Cardinal Burke has given an interview for The Catholic Servant, reproduced in The Wanderer, on the subject of the Church and Modern Society. He speaks, with characteristic clarity, on a wide range of issues including the effects of Summorum Pontificum, the reform of the Curia, the ever-growing rift between Catholic teaching and the political landscape and Catholics, particularly politicians, who fail to understand and support Catholic teaching. Asked if he sees concrete benefits resulting from Summorum Pontificum he replies:
I have witnessed a number of benefits. First, there is now a much stronger sense of the divine action in the Ordinary Form. There was a certain tendency in the celebration of the Ordinary Form to center attention on the priest and the congregation rather than on Christ, Who comes into the midst of the congregation through the ministry of the priest acting in His Person to give the gift of His life as He first gave it on Calvary and to make that sacrifice new for us in each holy Mass.
Another closely connected benefit is an appreciation of the true reform of the liturgy desired by the Council, namely a reform that would be in continuity with the centuries-long tradition of the Church, not a renewal that would be a break from that liturgical tradition. The celebration of the two Forms of the Roman rite have led to a growing consciousness of the need to retrieve some of the elements of the liturgical tradition too quickly discarded after the Council, contrary to the intention of the Council.
In other words, what Pope Benedict XVI had in mind was to promote the reform as it was truly desired by the Council, namely a reform in continuity with the centuries- long tradition of the Church and not a rupture.Later in the interview he links the misinterpretations of the liturgical reforms following Vatican II to the deterioration of the Liturgy and a decline in Mass attendance:
Sadly, in the time after the Second Vatican Council, there was a reform of the sacred liturgy which made it man-centered and banal. In some cases it actually became hard for people to bear because of illicit insertions, foreign agendas, and imposition of the personalities of priests and congregations into the liturgy to the point that people began to think that the Mass was some sort of social activity. If they did not find it acceptable, they did not go anymore.Read the whole interview at The Wanderer.
