A church historian would easily be able to name many many instances of suppression of rites over the centuries. It is not just the Tridentine Rite that receives this treatment. And furthermore it is not just liturgy that receives suppressive treatment by bishops. Bishops suppress: that is how they shepherd. They say, "This is not good for my flock." And then they do something about it.
I'm not opposed to the Tridentine Rite. I am opposed to the practice of giving bare lip service to the provision in the indult that those who attend the Tridentine Rite must believe in the legitimacy of the Missa Normativa. If this duplicity--attending the indult Mass without fully adhering to its conditions--is as widespread as I think it is, that is in fact bad for the flock.
Not that this necessarily explains all of the suppression. But it could very well explain the best of it.
It's not just Catholics who want the old Tridentine Mass who face that kind of opposition or persecution. As probably any Eastern Rite Catholic could tell you, their rites have in the past suffered from prejudice and unjust opposition from Latin Rite bishops. At times it was so bad that Eastern Catholics were provoked into breaking communion with the Church and joining the Eastern Orthodox. I'm sure the bishops who persecuted their Eastern brethren thought there were good pastoral reasons for their behavior, but it doesn't make it right.
(1) Corporate stoogery. If you run the Church like a corporation, you will get a corps of yes-men. For further study, read the "Dilbert" comic strip with an eye toward Church politics, particularly at the diocesan level.
(2) Careerism. We are working our way through a few generations of men who have hitched their wagons, so to speak, to the Novus Ordo star, the effusive ecumenism star, the sin-without-guilt star, etc. To import the Lewis dancing analogy, even a modest elevation of the status of the tridentine Mass forces these priests to watch their feet -- sort of a reverse-Mosebach syndrome -- and, having known nothing but arbitrariness and its resultant freedom-by-default, they are likely to react badly to fellow priests who bind themselves to the comforting yoke of tradition.
(3) Sheer laziness. What if THEY had to learn a new rite (new dance steps) -- criminy, who has the time for that?
(4) Sheer dismay. Those most discerning may experience bitterness that, after a career of bongos and blubbering, something clearly more edifying is now, at least tentatively, available -- "I couldn't have it -- why should he?"
(5) Sheer sodomy, or tolerance of same. All this return to tradition stuff is not copasetic.
(6) Refusal to smell the coffee. Many bishops are convinced that, if they continue to resolutely break the stones of their traditionalist laity by denying them an indult, or, as the intrepid Lords of the Buffalo fiefdom have been prone to do, play a game of "indult, indult, which parish has the indult", the joyjoyjoykilling grouches will finally oblige the aggiornamento by dying off. The fact that they have not yet done so, and in fact seem to be aging in reverse, getting younger year by year, is no doubt supremely vexing to these fearless defenders of the faith.
Wow, charitable reading there, skipper.
I really believe that Msgr. Klaus Gamber got right to the heart of the matter when he wrote:
"Liturgy and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist) theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist in its established form because it was permeated with the truths of the traditional faith and the ancient forms of piety. For this reason alone, much was abolished and new rites, prayers and hymns were introduced, as were the new readings from Scripture, which conveniently left out those passages that did not square with the teachings of modern theology—for example, references to a God who judges and punishes" (The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, 100).
The old Rite expresses the ancient and abiding Faith in a way that the new Rite never will, never can, since the basic material is gone, excised ***on purpose*** by those who created the new Rite. Now again, I have said here many times that I consider the new Rite to be validly promulgated and free from theological error, at least in its Latin typical edition. But it is also vastly inferior in expressing, preserving, and handing on our Faith in its integrity and entirety.
I think that by and large, then, the hostility comes from two quarters. First, it comes from those bishops and priests who no longer hold the Faith pure and undefiled and therefore feel (justifiably) threatened by the reintroduction of the traditional Latin Mass into the heart of the Church. And second, those go-with-the-flow bishops and priests who have bought into the "everything is different now" mentality and so react against it as a purely knee-jerk response to that which is pre-Vatican II.
[ Bishops suppress: that is how they shepherd. ]
Strange, for the vast majority, that they only manage to suppress those things redolant of the ancient and abiding Faith. They don't quite get around to suppressing liturgical abuses, sexual misconduct, "dissent" from Church doctrine among their clergy, etc. Can't you just admit, Kathy, that John Paul II stacked the episcopate with traitors and cowards?
Oh and by the way, the latest issue of The Latin Mass magazine has an interview with Archbishop Albert Don, Pope Benedict XVI's appointment to the Congregation of Divine Worship, in which His Excellency adds his testimony to the growing list of highly placed prelates (including Cards. Ratzinger, Stickler, Medina Estivez, Hoyos, et al.) who testify that the traditional Roman Rite was never formally suppressed after Vatican II. Kathy said, in another thread somewhere, that I was in dreamland for thinking such a thing. Guess she knows best.
I think a lot of bishops are afraid that the Traditional Mass will catch on. Where it is allowed to thrive, it has thrived. I attend a Traditional parish which was established by the Diocese of Camden, and on Sundays and Feastdays you better get there early if you want a good seat.
Some bishops may also think that trads are all of the sedevacantist conspiracy theorist variety, which isn't true, of course. Since the clergy generally counsels against such stereotyping, they ought to avoid this one too. Tolerance for many of them does seem to cut one way only. This is a general trademark of ecclesiastical and political liberalism.
TWB, you sure do pick and choose which prelates to respect. According to my understanding, the Tradition demands respect for prelates regardless of partisanship. Which is what I'll continue to do, thanks all the same.
Some bishops may also think that trads are all of the sedevacantist conspiracy theorist variety, which isn't true, of course.
That's accurate, and of course unfair, but that is the way the kind of instinctive "No, not in my diocese" shepherding tends to work, dismissing some good with the bad. That's normal ecclesial discipline, imho.
By the way, an FSSP priest I know was chatting with me the other day about this new group, the Good Shepherd fathers who broke away from the SSPXers. He said (maybe this is already well known) that in their legislation it says that they are to say ONLY the Tridentine Rite liturgy. He said that this is not stipulated in the FSSP legislation, and so they get into all sorts of entanglements with bishops who want them to say Mass in the Missa Normativa, such as "at least concelebrate the Chrism Mass."
(A most blessed feast day to you, Michael!)
[ That's accurate, and of course unfair, but that is the way the kind of instinctive "No, not in my diocese" shepherding tends to work, dismissing some good with the bad. That's normal ecclesial discipline, imho. ]
Except that they don't bother to say "not in my diocese" with regard to liturgical abuse, "dissenting" priests, sexual abuse, et al. Again, the great number of acting bishops will only put their foot down when it comes to the traditional Latin Mass. A rather telling commentary on those selected to lead the Church.
With regard to your point directed to me, it would at least help me see you acting in good faith here, Kathy, if you would admit that the line-up of prelates who have stated publicly that the traditional Latin Mass has never been formally suppressed renders that view at least highly plausible, as compared to your utter dismissal of the idea as some kind of moonshine on my part.
Thank you, Kathy.
Actually, I'm headed off to Mass tonight to celebrate. Of course, if I sit here and blog much longer, I'll miss the whole blessed thing!
God knows how to soothe us. Charles Pius Gartonzavesky, born on Holy Cross Day will be baptised this Sunday by a 90 year old priest according to the 1962 rite.
May I pray a holy hour for those deprived of such consolations?
Congratulations, Chris! Our last child was baptized in the traditional Rite, whereas the others were baptized in the new Rite. Same graces, obviously (although we sometimes wonder if dropping the exorcism was a good idea), but a big difference in the ethos and content of the Rites, as is the case with all of the Sacraments.
And yes, those of us who have all the Sacraments available to us in the traditional Roman Rite must always remain sympathetic to those who must suffer with the current, shall we say, impoverished situation.
"Bishops suppress: that is how they shepherd. They say, "This is not good for my flock." And then they do something about it."
What a laugh. What a complete and total laugh. they might try suppressing pedophiles for a change, or gay ordination candidates.
TWB, I'm sorry I was dismissive about your point. I'll have to look into it more closely though, to see what could possibly be meant. We usually don't have to have indults for things that are already permitted, and revisions of rites, as I understand them, usually replace the old. The 1962 missal replaced the one before it, right? So what exactly did they mean?
My apologies.
Baptism in any rite will change once the Pope gets around to deleting limbo which will finally free us from the absurdity of original sin.
Okay, I think I'll have to unfortunately begin ignoring you until you converge a little closer to something resembling Catholicism. And some historical and theological sense: limbo is a theological theory and speculation that was necessitated by the doctrine of original sin. It wasn't the otherwary around.
Papist, I also live in the Charlotte Diocese and think highly of Bishop Jugis.
I am curious - did he have an opportunity to grant an indult and declined, or has he just not been offered the opportunity? Based on the other things I know about him, I have always assumed the latter.
Most of the diocesan priests I know would be too young (i.e., under age 60) to know how to celebrate a TLM, and the older ones definitely strike me as NO types.
Thomistwannabe: Your comments are simply incorrect. You have to be able to distinguish between the documents of Vatican II and the ways in which they were implemented. The novus ordo can be celebrated and participated in by those who hold the faith very pristinely. The novus ordo is celebrated by many (including the Pope) who are anything but modernist in their theologies. This is why this argument never goes beyond this stage.
Faith is not wedded to a particular rite. If that is so, then those who participated in rites that antedate that of Trent are in the same position, logically speaking, that we who go to a novus ordo Mass are.
The typical shibboleth for an extremist advocate of the Tridentine Rite is to excoriate as faithless anyone who does not want to return to the Tridentine Rite and banish all others. There is an ahistoricism and rather gnostic mentality associated with this that gives rise to sectarianism. If you are the only pure ones, the only ones who are faithful, then that means the rest of us are lacking. You are the elect. Well, as history has shown, Church tradition and the Fathers consistently rejected elitism and those with pretensions to an elect. Just read Irenaeus or Origen.
Thomistwannabe: you would probably be more comfortable in the company of your peers. But the Church, as St. Augustine reminds us, is the body of all, not simply the pure or those who reject those with lesser pretensions. It is for all because Christ died for all. You are using the Tridentine Rite as a tool to beat people you do not agree with and accuse them of lesser faith. Where do the proper interior disposition and charity come in?
Ther eis an inherent problem with the 1962 Rite: it is untouched by the mandate of reform as outlined in Sacrosanctum Concilium.
It is true there was never an opportunity granted to reform that rite in particular. However, the lack of interest in celebrating the 1970 Rite in Latin, combined with the use of the traditional Mass as a banner for schismatics and dissenters from the early 70's, naturally raises questions and doubts. Especially for prelates who are picked, trained and conditioned for conservativism (a value incongruent with traditionalism).
These few examples could be of otherwise nice guys with problems. Or it could be an actual persecution. Not enough information to tell.
Janice, if you'll forgive me, I think you may be overlooking a point in your response to TWB. I think he, just like the traditionalist Mosenbach, whose book I quoted in a recent post, would be willing to grant that the Novus Ordo has been celebrated by priests and assisted by souls utterly faithful to Catholic tradition insofar as they are consciously able to be. No question about that. In fact, here's a relevant quote from Mosenbach:
"Of course there will always be people who are so filled with grace that they can pray even when the means of prayer have been ripped from their hands. Many people, too, concerned about these issues, will ask, 'Isn't it still possible to celebrate the new liturgy of Pope Paul VI worthily and reverently?' Naturally it is possible, but the very fact that it is possible is the weightiest argument against the new liturgy."
Janice, while you have an important point in your resonse to WBT, the point you overlook in your response, IMHO, the forms in which the Faith of the Church are expressed in the Missal of 1962 are in many ways far more clear, complete, and appropriate, than those in the Missal of 1969. This point is not about the subjective intentions and dispositions of those celebrating or assisting at Mass, but the objective fittingness and appropriateness of the external forms of the Mass. Would you not agree with that point?
There is an inherent problem with the 1962 Rite: it is untouched by the mandate of reform as outlined in Sacrosanctum Concilium.
Todd, you raise an important issue, and it brings to mind a question that maybe others here can help me answer. Can anyone tell me anything about the Ordo Missae of 1964, the new order of the Mass that, according to the reports circulating in the Vatican following V-II, had the approval of Paul VI as fulfilling the mandate of Sacrosanctum Concilium for the reform of the Missal of 1962, and lasted up until 1969 when Bugnini's bombshell of a new Missal was sprung on the Catholic world, which had been (apparently with Paul VI's tacit approval), in preparation behind the scenes all along? Is the text of that 1964 Missal that was in use for five years (1964-1969) available anywhere? If it were, it might give us a much clearer idea of what the Council Fathers envisioned by the "reform of the liturgy." They certainly didn't envision in their wildest nightmares the thing that was promulgated in 1969, let alone the thing that has resulted from the institutionalized abuses since then.
Robin,
I don't know the situation as to whether Bishop Jugis has formally entertained any petition for the Indult in the Diocese of Charlotte. I know that there are some hundreds of individuals who would welcome it, many of whom individually have doubtless petitioned him. But I don't know how he entertains such a decision. I do know that there are priests in our diocese who would be ready to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass at the drop of a hat, would they be given permission. One of them, who writes for Latin Mass magazine, lives in our diocese in the Piedmont area.
I am also aware that some of the young men seeking priestly vocations in our diocese have explicitly requested formation in the traditional Latin rite, but been deflected into the Novus Ordo. I'm not surprised, though I'm disappointed.
By the way, the Traditional Latin Sunday Masses in the United States have seen steady, if modest, growth since 1988. For a illustration charts and further information, see Coalition Ecclesia Dei - Information.
One of the most remarkable things about this growth, in my opinion, is that it is coming from younger families -- folks in their late twenties and thirties -- not from those who grew up with the Tridentine Mass. Bishops, please sit up and take notice! The Traditional Mass isn't growing from nostalgia for the good old days, but from people who can't even remember the "good old days." It's growning because they long for spiritual depth, spiritual survival, and the salvation of their souls amidst a culture that appears to be falling apart in a virtigo of anarchy and chaos.
The text of the 1965 Missal
http://www.coreyzelinski.8m.com/....com/1965_Mass/
Right off the bat, one notices a striking difference in the Offertory:
'Accept, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this spotless host, which I, your unworthy servant, offer to You, my living and true God, to atone for my numberless sins, offenses, and negligences ...'
The strong note of atoning sacrifice is missing in the New Mass of 1970. It is interesting to observe in this connection that Ratzinger explicitly rejects the Anselmian idea of the atonement in Introduction to Christianity.
No inferences of heresy intended! Just pointing out the difference.
Pertinacious Papist,
We've gone over this ground before. Notions of fittingness are subjective. There is nothing inherently objective about the Tridentine Rite. It is what it is. IT arose in a certain time and place and that was all people knew. It's their only frame of reference. For example, if it's fittingness you're looking for, how do you evaluate the relative fittingness of the Tridentine Rite versus the Liturgy of St. Basil? Which one is objectively more fitting? And, to go back to something I've harped on before, I think you're not giving enough due to the interior disposition of the participants. Take one example: both the FSSP and the SSPX use the Tridentine Rite. From the outside, both celebrations are the same. However, the FSSP, in communion with Rome, strikes me as a very different celebration, in terms of fittingness, than does an SSPX service. Why? Because the FSSP has the correct interior disposition, whereas the SSPX does not.
Excellent point, Dave.
Whenever I explain why certain elements of the Traditional Liturgy are more fitting to the theology of the Mass, I always start with those Offertory prayers. It is extremely difficult, if not utterly impossible, to interpret them in an heretical fashion. But, while the Novus Ordo Offertory prayers could be interpreted in an orthodox fashion, they could also be interpreted in all kinds of ways. Moreover, they are not nearly as thorough as the old prayers, which are quite the catechetical tool, something we need today.
All of this is exactly the kind of thing that Dr. Blosser is talking about with respect to "fittingness." It really does not seem, in light of Dave's example, that fittingness is subjective.
Can anyone compare the offertory prayers in the 1962 and 1965 Missals? Are they the same? We really lost something there.
Dave, I'm pretty sure Anselm would have rejected what most people think of as the Anselmian idea of the atonement. Not to mention that St. Thomas didn't include St. Anselm's ontological proof for the existence of God as one of his own famous "five ways." So I think one can disagree with Anselm and not be considered suspect! Especially since I am quite this Pope will certainly strongly emphasize Sacrifice as he moves forward in his liturgical renewal.
Janice, Plato's three transcendentals were the true, the good and the beautiful. Of these the first the be subjectivized, historically, was the beautiful, which was rendered a matter of personal taste -- and as we all know, "De gustibus non est disputandum" ("There is no disputing matters of taste.") The second to be subjectivized, after Hume's emotivism was the good, so that judgments about good and evil became simply emotional declarations about how one felt. The last to go -- the last to be subjectivized -- but at the cutting edge of academe with the likes of Richard Rorty it has surely gone -- is truth. "Truth," Rorty says, "is nothing more than what our peers let us get away with saying."
As Catholics, however, we know that truth is objective, even if it is true that we must first of all exist as rational subjects in order to apprehend the objective truth. We also know this is true about the good, as contentious as this has become in society. Moral right and wrong has objective criteria by which it must be evaluated: (1) motives, yes, but also (2) the objective nature of the act, and (3) the objective circumstances of the performance.
The least discussed but no less important point is about the beautiful, and I can prove to you that there are non-subjective criteria by which we evaluate and adjudicate aesthetic excellence, including fittingness -- that there is more involved than simply our subjective likes and dislikes, though these surely do play a role.
If there was ever a safe assumption, it is the one made by Allan Bloom at the outset of his philosophical bestseller (no that's not an oxymoron), The Closing of the American Mind, that the pervasive assumption among students entering universities accross the country today, whether they know it or not, is relativism (and it's first cousin, subjectivism). In my philosophy of art class, this is the first comfortable prejudice of the student that I have to set about dislodging and rebutting.
Beauty is much too complex an idea to tackle here, including at least four different subsidiary concepts that have to be analyzed, only one of which is the subjective pleasure one takes in something (the others are objective, indifferent to one's subjective response). But let me offer a brief analysis of fittingness, to try to show you that it's not merely subjective.
Draw a jagged line on the blackboard on your left. Now draw a gentle, undulating line over to your right. Now ask yourself, which line is expressive of restlessness, and which of tranquility? The typical assumption will be that by "expressiveness" we mean that we subjectively feel some sort of emotional response to the lines, but this is not so. If you look back and forth from the left line to the right, then back to the left, back and forth in rapid succession, you are not plunged, by turn, into emotional states of restlessness and tranquility. The qualities of which the lines are fittingly expressive are based on an objective relationship to empirical properties of the lines. There is nothing arbitrary about this.
I'm going to have to skip several months worth of intermediary steps to leap to liturgy, but there's a world of difference in fittingness between kneeling to pray and, say, lounging on your back atop a piano with a rose in your teeth, or chewing gum. This isn't merely about subjective likes or dislikes, even though those obviously enter into the picture. There are objective properties to postures that bear a greater or lesser relationship of fittingness to actions like prayer.
When we compare a liturgy in which one kneels to receive Christ with one in which one may receive Him standing with one's own hands from a Eucharistic Minister dressed as a clown in a bongo Mass, we are not simply talking about relative likes and dislikes (though those surely do come into play, as Realist will assure us), but about objective postures, gestures, and behaviors that more fittingly (or less fittingly) express divine worship. That's all I have time for at the moment. Does this help?
We don't usually choose, though, between jagged lines and undulation, between lounge lizards and church mice, between fiddlebacks and bongos.
We choose between (in music as a placeholder example) songs that celebrate human existence as such (country, rock, pop), and songs that acknowledge and elevate the human spirit (classical and sacred). Which is more beautiful?
For a mom, is anything more beautiful than daily life, her little munchkins shiny and clean and dressed for school, lunchbags packed and out the door, a beautiful morning and a cup of coffee and thanksgiving? Or for a dad, what could be more beautiful than Junior rushing to the car at the end of the long day to carry his old man's briefcase?
That's what country music is made of. And that, my friends, is what Gather Us In is all about. Because nowadays, Junior grows up and has a couple of live in girlfriends before he brings your grandchildren home to visit. At least one kid is gay or went through a period of gayness. That doesn't stop the good old family feeling, but it sure makes it desirable to take the edge off the old time religion. We lose the spirit because we're attached to the flesh. But when the flesh we're attached to is flesh of our flesh, that's when country music really soothes the soul. The earthly loves should, through Christian life, be growing towards the heavenly loves that we'll be able to enjoy forever. But where does that leave Junior, who hasn't been to Mass since 1971? Better stay where we can keep him close.
Pertinacious Papist,
I am fully aware of Plato's three precepts and also the way they were used in Philo, Origen, Plotinus and Augustine. You yourself, however, are subjectivizing this discussion by advancing the most egregious cases of worship. You are being tendentious, not advancing an argument. I was not talking about subjective likes and dislikes, either, but about interior disposition. Moreover, it is not the case that the Tridentine Rite is the only example of Truth, Beauty, and the Good in the history of the liturgy in general or the Western liturgy in particular. You cannot prove objectively that the Tridentine rite is more fitting for worship than the Liturgy of St. Basil or the Mozarabic Rite or even a novus ordo Mass celebrated reverently. Because what you have forgotten to bring to your argument are the notions of time and history. Plato's three concepts are forms, ideals, and these ideals, as transmitted and adapted by Christian theologians concern the heavenly liturgy. Here on earth we encounter these three in the Person of Christ, not in the exterior forms of worship. To locate them there is a form of idolatry.
[ We usually don't have to have indults for things that are already permitted, and revisions of rites, as I understand them, usually replace the old. The 1962 missal replaced the one before it, right? So what exactly did they mean? ]
Indeed, it is confusing Kathy. Some very fine canon lawyers, in perfectly good communion with the Church, have told me that the indult is, in fact, a legal fiction. John Paul II was told by the committee of cardinals that he appointed to study the question that the traditional Roman Rite had not been formally suppressed. But under pressure from, especially, the French bishops he did not free the traditional Rite, as would have been right, but instead issued an indult. It essential gives permission for that for which nobody needs permission. A legal fiction. Hard to swallow? Perhaps. But stranger things have happened in the history of the Church.
[ You have to be able to distinguish between the documents of Vatican II and the ways in which they were implemented. ]
Janice, both Paul VI and John Paul II said, several times each, that the liturgical "reform" as we have it is precisely what they understood Vatican II to call for. So that dog just won't hunt. Benedict XVI has taken a slightly contrary view, for which we may be eternally grateful.
[ You are using the Tridentine Rite as a tool to beat people you do not agree with and accuse them of lesser faith. Where do the proper interior disposition and charity come in? ]
Read Msgr. Klaus Gamber's "The Reform of the Roman Liturgy", now newly back in print from Roman Catholic Books. Note who wrote the foreword (hint: it's Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.) After reading that book, I basically purposed not to bring my family to the new Roman Rite of the Mass again, if I could help it. I would sincerely request that you read that book to get a feel for just how severely someone can criticize the new Rite of the Mass and still have the accolades of the then-prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
[ I think he, just like the traditionalist Mosenbach, whose book I quoted in a recent post, would be willing to grant that the Novus Ordo has been celebrated by priests and assisted by souls utterly faithful to Catholic tradition insofar as they are consciously able to be. ]
Just so. I have been deeply moved by many celebrations of the new Rite (not to mention, of course, receiving great graces there.) But this does not answer the more fundamental arguments in its disfavor.
[ how do you evaluate the relative fittingness of the Tridentine Rite versus the Liturgy of St. Basil? Which one is objectively more fitting? ]
They are equally fitting, whereas the Novus Ordo is pale by comparison to both in its expression of the fullness of the Catholic Faith in both word and gesture. Yes, objectively.
[ You cannot prove objectively that the Tridentine rite is more fitting for worship than the Liturgy of St. Basil or the Mozarabic
[ You cannot prove objectively that the Tridentine rite is more fitting for worship than the Liturgy of St. Basil or the Mozarabic Rite or even a novus ordo Mass celebrated reverently. ]
One can absolutely establish, objectively, that the traditional Roman Rite, or any of the traditional Rites, expresses the fullness of the Catholic Faith better and with less room for equivocation than the new Roman Rite. Again, you really ought to read Gamber's book.
Kathy,
I agree that what sometimes passes for the Anselmian idea of atonement (a wrathful, blood-thirsty God demanding his pound of flesh) was rightly rejected by Ratzinger as atrociously unbiblical. Such a carictature of atonement is not at all what we find in the Offertory of the 1965 Missal. The point is that one searches in vain for even a trace of a theology of atonement in the New Mass. Yes, the word "sacrifice" is used, yet would anyone unschooled in theology think of "atoning" sacrifice when hearing it?
'Here on earth we encounter these three [Platonic forms] in the Person of Christ, not in the exterior forms of worship. To locate them there is a form of idolatry.'
Is it not precisely Mosebach's point that the liturgical reform has failed us by sundering the external form of worship from our "seeing the form" of the Lord? In his article "Iconclasm and Liturgy", Mosebach writes regarding the innate desire of Christians to "locate" the form of Christ in liturgy:
'The liturgy is, of course, for its part, one grand image, for which reason the crisis of sacred imagery is accompanied by a crisis of the liturgy. Just as the Christ image was bestowed by God himself and just as the Christians tried to preserve the real image, they also linked the liturgy closely to the actual locations of the Resurrection. In the Holy Sepulchre, where the folded shroud was found, the Mass has been celebrated from earliest times because it was known that the Eucharist did not, in fact, primarily evoke the Last Supper of Maundy Thursday, but the death and resurrection of the Lord. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the way in which the local surroundings of the tomb came to form the liturgy can be felt even today. I speak not of the church interior poised above the tomb, but of the narrow burial chambers, the antechamber in which the women saw the youth in white robes, and the actual burial chamber with its recess for the corpse. Only few people can partake in the Mass there. The priest stays in the ante-chamber with the congregation until the Creed. For the Canon of the Mass he enters the burial chamber. There, he is alone and unseen. The altar is the recess in which the body of Jesus lay. The white altar cloth is the shroud, the Host the body. The manner and means by which the Host is filled with the divine presence remain hidden from the congregation who hear only the whispering of the priest. The Sacrifice of the Mass and the Resurrection become one. At the same time it becomes clear where the early Christians’ desire stems from to have the holy mysteries unfold behind iconostasis, chancel screen and altar gates, concealed by the priest’s body. The hermetic rapture with which the old Latin Liturgy girded the moment of consecration represents nothing other than the Holy Sepulchre weighed down by a rock, in which God Incarnate returned from the dead. This event was witnessed by the cosmos, but by no living person. What appears as a later addition to the liturgy, as an epiphenomenon of Constantinian basilicas and Gothic cathedrals, proves to be most intimately connected to the quintessence of the Resurrection. Christian liturgy is the waiting beneath the Cross and before the Sepulchre. The liturgy reform attempted to erase this image, also.'
http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2006...nd-
liturgy.html
Kathy,
It looks to me as if the Offertory prayers of the 1965 Missal are the same as the 1962. The only possible exceptions are the incensing prayers, which do not appear in the version of the 1965 Missal linked above. But this may simply be presuming a Mass without incense, though I really don't know.
I agree with you. We really lost something there.
Kathy, I think you're confusing questions of genre (country, rock, pop, classical, sacred) with questions of fittingness. One genre can't be more beautiful than another, necessarily, any more than, say, German music can be said to be more beautiful than Italian music, necessarily. Our own liturgical norms, however, advise us that sacred music is fitting for liturgy, whereas popular music is not, for example. These are two different sets of questions, I believe.
Janice, why the bile, my friend? I deliberately went the long way around via Plato (in my Japanese fashion) so as to avoid being too blunt with you. And you take reference to Plato (intended for purposes of illustrating a point about fittingness) all the way to the suggestion of idolatry)! And I'm also being 'egregious' and 'tendentious'? What's up with this, young lady? Something you eat not agree with you? You're talking past me. For example, why do you say, "it is not the case that the Tridentine Rite is the only example of Truth, Beauty, and the Good in the history of the liturgy"? Has anyone around here claimed that? I certainly have not. Why do you challenge me to "prove objectively that the Tridentine rite is more fitting for worship than the Liturgy of St. Basil or the Mozarabic Rite"? Have I (or anyone here) claimed somewhere that it is? These things aren't even issues, my friend.
You do make one valid point by pointing out that your focus was on "interior disposition," not on "subjective likes and dislikes." However, this raises an important point. Can't a proper interior disposition be wedded unwittingly to an improper outward expression? Ex hypothesi, if the Novus Ordo were proven to be objectively an inferior form of liturgical expression by comparison to the Traditional Roman Rite or the Liturgy of St. Basil or the Mozarabic Rite, then even if we were to assist at it with reverent interior dispositions and it were celebrated reverently, the objective form would be inferior, would it not? As an analogy, a well-delivered student reading of a poorly written paper doesn't make the paper any better.
Some very fine canon lawyers, in perfectly good communion with the Church, have told me that the indult is, in fact, a legal fiction. John Paul II was told by the committee of cardinals that he appointed to study the question that the traditional Roman Rite had not been formally suppressed.
Thomas E. Woods references this in the latest issue of Latin Mass magazine (Fall 2006), p. 34f.: "Two years later [1986], a commission of nine cardinals appointed by the Pope [John Paul II] concluded that the traditional Latin Mass had never been abrogated, that no bishop could forbid a priest to offer the old Mass, and that every priest should have the option of choosing between the two missals. After others advised that such an announcement would divide and damage the Catholic world, John Paul shelved the proposal."
"Damage the Catholic world"!!!
PP, you rather completely miss my point. Perhaps I was obscure.
People will worship in accord with their deepest loyalties. Optimally one's deepest loyalty would be to God. Yeah right. Ordinarily, among "good people," it is with one's family. (Some people's deepest loyalty is apparently to Dale Vree, but that's another story.)
Many if not most would-be-serious-Catholics are feeling torn in two. Ordinarily, people will NOT worship in any way that disallows their attachments. When the attachments are to vice or appetitive movements, well and good that the attachments are severed. Then the person is free to learn true worship.
But what if the attachment that keeps the person from worship is attachment to family members who have bought into the current culture? What if a middle aged father cannot bring himself to agree with Church teaching 100%, for fear of how that will affect his relationship with his cohabiting, contracepting children?
“It makes little difference whether a bird be held by a slender thread or by a rope; the bird is bound, and cannot fly until the cord that holds it is broken. It is true that a slender thread is more easily broken; still notwithstanding, if it is not broken the bird cannot fly. This is the state of a soul with particular attachments: it never can attain to the liberty of the divine union, whatever virtues it may possess. Desires and attachments affect the soul as the remora is said to affect a ship; that is but a little fish, yet when it clings to the vessel it effectually hinders its progress.” (St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mt. Carmel, I.i.xi
'But what if the attachment that keeps the person from worship is attachment to family members who have bought into the current culture?'
Great point, Kathy. I've heard the stories about intrepid souls who drive alone for hours in search of a Tridentine Mass, leaving their families behind because Mom and the kids enjoy the New Mass just fine and think that Dad is a kook and a crank.
For those of us who lack that level of intestinal fortitude, it is hard to bear the accusation that we are essentially commiting sin by participating in the New Mass.
"Notions of fittingness are subjective."
Not so. If something doesn't "fit" -- if it doesn't fit -- then it doesn't fit. That's something objective we're dealing with. If my turtleneck is too tight, being told it is loose won't make it any less tight. (Full disclosure: it's probably been about 10 or 15 years since I've worn a turtleneck.) There are some things that just are not fitting for a Mass, regardless of the rite. Then, within each rite, there are some things that are not fitting. These are things that can be objectively discerned, not matters of taste or preference. Granted, one can confuse one's subjective preferences with matters of objective fittingness, but when one speaks of fitting and not fitting, we're properly in the realm of the objective, not the subjective.
Sorry, I meant to say, "If something doesn't 'fit' -- if it isn't fitting -- then it doesn't fit."
At this one Youth Ministry conference I attended, the presenter asked, "How many young people are you responsible for in your parish?" The youth ministers replied with the number of people who were involved in their programs. He said. "Nope. The correct answer to my question is, 'All of them.'"
Most of what you hear at conferences is, to put it charitably, forgettable. But this was good, it is true. Even more so for a bishop. How many people in his diocese is he responsible for? All of them. He is responsible for the lukewarm and the fervent, the radtrads and the feminists, everybody. And he wants some unity, that is his job. He has to bring about the unity that is possible, according to his own lights.
"It makes little difference whether a bird be held by a slender thread or by a rope ..."
Kathy, if that was your point, we are in complete agreement here.
You also make a fine point in your subsequent comment about youth ministry. This leads into another, tangentally-related concern I have related to the question of accountability and responsibility. Those of us who take the time to research the history of the last 40 years have begun to acquire some knowledge of why things have turned out the way they have, liturgically and otherwise. I am wondering to what extent those who hive off into Latin Mass parishes (and many times, as I sit amidst the bongo Masses, I confess I look with envy upon them) bear responsibility toward their fellow Catholics suffering the slings and arrows of institutionalized abuses in the Novus Ordo parishes. At what point does the Latin Mass option become an option to "bail out" of responsibility for the Catholic mainstream? Certainly Catholics who understand that the current Novus Ordo doesn't bear any resemblance to what the Council Fathers envisioned bear some responsibility for assisting in the project of restoring the Mass to its intended form, do they not? On the other hand, I also understand that without the Traditional Latin Mass as the abiding mass of the ages -- the Mass that the Council Fathers intended to reform -- we would have no standard, no benchmark, no Rosetta Stone, by which to measure what was normative; so fostering flourishing Latin Mass parishes seems important too. Your thoughts?
My thoughts: I wish I had taken more ecclesiastical history in school, because I would like to know much more about the various liturgical reforms over the centuries. But I do believe that thinking of the Tridentine reform as "the abiding Mass of the ages" is mythological at best, erroneous at worst, and could be promulgated to everyone's harm as a noble lie. The Vatican II reform was not the first, nor, God willing, will it be the last.
In answer to your question, I don't think popular movements will hold much sway in the near future. I think the next reform will be legislated, and enforced.
Kathy,
There is not a bishop in the world, in my observation, who doesn't have a moistened finger in the wind. Popular movements, therefore, can do a lot for liturgical reform.
Also, there were indeed many reforms enacted over the years by various popes: St. Gregory the Great, Innocent III, Pius V, Paul VI. Now, I am not going to cast Paul in a poor light like many of my fellow traditionalists are wont to do, but while all reforms "trimmed the fat," so to speak, his reform did not at the same time respect the gathered, organically developed tradition of the liturgy like the other reforms did. One example: the Roman Canon was considered to be untouchable (as St. Gregory the Great attested), but now we have multiple Eucharistic prayers. This is not in keeping with Western liturgical tradition.
Also, the post-Vatican II Missal was the first that was forced upon the entire Western Church. Other simplified Missals, such as those of Innocent III and Pius V, found widespread acceptance (and in the latter case perhaps more than was even anticipated), but nonetheless they were used because the various communities decided to use them, not because they were required to, as is the case (save for some religious orders) with the current Missal.
For further reading:
A. Fortescue, _The Mass_
Gregory Dix, _The Shape of the Liturgy_
Andrew Tomasello, _Music and Liturgy in Papal Avignon, 1309-1403_
Laszlo Dobszay (sp?), _The Bugnini Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform_
Alcuin Reid, _The Organic Development of the Liturgy_(Which I confess I have yet to read)
Sorry....should have said ST. Pius V!!!
Thanks, Michael, very informative.
What, though, do you make of the suppression of the sequences? Granted that's a negative promulgation of a liturgical change, rather than an additive change (such as thoroughgoing revision of the offertory prayers and the added Eucharistic prayers, not to mention whatever the legislation was that let the Christ had Died into the English-speaking Missal). But it was a change that could not be called an "organic development!" The same could be said for the filioque--which was additive in character.
Hi Kathy,
Well, I haven't seen the old sequences. Fortescue insists that many of them are not worth being upset about and that the five best were indeed saved in the 16th century, although now in the 1970 Rite the Dies Irae, the crown jewel of the sequences, is drastically marginalized, at best.
(Someone actually wrote a sequence praising the heretic Martin Luther; this was not long before the sequences were expunged.)
As far as additive vs. subtractive reform, the bishops of the province of Westminster, England, at some point in history (perhaps the 19th century?), said that the tradition can only be added to, rather than subtracted from. However, history does show that reforms have in fact, as I said, "trimmed the fat." Innocent III did this, as did St. Pius V. But this had to do with the ceremonial rather than integral aspects of the rite. What happened after Vatican II actually affected what many recognize to be the heart of the rite, the Offertory and Canon, in particular.
But it seems that liturgical trimming can indeed be done in a sensitive fashion that allows the rite to grow "organically."
Anyway, I hope I've understood your comment correctly; I did this in rather a hurry.
For a while I was fascinated by the sequences of Adam of St. Victor. Then I began studying them. I was not as impressed as I thought I would be (and as Neale was, big-time). But I should spend a lot more time looking at his work before I could say that most of them could go. There seems to be, at first glance, a rather bacchanalian pleasure in them. But there was also a certain playfulness that seems integral to the Rite. For example, the Introit for Easter Day is very playful, imho. And the Communio for Doctors as well.
Ralph made a point some time ago, that it is my neck of the woods, not his, that is liturgically unusual. When I look at this, I must admit that I'm a good deal more spoiled than I've been giving myself credit for: http://www.canticanova.com/artic...s/ot/
art8j1.htm
Kathy,
I forgot to add earlier that I would like to see some of the old sequences, particularly those of Christmas and Epiphany.
I wonder where I can find them.
That's a good question. As far as Adam goes, there are Latin-English books of his works, in the CUA library.
Perhaps one of the reasons for suppressing the sequences, though, is that they were so regional. Paris was very big on sequences (Saint-Victoire was on the banks of the Seine) but I think they were less used in Rome. Were there ever many standardized sequences in the Roman Missal? (I guess that would have to mean the-missal(s)-used-in-Rome.)
Sorry: what I meant to ask is were there standard sequences for the great festivals?
Todd says: "Ther eis an inherent problem with the 1962 Rite: it is untouched by the mandate of reform as outlined in Sacrosanctum Concilium."
Well Pope BXVI doesn't take an issue with this now does he? Are you indicating that maybe YOU have a clearer picture of the 1962 rite than does BXVI? Just what kind of reform makes you happy? Is it in sight yet? Does it look and feel like modern protestant celebrations?Enter the drum beat reform of the reform of the reform - repitition of constant change and curiositas
Kathy,
I don't know. There was probably a combination of uniformity and regional variability, but then again I'm just guessing.
But I do believe that thinking of the Tridentine reform as "the abiding Mass of the ages" is mythological at best, erroneous at worst, and could be promulgated to everyone's harm as a noble lie.
Kathy, this would be true only if those who used the term "Tridentine rite" weren't using it as an essential shorthand to refer to the Mass that, despite it's many 'accidental' reforms, has remained 'essentially' unchanged since the time of Gregory I, if not earlier. The former Cardinal Ratzinger has admitted that the same cannot be said for the 'reforms' of the Novus Ordo -- viz., that it's changes were 'accidental.' He has used terms like 'rupture' and 'break' with liturgical tradition. This is the man who is now our Holy Father voicing his views on the matter. Cheers -- Pertinaciously, as always ...
I see in some of the guest postings here an incorrect dichotomy between charity and truth. Never must one be emphasized in such a way as to compromise the other.
It is possible to so emphasize truth at the expense of charity so as to revive the mindset the Pharisees of old once had, and this accusation has often been made of the Church prior to the last Council.
Yet, on the other hand, the overreaction that was given birth at Vatican II was to the opposite extreme, viz., an emphasis on "charity" at the expense of the necessity for integral fidelity to the truth as one of the other preconditions for salvation — and for that exact reason, "charity" in quotes, for devoid of anchorage in supernatural Truth, it is nothing more than an emphasis on kindness and gentleness with indifference to falsehood or evil. Our Lord was (and, reigning gloriously from Heaven as King, is) never indifferent to falsehood or evil!
The former Cardinal Ratzinger has admitted that the same cannot be said for the 'reforms' of the Novus Ordo
Did he say this about the Rite as such (i.e., the way it's written, read the black, do the red) or about the Rite as interpreted and abused?
Kathy,
As I have understood Ratzinger's writings, he said this about the rite as such. (He has called it a fabrication.) At the same time, he seems to be slow to call for too much change, which may simply be a posture of practical prudence. He does, however, seem to be pushing ad orientem as step number one, and if we see anything of a liturgical reform in his papacy (please God), that will probably constitute the bulk of it, I think.
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