spirit in the Church.
Vatican II, after all, was a failed council.So you don't believe Jesus kept his promise to send the Holy Spirit to be with us forever. What else can I conclude? You either believe Church Councils have the protection of the Holy Spirit or you don't. I have to assume you do, because in the past you haved cited them to make your case. Yet you claim Vatican II was a failed council. So you must not believe that Jesus keeps His promises. I know. I know. Don't tell me: We don't really need Jesus and the Holy Spirit since we have you and Klaus Gamber, right?
--ultima ratio
Of course I believe Jesus kept His promise.No you don't. Not really. The traditionalists who have returned to union with Rome believe in Him. But not you. You believe in Klaus Gamber.
--ultima ratio
What are your reasons for saying this?
Please consider the following:
And I make a distinction you don't seem to appreciate, but which any theologian understands who is worth his salt: not everything a council says is guaranteed Divine Protection. Only those pronouncements which are specifically declared dogmatic are binding on the faithful.
--ultima ratio
Pius XII refers to a declaration on the inerrancy of scripture from Vatican I as a "solemn definition of Catholic doctrine," although in the Vatican I document it wasn't a canon in the form: If someone shall say . . . . let him be anathema. Not only can statements such as this from a Church Council be binding, papal encyclicals can be binding as well:
These books the church holds to be sacred and canonical not because she subsequently approved them by her authority after they had been composed by unaided human skill, nor simply because they contain revelation without error, but because, being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and were as such committed to the church.
--Vatican Council I
In our own time the Vatican Council, with the object of condemning false doctrines regarding inspiration, declared that these same books were to be regarded by the Church as sacred and canonical "not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority, nor merely because they contain revelation without error, but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God for their author, and as such were handed down to the Church herself."When, subsequently, some Catholic writers, in spite of this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, by which such divine authority is claimed for the "entire books with all their parts" as to secure freedom from any error whatsoever, ventured to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture solely to matters of faith and morals ...
--Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Sep. 30th, 1943
Now that we have shown that the binding nature of Church Councils isn't quite as narrow as you think, and have shown that even papal encyclicals can be binding, here is another Pre-Vatican II source on the authority of Church Councils:
Nor must it be thought that the things contained in Encyclical Letters do not of themselves require assent on the plea that in them the Pontiffs do not exercise the supreme power of their Magisterium. For these things are taught with the ordinary Magisterium, about which it is also true to say, 'He who hears you, hears me.' [Lk 10. 16]. . . If the Supreme Pontiffs, in their acta expressly pass judgment on a matter debated until then, it is obvious to all that the matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be considered any longer a question open for discussion among theologians.
--Pius XII, Humani Generis, Aug. 12th, 1950
Proof From Tradition
If, during the early centuries, there was no explicit and formal discussion regarding ecclesiastical infallibility as such, yet the Church, in her corporate capacity, after the example of the Apostles at Jerusalem , always acted on the assumption that she was infallible in doctrinal matters and all the great orthodox teachers believed that she was so. Those who presumed, on whatever grounds, to contradict the Church's teaching were treated as representatives of Antichrist, and were excommunicated and anathematized.It is needless to go on multiplying citations, since the broad fact is indisputable that in the ante-Nicene, no less than in the post-Nicene, period all orthodox Christians attributed to the corporate voice of the Church, speaking through the body of bishops in union with their head and centre, all the fullness of doctrinal authority which the Apostles themselves had possessed; and to question the infallibility of that authority would have been considered equivalent to questioning God's veracity and fidelity.
- It is clear from the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch how intolerant he was of error, and how firmly convinced that the episcopal body was the Divinely ordained and Divinely guided organ of truth; nor can any student of early Christian literature deny that, where Divine guidance is claimed in doctrinal matters, infallibility is implied.
...
...
Ecumenical Councils
...
That an ecumenical council [ that is convened with the approval of the Pope ] is an organ of infallibility will not be denied by anyone who admits that the Church is endowed with infallible doctrinal authority. How, if not through such an organ, could infallible authority effectively express itself, unless indeed through the pope? If Christ promised to be present with even two or three of His disciples gathered together in His name (Matthew 18:20), a fortiori He will be present efficaciously in a representative assembly of His authorized teachers; and the Paraclete whom He promised will be present, so that whatever the council defines may be prefaced with the Apostolic formula, "it has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." And this is the view which the councils held regarding their own authority and upon which the defender of orthodoxy insisted. The councils insisted on their definitions being accepted under pain of anathema , while St. Athanasius, for example, says that "the word of the Lord pronounced by the ecumenical synod of Nicaea stands for ever" (Ep. ad Afros, n. 2) and St. Leo the Great proves the unchangeable character of definitive conciliar teaching on the ground that God has irrevocably confirmed its truth ...
Infallibility, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910
What are your reasons for saying this?Because they have more faith in the teachings of Klaus Gamber than in the official teaching of a Church Council convened by the Successor of St. Peter. They believe the Holy Spirit actually abandoned such an official council to the modernists. They don't believe in Christ's promise of the Holy Spirit being with the Church forever. Instead they insist that Church Councils submit to themselves and Klaus Gamber. It never occurs to them that maybe they and Gamber might be wrong. It never so much as crosses their minds. This is so even though they know that they as individuals have no guarantee of the Holy Spirit's protection. Yet they go on, in their incredible arrogance, undermining the simple, beautiful faith of many Catholics.
--Pyro7480
I doubt that "many" pronouncements of the Holy See contradict previous teaching, especially when consideration is limited to those documents which actually are part of the Magisterium. Oftentimes, as in the case of religious liberty, the "contradiction" is a result of misunderstanding. For instance, on the SSPX website I saw one article claiming the entire Syllabus Errorum was ex cathedra and that it contradicted Dignitatis Humanae. Of course, both assertions are wrong, but oftentimes this sort of thing is how traditionalists find "contradictions".
ultima,
You quote the Nota Praevia saying:
The rest of the things which the sacred Council sets forth, inasmuch as they are the teaching of the Church's supreme magisterium, ought to be accepted and embraced by each and every one of Christ's faithful according to the mind of the sacred Council.
Now, Paul VI's Credo of the People of God says this concerning infallibility:
We believe in the infallibility enjoyed by the successor of Peter when he teaches ex cathedra as pastor and teacher of all the faithful,[28] and which is assured also to the episcopal body when it exercises with him the supreme magisterium.
The "rest of the things" are of the "supreme magisterium", which Paul VI says is infallible.
The key here is in that the Nota Praevia says "the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church". This is referring to new definitions, of which there were very few. The rest of the Council's teaching was a reaffirmation of previous teaching or new disciplinary decisions.
What new dogmas were presented which were binding?
Lumen Gentium §21 contains a dogmatic definition of the sacramentality of the episcopate:
And the Sacred Council teaches that by episcopal consecration the fullness of the sacrament of Orders is conferred, that fullness of power, namely, which both in the Church's liturgical practice and in the language of the Fathers of the Church is called the high priesthood, the supreme power of the sacred ministry.
Fr. Congar comments: "It is difficult to see why the Council did not express a dogmatic decision on this point. But it would have been the only case of its kind." (qtd. in Catholic Counter-Reformation Jan. 1972)
Furthermore he says: "There are certain other questions upon which the Council does no more than to express, in a solemn manner, what is believed by all: one could even say that it is giving expression, through a unanimous act of the solemn magisterium, to what is the universal teaching of the ordinary magisterium" (ibid.). This is the case with religious liberty and collegiality.
The rest of the teaching of the Council was simply a reaffirmation of immemorial teaching from Nicaea I to Vatican I, which is reformulated and is still infallible, by virtue of the supreme magisterium. This is because the Conciliar documents were promulgated by Paul VI with the normal formulas for an infallible council:
PAUL, BISHOP SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD TOGETHER WITH THE FATHERS OF THE SACRED COUNCIL FOR EVERLASTING MEMORY
The entire text and all the individual elements which have been set forth in this Declaration have pleased the Fathers. And by the Apostolic power conferred on us by Christ, we, together with the Venerable Fathers, in the Holy Spirit, approve, decree and enact them; and we order that what has been thus enacted in Council be promulgated, to the glory of God.
I, PAUL, Bishop of the Catholic Church
Compare this with the formula of promulgation used by Bl. Pius IX for Pastor Aeternus:
Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the approval of the Sacred Council, for an everlasting record.
Therefore, all the teaching by Vatican II concerning matters of faith and morals was 100% infallible, even if it is unfortunately phrased ambiguously at times (naturally the correct meaning is the one in conformity with Sacred Tradition and Holy Writ).
At last all which regards the holy ecumenical council has, with the help of God, been accomplished and all the constitutions, decrees, declarations and votes have been approved by the deliberation of the synod and promulgated by us. Therefore we decided to close for all intents and purposes, with our apostolic authority, this same ecumenical council called by our predecessor, Pope John XXIII, which opened October 11, 1962, and which was continued by us after his death.
We decided moreover that all that has been established synodally is to be religiously observed by all the faithful, for the glory of God and the dignity of the Church and for the tranquillity and peace of all men. We have approved and established these things, decreeing that the present letters are and remain stable and valid, and are to have legal effectiveness, so that they be disseminated and obtain full and complete effect, and so that they may be fully convalidated by those whom they concern or may concern now and in the future; and so that, as it be judged and described, all efforts contrary to these things by whomever or whatever authority, knowingly or in ignorance be invalid and worthless from now on. (Paul VI, Apostolic Brief "In Spiritu Sancto", read at the close of Vatican II by Msgr.Felici)
He wasted no time introducing into the Church a brand new Mass, for instance, which almost immediately ignored the liturgical guidelines set up by Council only a few years earlier.
The Pope is free to change disciplinary decisions of an Ecumenical Council, no matter how infallible it was.
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