I believe that in Friday’s post, I have misconstrued the point being made by our friend at Libera Me, and so I thought it only proper to correct that mistake, and offer a heartfelt apology for any aspersions unjustly cast in his direction. 

The mistake I made was in misinterpreting the referent of the pronoun “that” in his statement about “those who would disagree with [that] are, at best, in schism” into applying more broadly to those who might disagree that “it doesn’t matter whether it’s 1962 in cloth-of-gold or EP2 in polyester”, and then taking this in combination with his statement that “The externals of the Rites, and matters of Church furnishing and ordering, are, on the whole, inessential; and we are therefore at liberty to hold what opinions we choose . . .”  without noting the important point that his statement identifying a schismatic attitude was limited only to those who disagree that the Novus Ordo is *valid*, not those who may, as I do, disagree with the idea that the “externals” as he defines them, are “inessential” so that in some sense “it doesn’t matter” what those externals might be.

I still disagree with the latter point, and I think that in my posts (both before and since) I’ve made at least a stab at beginning to explain some of the reasons why.   But I find in re-reading his post more carefully that in fact, I agree that one cannot safely believe a Novus Ordo Mass to be *invalid* simply because it is Novus Ordo, nor is it safe to assume that a Novus Ordo Mass is invalid (as opposed to inappropriate) simply because it may not have been celebrated with the reverence with which it ought to have been celebrated. 

Validity is not my primary concern in these posts, as such a determination is ultimately “above my pay-grade”. What I do address is congruity and “meetness”, and the many ways in which the *manner* in which the Mass is celebrated affects people’s perceptions of, and confidence in, the teachings of the Magisterium, not only about the Mass and the Priesthood, but ultimately, about anything at all.

I am sincerely sorry for having made it sound like he was branding people (like me) who care about the things that he labeled “inessential” as schismatics, when that was not what he said at all.  I honestly don’t believe my mistake to have been malicious, but rather due to reading too fast the first time, but when one takes it upon oneself to pontificate online about someone else’s post, one must bear the responsibility when one fails to correctly ascertain the true intended meaning, and attempt, as best as possible to correct the error.

I am therefore revising my original Friday post to remove the offending matter, but I will leave this post here if nothing else, as a reminder to myself to read other’s blog posts more carefully before assuming I understand what they meant to say - and then proceeding to prove to everyone that I don’t!

Before closing, I should be remiss if I failed to point out how ironic it is that a post he no doubt intended in a completely irenic manner should be construed by me in such a way as to risk a breach of the very charity he was seeking to encourage amongst all Catholic Christians - as we “trads” are so fond of saying, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!”

And finally, I would also like to offer my sincere best wishes to the author of the Libera Me blog, and encourage him to keep up the good work, as I’m sure that many others profit, as I do (even when I occasionally disagree) from regularly reading his blog.  

I received a VERY good question in the comments on my last post, and I thought it was important enough to give at least a “start” of an answer.  First, though, the question:

I have a wonder, and it is something that comes out of our experience over the last 8 years of trying to bring the neighborhood kids into the life of the church.  When we are living in a city where there are so many, both young and old, who are almost completely illiterate, even those who are not immigrants, and barely read English let alone being able to follow along in a missal with side-by-side Latin and English, how is the Extraordinary Form better for these people than a liturgy in plain English?  

Thanks for the interaction, and especially for raising such an important and serious question!   I need to begin by acknowledging that MUCH more could be said (and deserves to be said) on this topic than what appears below, but for starters at least, here are some preliminary thoughts:

It is an unquestionable fact of history that most Christians have been illiterate, and have been nourished and lived their faith in the context of a liturgy which was celebrated in a language other than the common speech they used in every-day commerce.   And this is true whether in the West with ecclesiastical Latin, or in the East with “Old Church Slavonic”.  Moreover, without microphones and speaker systems, it is also certainly true that much of the Liturgy, whether in East or in West, was not “heard” per se, unless it was sung by the Schola or choir (often by monastics).  In the West, the Canon, the “core” of the Mass, was said silently.  In the East, most of the “meatier” prayers are said by the Priest in a low voice while the Choir is singing various litanies, completely drowning out the sound of his voice.

Nevertheless, these poor illiterate Christians did learn parts of the liturgy, not by “studying it” or reading a translation out of a book, but by being catechized, and by experiencing the liturgy from within, intrinsically.  This can be hard for us modern-day rationalists, particulary anyone (like myself) raised in a Protestant setting, because we have absorbed a very rationalistic and “book-centered” idea of what Christianity is, and how it should operate.  However, it simply is a fact that the Church’s primary means of communicating the Faith are and always have been *personal*, not literary, or even (necessarily) intellectual.  Jesus Christ is the Word of God, full stop.  The Word of God is a PERSON.  Even the Scriptures, as important as they are, are not primarily a *written* document, but are more like the “soul” of her Lord, whose teaching still echoes in the ears of the Church.  I believe this is part of what Hebrews (quoting Jeremiah) means when it talks about the New Covenant being written on the heart. 

And historically this is exactly what we see:  the faith is transmitted primarily through *personal* means: through spoken word and action, not primarily through books and “book-learning”. The example of priests and holy men, combined with their verbal teaching. The mother teaching her children to pray the Rosary.  The Catechist teaching the Catechumens to memorize the Creed, line by line, through spoken repetition. The daily and weekly masses, with the ebb and flow of the liturgical year, *lived* from within, intrinsically.  The art and architecture of Churches: Icons, stained glass, statues of saints. The solemnity and beauty of the liturgical actions, the incense, the vestments.  The kneelings and prostrations.  All these things teach us by personal means, how to worship God, and through this teach us also about the greatness and majesty of the God we are called to worship, and therefore about who we are ourselves as worshipers of this great God.  

And this is important, because it is through these *personal* means, we can learn the Truth and pass it on to others, in ways that are far deeper and more wholistic than what could be learned merely by reading a book, or intellectually “processing” a theological lecture.  After all, if this weren’t the case, what would be the point of a mentally handicapped person assisting at Mass?

When one sees it in this light, the historic, traditional liturgy becomes far more compelling, since it communicates so much more, to so much more of the person, than the modern, *even though* it may be in a language which is not used for common, every-day commerce.  In fact, the mere fact that Latin is the common ecclesiastical language, the same in China or Japan, or India or Zimbabwe, as here in America, *itself* teaches something very profound and important about the UNITY and CATHOLICITY of the Church.  And, in a real sense, this teaching is actually *lost* when one celebrates the liturgy in the common, every-day vernacular. Because then all you have is a local, culturally-bound – and chronologically-bound (for living languages change their meaning over time) – liturgy, not a liturgy which is ageless and crosses every cultural and linguistic boundary – in other words, a truly CATHOLIC liturgy.

It should not go without notice, at this point, that if one is truly interested in having a ethnically and culturally diverse Church which respects the equal dignity of each Christian no matter what language they speak, then one cannot *rightly* argue for a liturgy *in English*, since that will automatically exclude (on this logic) those for whom English is unknown, or, for some reason, distasteful – and the same would go for any other language which represents a currently existing nationality or ethnic group.   Consider, for a moment, the situation in a Europe following the Second World War:  if you were French, would you have wanted to be forced to celebrate or assist at Mass auf Deutsch? how about the reverse en Francais?  And yet, both French and German, as well as English and Italian, can and did celebrate or assist at the Traditional Latin Mass *on an equal footing*.  Because using the Latin language does not favour any particular national, political, or racial entity.  And what better way to teach us that all, whether rich or poor, educated or illiterate, handicapped or whole, Havasupai or Hottentot, are equal before God? 

To bring this point closer to home, there are two Catholic Churches which celebrate the Latin mass regularly here in Phoenix, one with a Spanish sermon and one with an English sermon.  But the point is, when the Mass is in Latin, it doesn’t matter which one I go to – it’s the same Mass, because it’s the same Catholic Faith.  What unites us is NOT that we share the English language, or the Spanish language, rather the Mass, the liturgy itself becomes a *focus of UNITY and EQUALITY* rather than a *focus of DIVISION and INEQUALITY* which it can easily become when it must be celebrated in the vernacular.  If you must use the vernacular for the liturgy, you are forced to choose to favor one set of people over the other set.   Why should we be forced to discriminate in this way - ESPECIALLY in the liturgy?  If we follow the wisdom of the Historic Catholic Church in using Latin we don’t have to!

Moreover, as we can see by the seemingly endless political battle over the implementation of the new English translation of the Novus Ordo which was mandated by the Holy See under Pope John Paul II, what happens when you celebrate the liturgy primarily if not exclusively in the local, culturally and chronologically-bound vernacular, is not *just* that you loose the element of CATHOLICITY, but you actually create a situation where people of each generation feel they must *fight* these political battles to hang on to “their” English Mass.  We see this in the reaction of those who are resisting the changes in the English translation of Novus Ordo mandated by the Holy See.  They constantly criticize the changes which the Pope has demanded because those changes don’t fit the prevailing “politically correct” view of language, or are “insensitive” to the “nuances” of the English language, etc., etc., ad nauseam. 

What has happened to the Novus Ordo, is that because it is primarily celebrated in the local, culturally-bound, and chronologically-bound vernacular, is that it has become itself a political football, a tool of those who have other political and ideological goals than the mission of the Catholic Church.  But even if that weren’t the case, even the best of all possible English translations of the Novus Ordo would eventually wear out, and need to be replaced because the meanings of words in a “living language” like English change over time.  And at that point, you would then start to have these same battles all over again.  Some holding onto the old “familiar” English, and others agitating, some for better and some for worse reasons, for something “new”.

Question: Granted the *necessity* in this instance for the Holy See to correct the inaccuracies in the English translation, nevertheless, how in ANY way is the type of dispute we are seeing played out over these years since JPII first mandated the changes, meet or *useful* in the mission of the Catholic Church?  I can answer that easily: not in any way at all.  It has become for many, a PURELY a political battle, and it highlights one of the primary reasons WHY we need the Latin Mass – why the Church was RIGHT to establish a COMMON, UNIVERSAL, *CATHOLIC* language for her Creeds, Canons, and Liturgy. Because with Latin you will never need to waste time on these kinds of disputes!  

At LEAST if the Novus Order were to be celebrated in Latin, those political battles over language and style, as well as the concerns having to do with faulty, inaccurate English translations, go away.  But, of course, if the Novus Ordo is celebrated in Latin, that removes one of the biggest stumbling blocks which people trot out to place in front of the Traditional Latin Mass of the Ages.  Furthermore, once the Novus Ordo in Latin is placed beside the Tradition Latin Mass, the comparison does not favor the Novus Ordo at all.  In terms of depth, profundity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and complete correspondence with the teachings of the Magisterium concerning the nature of the Mass and the priesthood ordained to celebrate it, the Tridentine Latin Mass will win every time in *that* comparison. 

Perhaps most significantly, the focus of the Traditional Latin Mass is always centered upon the propitiatory Sacrifice of our Saviour on the Cross, made present on the Altar through the ministry of the ordained Priest who stands as an Alter Christus at the head of the faithful, representing them (as Christ himself did) to the Father.  This is reflected in the orientation of the priest ad orientem which is almost never done in the Novus Ordo.  Of course, it is *possible* technically to do a Novus Ordo Mass ad orientem, though doing so removes yet another major stumbling block which is usually toted out to place in front of the Traditional Latin Mass.  Yet even when the Novus Ordo is celebrated ad orientem, there is still a problem with bifurcation of focus, because the musical numbers in the Novus Ordo almost always alternate and *compete* for attention with the focus on the Sacrifice happening at the Altar, whereas, in the Traditional Latin Mass, the chants are *integral* to the liturgy itself (that is why they are called “Propers”!) and they operate as an additional layer, a “parallel track”, NOT alternating and competing for attention with action at the Altar as in the Novus Ordo.

[Nota Bena: the Propers are one of the elements intrinsic to the liturgy which, simply by complete omission, have been and continue to be, the most often abused in the Novus Ordo as it is celebrated in most parishes today.  No document of the Second Vatican Council ever intimated that these Propers, which are usually Scriptural, should be omitted, and yet they have been and continue to be omitted by most Novus Ordo parishes, in favor of what is usually trite, saccharine, and theologically vacuous popularly-styled "hymns" or choruses.]

So to answer your question, when all aspects of the question are considered, it turns out that the Catholic Church actually had it right all through the centuries – the Traditional Latin Mass is a far better context in which to communicate the Truth and Grace of the Catholic faith to the whole *person*.  It’s kind of reassuring to know that all those illiterate, non-latin-speaking Christians who lived the faith through all those centuries actually *weren’t* being “gypped” by God by not having access to the Novus Ordo liturgy in the vernacular!

And it’s wonderful to know that we don’t have to be “gypped” by not having access to the Mass of the Ages, which fortified and consecrated the lives of so many millions of poor, illiterate faithful throughout this planet of ours for so many centuries, for our Holy Father has freed the Traditional Latin Mass – the “Extraordinary Form”, as he calls it (and it IS extraordinary!) – with the desire that it be offered in every parish.  While it will take time for priests and seminarians to learn to celebrate it, the spiritual pay-off, both for priest and lay, for individual and for parish, as well as for the Catholic Church as a whole, is HUGE, and makes it well worth the effort.  Let us pray and work for the day when our Holy Father’s desires for the Mass of the Ages will be realized!

This poem/animation has been making the rounds recently, so perhaps many have already seen it, but I repost here for several reasons, first, the poem is an engaging critique of the level of much of today’s discourse, second, the person reciting the poem is very good at navigating the “voices” needed to bring out the humor in the middle of the poem, but then elevating to the necessary rhetorical level at the end of the poem, third, the animation is very clever and assists in communicating the points the poem is trying to make, and finally, because it brings to my mind one of the reasons why it is that the Church has always used Latin -  a language which, by virtue of it’s being “dead” doesn’t change in meaning, nor is it subject to fads or trends – such as those that are so effectively shown up by this poem. 

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo

But there is a more important reason why I post this video, and that is to highlight an aspect which relates to how we do the Mass – how the truth in the texts of the Liturgy is communicated, both by verbal and by non-verbal means.  And this includes not only the language (and here I take this word “language” in its’ most inclusive sense, including the style of address – compare the poem’s “tragically hip interrogatory style”) but also the music to which texts are set, and vestments worn (or not worn) by those who are leading the worship, the way the sacred space is defined, both architecturally, and by means of sacred ritual movement (what was once possible to refer to as the “sacred dance” – that is before the advent of “liturgical dance” spoiled that term) the use (or non-use) of liturgical art, etc.

The point I am trying to make is this: if we take the general point of the poem above and apply it specifically to the way we communicate those truths which we, as Catholic Christians, hold to be most sacred – in other words, apply this principle to the way we do Mass – then we come away with the recognition that it DOES matter “how” we do Mass.  It’s not an irrelevant matter – something which can and should be left to the taste of the individual.  Because what we are saying (among other things) when we relegate these matters (how we do Mass) to the realm of “taste” is that we are dealing with a topic where it just “doesn’t matter”, and therefore “how” we communicate – all the non-verbal messages communicated by, for example, using a hip-hop, popular/informal style of address, or the use of traditional vestments vs. rainbow-multi-coloured “modern-style” chasuble-alb, or the use or non-use of icons and statues of of Saints, or the presence (or absence) of a communion rail, or whether non-vested individuals roam freely about the sanctuary reading lessons and distributing the Holy Sacrament, or whether organ and Schola sing the liturgy, or whether a band of microphone-wielding pop-singers backed up by drums and electric guitars lead the singing, using the musical styles borrowed from the Jazz club or the Rock concert – all of these things, then, communicate a “sub-text” which either confirms the truth of the message or undermines that message.

To show one example of how this works, I’m going to quote from one of the comments sent to Fr. Z in response to his “Old Mass/New Mass question“:

My first memory of beginning to care about liturgical forms and styles is of Holy Thursday services one year. I had grown to love Holy Thursday because all the traditional Holy Thursday rituals seemed so very timeless and traditional: It was the one day of the year where it seemed there was always incense and chant (the Pange Lingua), and for those reasons I found myself looking forward to it.

However one year, instead of singing Pange Lingua during the Eucharistic procession they sang “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom …”, over and over, ad nauseum. I was extremely disappointed. Then, instead of the usual beautiful manner of exposing the Blessed Sacrament: in a monstrance on a covered table surrounded by flowers, they had it in a glass bowl with a lid, sitting on top of a feaux bronze cylinder, inside of which was a light bulb which shined up through the top of the cylinder, illuminating the glass bowl-o’-hosts. This cylinder was set in the middle of a circle of chairs, so that we all sat around looking at each other, rather than all kneeling in the same direction facing the exposed Host.

After it was over, my son, who was then 7 years old, made this heartbreaking comment to me in the car: “I felt like it was just bread and we were all just pretending”. This, I felt, was what happened when people made up their own liturgies and liturgical styles: It feels like we’re kids putting on a show, because the made-up rituals don’t have the weight and depth of the centuries-old, time-tested ones. And as a result my son was experiencing doubts at the cynical old age of 7. (He is now 16 and has overcome them, praise God!)

This was the first time I can remember being mad about the liturgy, or rather the abuse thereof, and felt that I and my children had been robbed of our heritage by people who wanted to make the liturgy more “relevant” to modern people.

I say this because these days one frequently comes across rebukes delivered by fellow Catholics (for example, see this post) which, whether conciously or not, can have the effect of marginalizing Catholics who DO notice (and then dare to comment publicly on) the ways in which the non-verbal subtext during many Novus Ordo Masses is undermining the truths which the Magisterium has consistently taught regarding the Mass and the Priesthood.  Now I should be quick to point out that the writer of the post is a faithful Catholic – I believe he is a monastic - and I am sure he is trying as hard as he can to be holy in accordance with what the Church teaches.  However, I believe he is seriously mistaken when he dismisses as merely “inessential” the power of non-verbal subtext to over-ride the truth of the teachings which he rightly holds to be “essential”.  While the things he classes as “inessential” may not directly affect the *validity* of a given Novus Ordo Mass, it would *not* be correct to assume that therefore ”it doesn’t matter” what we decide to do about them.  As  I hope I am in the process of showing here, it just isn’t that simple.   

[NB: the preceding paragraph was updated on 1/30/10 to correct a mistake I found I had made in misreading Libera Me's post linked above - see here for detailed apology.]

There are many places in the world, particularly in the developed world (take, for example Quebec, where prior to the liturgical “Reform” there was close to 90% church attendance, and today it is closer to 10%) where the power of the non-verbal subtext has, since the post-conciliar liturgical “Reform”, simply emptied Churches, Seminaries, Convents, and Monasteries – and this has led to strikingly detrimental effects upon related works such as Schools, Hospitals, and other charitable endeavours.  Why? Because the non-verbal subtext is powerful enough to communicate even to a 7-year old child, whether or not we “really” believe what we are saying about the Mass and the Priesthood, or whether it is “just bread and we were all just pretending“. And because eventually that 7-year old becomes a 16-year old, and then what is to stop him from shaking the dust off his feet as he leaves the faith of his baptism?  While (laus Deo) this did not happen in the case of the child referred to in the quote above, if we judge by the experience in Quebec (and elsewhere in the developed world) not much. 

Real charity is not opposed to truth, and real charity does not seek to make excuses for hiding the truth behind a veneer of secular culture, or worse, for pronouncing the truth “with the lips” but only with “crossed fingers” – by contradicting that same truth through the MANNER (the “how”) of what is said.  It’s time we all were able to speak honestly – to speak truth with charity – about the travesty which the liturgical “Reform” has visited upon the Church, because only if we can face it honestly can we hope to find a way back from the edge of the precipice.

Fortunately, there is a clear pathway to safety, lighted by the Holy Father himself, who has freed the celebration of the Traditional or Tridentine Latin Mass in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, and has stated that he desires that it be offered in every parish.  For in the Mass of the Ages, there is no conflict between the non-verbal subtext and the text of the Mass itself, still less between the text of the Mass and the official teachings of the Magisterium concerning the Mass and the Priesthood ordained to celebrate it.  In the Mass of the Ages, the Church speaks with confidence, clarity, consistency, and with authority, those truths which are most central to the Catholic faith.  And you don’t have to be a PhD to understand this – even a 7-year old can sense the difference.

Let us pray that there will be a growing awareness of the need to follow the Holy Father’s expressed desire to see the “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite celebrated once more in every parish, that the Church may recover it’s lost sense of identity, and may proclaim once again with confidence, clarity, consistency, and authority, the message of the Truth to a lost and dying world.

One of the reasons why I love the Traditional or Tridentine Latin Mass is that I believe it is simply how one would want to do Mass if one really believed what the Church teaches – and has always taught – about the Mass itself, and therefore about the Priesthood which is ordained to celebrate it.   One of many aspects which demonstrates this difference can be related in the following two interviews with Bp. Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Karaganda in Kazakhstan (about whom you can read more here - H/T Hermeneutic of Continuity):



Here is a more recent interview with Fr. Mitch Pacwa of EWTN:



Of course, it is true that it is “technically possible” (in the abstract) to receive the Sacred Host kneeling and on the tongue even in a Novus Ordo Eucharist – after all, that’s how the Holy Father himself has decreed that the Sacrament will be received by anyone fortunate enough to assist when he is celebrating.  However, it is rarely provided for in any practical way, making it (concretely) “practically impossible” for the greatest majority of Catholics attending the average Novus Ordo parish Mass.  After all, very few Catholic Churches still have their altar rails – if they ever did have them, they were removed -  and most parishes don’t provide a kneeler in order to allow for reception kneeling and on the tongue.  For some reason – and I believe I know at last part of the answer - there is a great deal of resistance to following the Pope’s lead in this area of liturgical practice.  

One of the more pernicious aspects of the “Reform” which was inflicted upon the Catholic faithful following (and, mis-leadingly in the name of) the Second Vatican Council was the degrading of the doctrine of the Eucharist into “merely” a communal meal – essentially a function of (and therefore primarily *about*) the Community of Faith itself, rather than as it had always been seen, primarily about the encounter of the Faithful with Jesus Christ, the God-Man himself under the forms of bread and wine.  This has the effect of reducing the Eucharistic liturgy to merely a horizontal, human, political type of meeting, rather than allowing it’s vertical, divine, and Spiritual nature to be seen.

Let us be clear:  it is not that the Second Vatican Council at ANY point called for such a degrading of the Liturgy, nor did the Council change any of the doctrines which the Catholic Church has always taught about the nature of the Eucharist and of the Priesthood ordained to celebrate it.   However, as a result of the disconnect between the operating presuppositions of those who were tasked with updating the Liturgy, that is exactly the effect which has occurred at the parish level for almost all Catholics today.  And, because lex orandi, lex credendi, is simply a fact – a “law” if you will – of life, this attitude has worked its way back into the teaching in the seminaries in liturgics, and into the administrative structure – the bureaucracy – of the various dioceses and down to the parish level.

It will take a great deal of patience and consistency, as Bp. Athanasius reflects, in teaching by younger Priests and Bishops who haven’t succumbed to this false and reductionist idea of the Eucharist, for this practical degradation of the parish-level attitude about what’s going on in the Sacrament of the Altar to be overcome.  

Of course, it is much easier if one recognizes that there is no need to re-invent the wheel here!  The Traditional or Tridentine Latin Mass is simply waiting to be said by any priest – now that it has been definitively freed by the Holy Father in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Gentlemen, start your engines!

In Tuesday’s post, I used the term “true Liturgical Renewal” and connected this term with what the Holy Father has desired, written in description of and support of, and, in his very deliberate and pastoral way, gradually begun to put into place.  

Today I wanted to share a short quote which comes from a book he wrote called “The Spirit of the Liturgy“.   I had read this excellent little book just over a year ago, but was reminded of it recently by an excellent post over at “Gregorian Rite Catholic” – and, by all means, please check out the whole article, as it is well worth the read! 

(NOTE: then Cardinal Ratzinger is here speaking about the Tridentine or Traditional Latin Mass using the figure of an ancient fresco which had been “protected” by being largely covered over with whitewash):

“[The fresco] had been preserved from damage, but it had been almost completely overlaid with whitewash . . . . In the Missal from which the priest celebrated, the form of the liturgy that had grown from its earliest beginnings was still present, but, as far as the faithful were concerned, it was largely concealed beneath instructions for and forms of private prayer. The fresco was laid bare by the Liturgical Movement and, in a definitive way, by the Second Vatican Council. For a moment its colors and figures fascinated us. But since then the fresco has been endangered by climatic conditions as well as by various restorations and reconstructions. In fact, it is threatened with destruction, if the necessary steps are not taken to stop these damaging influences. Of course, there must be no question of its being covered with whitewash again, but what is imperative is a new reverence in the way we treat it, a new understanding of its message and its reality, so that rediscovery does not become the first stage of irreparable loss” (Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, 2000, pp. 7-8).

I believe it is worth pointing out a distinction which is not made often enough, in my experience: namely, the distinction between what was “laid bare”, according to the Holy Father’s words above, by the Liturgical movement, “and, in a definitive way, by the Second Vatican Council” on the one hand, and on the other, the Liturgical outcome of the so-called “Reform” which followed the Council proper.   Many readers, I’m sure, have read this sentence without reflecting that the subject in this sentence is still the ancient fresco of the Tridentine or Traditional Latin Mass!  Unfortunately, rather than continuing to allow the “colors and figures” of this venerable work of art to be seen and to “fascinate us”,  what has happened instead is that this ancient fresco has indeed been “threatened with destruction” by a combination of adverse climatic conditions, unsympathetic ”restorations and reconstructions”, and other damaging influences. 

Which is as much as to say that what the Catholic faithful got in the way of “Liturgical Reform” after the council, despite the fact that it may have been promoted and authorized by some of the major players who were in attendance at that council, was NOT what the council itself, in it’s official documents had authorized – indeed quite to the contrary.

And which, in turn, is as much as to say that just because someone has been authorized by God to prophesy truly, doesn’t mean that that same person will necessarily interpret his own prophecy accurately, nor that he will necessarily act in a manner appropriate to, or congruent with, that prophecy.  For example, consider what happened in the following passage, recounted by the Apostle John, after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead:

Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they planned together to kill Him. (Jn 11:47-53)

Here you have the “Pope” of that time – Caiaphas, who sat in the “cathedra” of Moses, actually prophesying truly about Jesus, but yet missing the point of his own prophecy – that Jesus was indeed the promised Suffering Servant-Messiah, and going on to plot how to kill Him!

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. (Mt 23:1-3)

So…how are the Catholic faithful of today to follow our Lord’s teaching and “observe and do what they bid you, but do not ye after their works?”  Well, perhaps our Holy Father is showing us a way – a way to observe and do what the council documents call for, but not to do so in the way in which those misguided men did who threatened the ancient fresco of the Liturgy with destruction by their ill-considered (if not actually ill-intentioned) “reforms”.  A way forward which involves going back – through the restoration of much that these misguided men sought to destroy and expunge, first (and most obviously) by the liberation of the Tridentine or Traditional Latin Mass and it’s taking root in every parish as the Pope has called for in his Moto Proprio Summorum Pontificum. But not, as he has stated in the quote above, for the purpose of merely re-covering the ancient fresco with “whitewash”, but rather so that the Liturgical goals stated in the council documents (e.g. of true active participation of the laity in the Mass, of the primacy of the Latin language, and that pride-of-place be given to Gregorian Chant) might be realized.

Let us all heed the teaching of our Holy Father and follow the path forwards into true Liturgical Renewal which he has marked out for us, that ALL the Catholic faithful, in every corner of the globe, may come to rejoice in the beauty of the ancient fresco of the Liturgy, fully restored, unhindered and unfettered by the blind and misguided efforts which have unfortunately prevailed since the close of the council, so that the Church may emerge from the dark and cold of its’ 40-year winter into a new springtime of faith and hope; of truth and love; of piety and fervor.

There is a definite connection between true Liturgical Renewal of the kind which the Holy Father envisions, and true Ecumenism of the kind which actually heals schisms and re-unites separated brethren into “one flock with one shepherd (Jn 10:16)“, “that they may be one as we are one (Jn 17:22)” as our Saviour has prayed. 

It is no accident, as many have recognized, that the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus was being announced and promulgated at the same time as the CDF talks with the SSPX were beginning (end of October/beginning of November) – indeed, the Holy Father himself makes the connection in this speech given before the annual plenary assembly of the CDF just this past Friday!

And for good reason: because true Liturgical Renewal and true Ecumenism of this sort are not optional for the Church, but are integral to Her mission, since Her mission is the furtherance of the very mission for which Her Saviour died - to “bring God’s scattered children together and make them one (Jn 11:52)“, and being thus lifted up “to draw all men to myself (Jn 12:32)“

Any Papal initiative this central to Christ’s purposes is apt to be opposed by the evil one, however, and we should not be surprised to find that the enemies of Christ, whether they operate from without or from within the Church, are united in opposing both such true Liturgical Renewal and true Ecumenism.  And thus it is encouraging to read, as our friends at “The Anglo-Catholic” report, that good things are in motion - and not a moment too soon!

“…..er…..except when it doesn’t!“



H/T to Pertinacious Papist