Since today is the feast of the virgin martyrs Saint Ursula and her companions, we continue our series on the twelve Romanesque basilicas of Cologne, Germany, with the one dedicated to them, where their putative relics are kept. (A previous article which I have written about the legend of these Saints will explain why I say “putative relics.”) This church was originally founded in the fourth century, fairly close to a very large Roman cemetery, and renovated various times before the rebuilding which brought it to its current form. (All images from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.)
A gilded altar frontal from the church of St Ursula in Cologne, ca. 1170, partly repainted in the 15th century, and again in 1844; now in the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne. (Public domain image by Daderot.)
The Roman cemetery, containing hundreds of graves and thousands of bones, was discovered in 1106 when a project was begun to expand the city’s fortifications. This discovery led also to the expansion of the Saints’ legend to include a number of impossible events and fictious personages, and provided the impetus to the building of an impressive new church to house the huge number of new-found relics. The new church was begun in the second quarter of the 12th century, following the orientation of its predecessor, but also including a large, vaulted crypt chamber to house the many new relics.
The church was severely damaged during the many bombing raids that struck Cologne, and by the end of the war, had been largely reduced to a ruin. Restoration on the main building was completed in 1972, and the Golden Chamber finished in 1978.
The church’s belltower is believed to have been completed around 1230...
while the large Gothic choir on the east side was begun around 1255, and finished by the end of the century. In the same period, a second aisle was added to the church’s south side as a Lady Chapel. (At the lower left of this photo. (by Hans Peter Schaefer, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The main sanctuary seen from the choir gallery. As with many other churches throughout Germany, the modern restorers took advantage of the destruction inflicted on the church during the Second World War to “restore” the sanctuary to a primitive state that has nothing to do with its original form.
The following account was a homeschool assignment given to a 15-year-old from California. We are grateful to this remarkable young lady for having shared it with NLM. To me, it speaks more (and more profound) truths than we will ever hear from any Synod. – PAK
I have been going to the Traditional Latin Mass for several years now, and with good reason. It has enriched me spiritually in many ways, and I have felt a stronger love for Jesus Christ in my soul than ever before.
When I was younger, only about five years old, I went to the Novus Ordo Mass every Sunday. My older brother, especially, instilled in me a love for God and for Holy Mass. He told me to meditate on the Mass, and the sacrifice that was taking place, and to spend lots of time contemplating the decades of the rosary.
But to be honest, I never understood how the Mass was a “sacrifice.” At my Novus Ordo church, the priests said it was a celebration. To my younger and smaller self, I had trouble figuring out whether the Mass was a sacrifice or a celebration. Because to me, it certainly could not have been both. A celebration reminded me of parties and happiness, and a sacrifice reminded me of sorrow and pain. A small child does not understand the meaning of true sorrow and deep pain, and so the concept of a “sacrifice” seemed very mysterious to me. I wondered a lot about it, but after not figuring out what a sacrifice really was, I decided to cast those thoughts aside. If I didn’t understand it, then surely it wasn’t important, right?
I lived in a similar way for years, trying to love God but not knowing what loving God really was; trying to pay attention to Mass, but not understanding what was taking place. I knew God was present, but I didn’t know the prayers. When did the bread become the Holy Eucharist? I used to think it was when the band started singing the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts and we all knelt. I even thought that I was already a saint, and that everyone around me was too. Hell was a place reserved for very, very few people, I thought.
As I got older, I started disliking Mass. Why did we have to go every week, sometimes even more frequently than that? I especially disliked when Christmas Day fell on a Saturday, because then we would have to go to Mass two days in a row. I noticed no difference in my spiritual life. I didn’t even know what a spiritual life was. I was told by my brother and mother that it was something very special. But I never knew what it was exactly. How can someone tell if they are advancing in their spiritual life? Since I had felt no change my entire life, I assumed I had reached that point of spiritual perfection long ago. But the saints loved the Mass very much, so if I was a saint, then how come I didn’t like Mass?
One day, though, everything changed. My father announced that we were not going to our regular parish that Sunday, but to a different one. A different parish with a different Mass.
When we arrived, I noticed how quiet it was. How sacred it felt. When the Traditional Latin Mass began to be offered in front of me, I was confused. I didn’t understand a thing, and I didn’t give anyone the sign of peace. It felt very different. I remember particularly disliking kneeling a lot and not being able to talk to people in the pews behind me. It was like something very serious was going on. But I had never thought the Mass to be very serious, so why was everyone so prayerful and reverent? And everyone dressed nice too. It wasn’t like a get-together for everyone to join hands and sing happy songs and chat. It was a beautiful, sacred prayer.
For about the first six months, I disliked both Masses. I didn’t like kneeling for so long. The Novus Ordo Mass was boring enough. Why did we have to go to a different Mass that felt twice as long?
Changes in my soul were slow, but definitely there. Over the years, I learned more and more. I learned that the Mass was a prayer, something I had never known before. I followed along to the prayers in the 1962 Missal and saw people reverently beating their chest at the Agnus Dei, and it seemed so interesting to do that, so I started doing that too. I wore a veil, which obscured some of my sight, making me almost see in tunnel-vision forward to the altar. The Gregorian chants were breathtaking, and I would just kneel there, listening to the beautiful music and watch the incense float up to heaven, and I felt peace.
I went from being a child continuously asking her mother when we could leave, to a child who somehow just knew that she had to be silent. I learned, from the grace of God, that Mass is for praying. Mass is for adoring Christ. When I genuflected in front of the Altar, I really meant it. If I didn’t walk slowly and reverently through the church, I felt like I was disrespecting God’s holy place. Because God was there, and I knew it very well.
I started looking forward to Mass, and to the rosary, like never before. I would take every moment to deeply meditate and pray. I would impatiently wait in the car on the drive to Mass, thinking about kneeling before the altar and pouring out my entire heart to God. He became my confidante, and so easily, with God’s grace aiding me, I would feel infinitely better after praying. It was like a breath of fresh air. When I was a child, I thought God was just this important god that made the world then took a step back. After going to the Latin Mass, I realized how much of a father He is. He did not take a step back from the world, and He listens to our prayers every day. I can put total trust in Him because I know He loves me.
Sometimes I would envision the altar as a throne, and when the priest was consecrating the Eucharist, a king would come and sit on the throne. And at communion, the people were coming to the foot of the throne to beg their king for help, to adore their king and his mightiness, to thank their king for all he has done for them. It was truly special. But, in my mind, people could not go visit their king without a gift! Therefore, it would make sense that people had to give something to God when they went to receive, because God was giving Himself to them. The person receiving needed to have a desire for God and had to be as pure and sinless as possible. A person had to become like an angel from heaven before they could dare receive God.
As I grew older, I grew alongside a Mass that was never-changing. One that reflected the never-changing nature of God. It became like a home to me. I grew spiritually in ways I cannot even describe.
When I turned fourteen, I traveled to Spain for three months. Spain is an incredible place, really, and I had an amazing time there. But of course, everyone experiences the regular feelings of homesickness for the first week or so. I had never been in Europe before, so it was a very new experience to me.
One of the first things I noticed was my homesickness, and the desire for something familiar. On Sunday I went with my family to the Latin Mass in Madrid, and it patched up my homesick heart. When I knelt there, I poured my heart out to God in contemplative prayer, and I was more than glad that I was not at a Novus Ordo Mass—I didn’t have to respond to prayers aloud or greet people. I could just pray and feel God’s presence. The Traditional Latin Mass was a piece of home, but not like if I were to go to an American restaurant in Spain or see American tourists. What made it feel like home was God. That sacred presence in my church at home was there. That infinite peace, and the feeling of God’s grace coaxing you into deep prayer so delicately. It was all there.
I’m sorry to say, but when I later went to a Novus Ordo Mass in Spain, it wasn’t the same. I tried very, very hard to feel the same, but it was so hard, even though I can speak Spanish. The Mass was too distracting! I could not pray, or prepare myself for communion, or make thanksgiving afterward. I kept telling myself I would save my prayers and my devotions for after Mass, in the period of silence before the candles are blown out and the altar is disassembled. But that defeats the entire purpose of Mass! How can you go to a Mass and tell yourself that you will pray afterward? Mass is a prayer itself. How can you pray Mass after Mass is done?
I went to the Novus Ordo Mass every day in Spain except on Sundays (when we went to the Latin Mass), and I became confused again and again. I didn’t feel at peace or at home. I had been going to the Novus Ordo for half of my life and yet it didn’t feel at all like home. There wasn’t a hint of nostalgia. All I could think was how I wished I could just be in the Latin Mass at that moment.
I’ve even gotten to the point where, when I stand in the pew at a Novus Ordo Mass, a particular thought runs through my mind. I don’t try to think about anything but the Mass, yet, unbidden, this thought keeps returning: Why does this feel so fake? Why am I even here? What am I getting from this?
The only thing that consoles me at a Novus Ordo Mass is receiving the Holy Eucharist. But otherwise, I feel the childhood boredom I had felt for many years in the past, that wishing for it to be over soon.
I cannot fully explain why the Latin Mass has helped me so much. When someone asks me to explain my experience, I’m usually at a loss for words at first. How can you describe the deep movements of your soul in words? It truly is a very beautiful experience, and one that a person can only understand after they have been to the Latin Mass themselves. I proudly say that I will try my very best to attend the Latin Mass as long as it remains available, for the rest of my life if God wills it. I believe that the Latin Mass is the Mass that will truly aid me on the journey to spiritual perfection. And I believe that it will change your life too, just as it did mine.
Today being the third Sunday of October, in the Ambrosian Rite it is the feast of the dedication of the cathedral of Milan. On this same day and feast in 1963, His Excellency Giovanni Colombo, who had been appointed to the see of St Ambrose earlier that year (on August 10), formally took possession of and solemnly entered his cathedral. (He was raised to the cardinalate in 1965, and retired at the very end of 1979, passing away in May of 1992.) The first picture here shows how the sanctuary of the cathedral was set up for the ceremony; this is followed by pictures of his procession from the archiepiscopal seminary, the solemn entrance, a color photo of the Mass, and finally, the archbishop imparting his blessing to the enormous crowd gathered in the piazza in front of the Duomo. Many thanks to Nicola de’ Grandi for sharing these with us.
In the photograph below, we can see a metal grill in the floor of the Duomo in front of the sanctuary. This is part of the “scurolo”, the chapel which contains the relics of St Charles, which had an open ceiling looking up into the Duomo. Unfortunately, Cardinal Colombo himself decided to effect the post-Conciliar rearrangement of the sanctuary by closing this aperture with a large piece of concrete, and planting the versus populum altar on top of it. The recent renovation of the scurolo was necessitated in part by the atmospheric problems created by the lack of air circulation between the crypt and the nave. As seen in the photo above, the Mass in 1963 was celebrated on a forward facing altar temporarily erected on a raised platform over the scurolo.
At a Solemn High Mass, after the deacon finishes the Gospel, the subdeacon takes the Gospel book to the priest, who kisses it and says quietly: Per evangelica dicta deleantur nostra delicta. At a Missa cantata or Low Mass, the priest takes the Missal in his hands and kisses it, saying the same prayer.
Per evangelica dicta deleantur nostra delicta is in the new Missal as well. In the 2011 English edition, it is translated as:
Through the words of the Gospel may our sins be wiped away. [1]
The earlier ICEL translation had changed the sense of the text with “May the words of the Gospel wipe away our sins.” [2] The passive verb (deleantur) was changed to active, and the words themselves became the direct agents that wipe away sins rather than the instruments with which God wipes away sins.
All of the preconciliar hand Missals that I consulted had a translation similar to the 2011 English translation:
By the words of the Gospel may our sins be blotted out. [3]
By the words of the holy Gospel may our sins be blotted out. [4]
May our sins be blotted out by the words of the Gospel. [5]
By the words of the Gospel may our sins be taken away. [6]
Through the words of our Gospel may our sins be blotted out. [7]
What all these translations have in common is their treatment of dicta as a noun. Dicta can indeed be a noun (the accusative plural of dictum,i), but it can also be a past participle of the verb dico, dicere, in which in case it can be translated:
By virtue of these evangelical passages having being said, may our sins be blotted out.
I do not think it is a mistake to treat dicta as a noun so long as its “participled” meaning is also kept in mind, for it seems to me that the prayer is asking for the action of liturgically proclaiming the Gospel to have the effect of forgiving sins. Even though dicta means “words,” I think it is better to translate it as “sayings” (another one of its meanings) in order to highlight the speaking or acting emphasis of the prayer. The problem with “words” is that words can appear on pages and stay there. “Sayings,” on the other hand, even when they are written down, cannot etymologically escape their relationship to speaking.
In any event, it is an astonishing prayer, for it connects the mere hearing of the Gospel at Mass with absolution; it is asking for the Gospel proclamation to function as a sacramental, even though we have had several already, from the Asperges to the Confiteor to the Prayers Ascending the Altar. But the prayer is grounded in the Bible. In Luke’s Gospel (6, 18), we read how those who were troubled by unclean spirits and who heard Jesus speak were cured. And we truly hear Jesus speak when His Gospels are proclaimed.
In other words, the liturgical proclamation of the Gospel is far more than a Sunday Bible School lesson; it is a re-presencing of the Son of God through His words, and it is therefore more powerful than when the Bible is read extra-liturgically, as in a classroom or even when it is read again in the vernacular during the liturgical interlude comprised of the homily. (It is for this reason that some TLM communities do not stand for the vernacular re-reading of the Gospel or use the liturgical apparatus for the Gospel; the non-liturgical re-reading does not put us in the presence of Christ as does the liturgical proclamation.)
One of the interesting implications of this theology of liturgical proclamation, incidentally, is that it reveals a problem with the custom in some Novus Ordo parishes of ushering children away during the Liturgy of the Word for their own Bible study. The goal of increasing biblical literacy in the young is admirable, but they are missing a graced moment.
Good, but not the same
We end with Fr. Nicholas Gihr’s commentary, which is worth quoting at length:
If the Gospel is taken into the heart and preserved therein, with all that esteem and submission, love and joy, which the kissing of the book denotes, then is the Gospel also able “to blot out our sins.” It is self-evident that no such power of effacing sin may be ascribed to the words of the Gospel, as is peculiar to the forms of the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance: they are only a kind of Sacramental in a more general sense and have, therefore, assuredly a great power of awakening and promoting that disposition of soul by which venial sins are effaced, or which prepares for and renders one worthy of receiving the Sacraments. The word of God, which is accompanied by the interior working of grace, exercises a redeeming, healing and sanctifying influence on man when he is properly disposed, by exciting faith, hope and charity, fear and contrition, conversion and amendment of life. It is not only a powerful means of clearing the soul of the excrescence of sin and imperfection, but it possesses, moreover, other beneficial effects besides. “Are not My words as a fire, saith the Lord, and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23, 29.) Yea, the words of the Lord are spirit and life: they are powerful, two-edged, penetrating. When Christ on the road to Emmaus “opened” the meaning to the two disciples of “the Scriptures, their hearts burned within them.” The word of God has a marvellous power for enlightening the eyes, for imparting wisdom to the lowly and the humble, for rejoicing the heart and refreshing the soul. In like manner, may the living and quickening word of God, which abides forever, impart to us “salvation and protection,” may it purify, consecrate and sanctify our souls ever more and more. For “the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” (Rom. 1, 16). [8]
The German-language YouTube channel of the Fraternity of St Peter has recently issued a highlight video of the priestly ordination of seven men, celebrated this past June 15 in the church of Ss Peter and Paul in Lindenberg (Bavaria). The ordaining bishop was Wolfgang Haas, the retired (as of September of last year) archbishop of Vaduz, Lichtenstein, who had just celebrated his golden jubilee of his own priestly ordination. There are several shots of the beautiful custom (not formally a part of the rite) by which the newly ordained priests give to their mothers the cloth which is tied around their hands at the anointing. It is a long-standing custom that the mother of a priest is buried with this cloth in her hands, to symbolize that she gave a priest to God, and will be rewarded for this in heaven. Over 900 people were present for the ceremony. Feliciter, et ad multos annos!
Today is the feast of St Gall, a disciple of the great monastic founder of the later 6th and early 7th century, St Columban. He was born in Ireland, educated under Columban at the abbey of Bangor, and accompanied his teacher to the continent, where he assisted him in the founding of the important abbeys at Annegray and Luxeuil. From there, they made their way to the area around the Swiss lakes of Zurich and Constance; when Columban went to Italy, Gall remained behind, and having preached and gathered a group of disciples who lived under Columban’s rule, died sometime around 645 AD. The great Swiss abbey of San Gallen is named after him, since it was built over the site traditionally said to be that of his hermitage, about 70 years after his death. (Further details of this are given below in connection with the founder St Othmar.)
This abbey is the home of one of the most important libraries in the world; among other things, it houses several of the oldest manuscripts of Gregorian chant. Much of the collection is now free to consult via the website https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en, which also includes links to the digital collections of numerous other Swiss libraries. Here is a book from San Gallen which I recently discovered while perusing the site, a magnificently illustrated Vesperal made for the Prince Abbot of San Gallen at the end of the 17th century. This book contains only the intonations of the antiphons and hymns, which were made by the celebrant and dignitaries of the choir, such as the prior and subprior etc. The celebrant’s other parts (the chapter and orations) would be sung out of a different book called a capitularium.
Here are all of the decorated pages of the book; I have cropped those on which the decorations are confined to the margins. (Cod. Sang. 1452B; all images CC BY-NC 4.0) The complete book can be seen by following the links at the following url: https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/1452B
The First Sunday of Advent. The book is not very large, about 14½ by 11 inches; for the intonation of the second antiphon, a server would carry it to the next dignitary of the choir, then to the third, and so on.
The O antiphons. The style of note is known in German as “Hufnagelnotation – hoof-nail notation”, from the resemblance of the notes to a common kind of nail for horse-shoes.
Christmas. At top, the Holy Family turned away from the inn; at the upper right margin, the appearance of the angel to the shepherds.
In the margin of the next page, the angelic choirs sing over the stable at Bethlehem.
Decoration from the following page, with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, and angels adoring the Christ Child as He sleeps in the manger, which is shaped like the Cross. Below, Ss Stephen and John.
I posted this video nine years ago on the feast of St Theresa of Avila, but the YouTube channel which originally hosted it has since been deleted, which seems like a good reason to update and repost. It is a recording of a Mass celebrated according to the Use of the Old Observance Carmelites, essentially the Use which St Theresa herself would have known. The Discalced Reform of the Order which she and St John of the Cross founded adopted the liturgical Use of Rome (as represented by the Missal and Breviary of St Pius V), but only after St Theresa’s death, and by some reports, very much against her intentions.
This recording was made at Aylesford Priory in England, where St Simon Stock was elected head of the Carmelite Order in 1245. The priory was suppressed at the Reformation, but the property was bought back by the Old Observance branch of the Order in 1949, and the house re-established. The video begins with some account of the works for the rebuilding of the compound, still ongoing at the time it was made; the Mass itself begins at the 4:00 mark.
The Mass which is celebrated here, filmed on a Sunday in September according to the narration, is a Votive Mass of the Resurrection, a custom which originated in the Use of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem during the Crusades, when that church was occupied by canons of the Latin Rite. The early Carmelites adopted that Use as their own, and maintained this custom; where the main Mass on a Sunday was normally said after Terce, the Votive Mass of the Resurrection was celebrated right after Prime, the hour of the Resurrection itself. The text of the Mass is the same as that of Easter Sunday; however, the words “hodierna die - on this day” are omitted from the Collect, and the Sequence is not sung. The Scriptural readings are given in English by the narration, unfortunately in the Knox translation; we may also note that, in keeping with a common use which is sadly still not dead, the Gradual and Alleluia are done in Psalm tone. Despite these small flaws, this remains an incredibly precious document of one of the Church’s most venerable liturgical rites.
In a significant move that signals both recognition of talent and a new chapter for a renowned architectural firm, Geoffrey Yovanovic, AIA, has been named the first partner at Norman Davenport Askins Architects. The name of the firm will shortly be amended to reflect the inclusion of its first partner. I am particularly pleased to see his progress as it bears witness to my assertion that beauty has a premium on the open market and is an investment of time and effort that pays rich dividends.
Geoff graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor’s degree in architecture, and earned his Master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. I met him nearly 15 years ago at a Way of Beauty summer program I offered at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts shortly after he graduated from Miami. We’ve stayed in touch ever since, and it’s been a pleasure to watch him flourish and establish himself in the field, while always wishing to follow the Via Pulchritudinis - the Way of Beauty - in his professional work. I was delighted when he told me that he had submitted a church design with a cloister for his successful application to Notre Dame's School of Architecture.
His expertise extends beyond his professional practice. When I was looking for a teacher who could create a course on the principles of Christian architecture for Pontifex University’s Master of Sacred Arts program, Geoff’s was the first name that occurred to me, and we are delighted to have him on our faculty. He created a course on the principle of beauty in architecture, sharing his knowledge and passion with the next generation of designers. He is also actively involved in the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, for whom he also teaches.
Geoff told me: “I had begun to follow (David’s) blog thewayofbeauty.org shortly after graduation. A passing reference to beauty’s importance in architecture school spurred more interest in the Way of Beauty blog. Architectural fundamentals such as proportioning, order, historic precedence had been introduced to me in school, but these were all atomized at the university. The Way of Beauty course helped unite these scattered, seemingly disunited design principles, prioritize them, and direct them towards their proper end. The two-week naturalistic drawing course was enriched through the practice and explanation of the Liturgy of the Hours, along with David’s engaging lectures. This early foundation in beauty has proven a blessing for me. Without it, the busyness and business of architecture could cloud the objective of art and architecture, which is always ordered to our ultimate end. Teaching for Pontifex has provided me the great opportunity to share these lessons and lay that all important foundation for my students.”
Since joining Norman Davenport Askins Architects in 2015, Geoff has contributed to the growing reputation of an already highly respected firm. The firm is known for its meticulous attention to historical detail and collaboration with skilled craftsmen. It has won numerous design awards, and his work has played a significant role in earning these accolades.
Principles of harmonious proportion inform Geoff’s designs. A recently completed home showcases this approach, with carefully staggered window sizes and frame proportions creating a naturally pleasing aesthetic. This attention to classical principles, combined with an understanding of modern living requirements, has become a hallmark of his work. This adaptation of traditional design principles to contemporary living is necessary for a living tradition that participates in the universal principles of beauty, but in a way that connects with people today. In order to be able to do this, the architect must have an understanding of the tradition, and of how these principles are manifested in all buildings from the most magnificent cathedrals and grand civic buildings to humble (and some not so humble) beautiful homes. The designs should not be identical in each case, but the embedded principle of cosmic beauty appropriately expressed in each case, will direct the souls of all to the Creator of the cosmos, who is God.
It is important, if we want a culture of beauty that today’s architects understand, as Geoff does in common with architects of the past, that all human activity can be ordered, through the beauty of the environment, to our heavenly end.
It is heartening to see a firm like Norman Davenport Askins Architects with Geoff Yovanovic as its newest partner, perpetuating timeless, beautifully crafted homes that honor the past while embracing the future.
The following guest essay was written by Garrett Meyer. For many years, defenders of Gregorian chant have leaned heavily into Sacrosanctum Concilium, and there can be no doubt that the drafters of its chapter on sacred music were indeed committed to the primacy of chant. However, Meyer challenges us to rethink the implications of the phrase “ceteris paribus” and to ask whether this was not, in fact, a gentle kiss of death.—PAK
While discussing the liturgical reform with me in the Letters of New Polity Winter 2022 Issue, Dr. Marc Barnes held a mirror in front of traditional Catholics to reveal the liberals. They seem “to stomach the Holy Church insofar as it can be baked into the basic hero of North American liberalism: a hidden authenticity smothered by an oppressive, institutional body.” [1] This might be a fair critique of the cranky Catholics who just want to be left alone to their liturgical preferences, but it misses a contingent of traditionalists (likely overlapping with New Polity readers) who grumble against the hierarchs for not restricting their “authenticity” enough.
Rebels Because They Are Without a Cause
Catholics have become liberals, as it were, all the way up. We have all been “oppressed” with freedom (of the liberal sort) since at least Vatican II, if not the Fall. Religious freedom gets all the headlines, but sacred music suffers as well from what we might call inverted smothering. While a superficial reading of Sacrosanctum Concilium §116 [2] suggests otherwise, Catholics are indeed forced to refuse Gregorian chant true pride of place [3] in liturgical services. Let us carefully read every word of this disputed article:
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.
When deploying Vatican II to boost Gregorian chant, conservative Catholics almost always omit the phrase, “other things being equal.” Barnes, to his credit, defends this clause with full-throated gravitas. For him, it belongs to “the nature of the Church, the people of God at liberty, by Grace, to determine whether or not other things are, indeed, equal.” [4] This is not the only instance of Barnes identifying the Church’s mission as something unusual—I’m looking at you, “Hats Off” [5]—but at least the act of hatting admits of many metaphorical meanings. The same cannot be said for determining-the-equality-of-other-things. Try finding a single synonym.
This phrase, ceteris paribus in Latin, is neither scholastic nor patristic nor biblical, but comes from liberal economic theory. [6] It is strange for Vatican II to slip in the expression, and stranger still for Barnes to double down on it. From John Stuart Mill [7] to Investopedia.com [8] to even the farmers Beth and Shawn Dougherty [9], it is applied to an economic law as a qualifier. It means that the pertinent rule only perfectly holds in a model, for it requires conditions to be so static that it would be unusual if the rule simply held true in relentlessly-dynamic reality. Even if “other things are equal” now, they never stay that way. The use of ceteris paribus thus reveals not just a simplification, but an oversimplification.
To show this, suppose that you are on a field trip for your economics class. You go out to a local farmer’s market, or car dealership, or megacorp boardroom. You see friends disregarding the sticker price and enemies insisting upon it. You return to your instructor and shout, “The law of supply and demand is no law at all!” He condescends to comfort you, saying, “My dear, dear child. The principle only applies ‘other things being equal’—and they were not.”
When it comes to Vatican II and SC §116, some Catholic commentators inflect the phrase differently, saying that the liturgical law holds even if other things are equal, not only if. In their minds, ceteris paribus is an insufficient disqualification, not a necessary precondition. Gregorian chant should thus always (or at least normally) hold pride of place.[10] Barnes’s co-authored “Manifesto of the New Traditionalism” seems to interpret things just this way: “According to the very constitution initiating these reforms, the Sacred Liturgy should emphasize … Gregorian chant.” [11] The Manifesto then laments, “How rarely this is accomplished!” and calls the liturgical reform “betrayed” (by whom it does not say). [12]
But in his New Polity letter, Barnes changes tack. He stresses that one should not be offended if “the people of God at liberty” determine that Gregorian chant deserves demotion, precisely because of ceteris paribus. The reason that he appears a conservative in one instance, and a progressive the next, is not that he is flip-flopping. Indeed, he is one of the most radically consistent men which I have had the pleasure to meet. His honesty is indeed why I do not quite believe his gracious excuse for my own rash misreading—namely, that he co-wrote a document which misrepresented his own views, a slipup made possible because he “is not, say, a bishop in council.” [13] He would not sign something he did not believe, and he would retract it if he did. With great trepidation, therefore, I accuse Barnes of dancing around on the stage of liberalism, instead of his happier pastime (and greatly needed service) of ripping it up plank-by-plank.
Here is my evidence: If you grant that ceteris paribus in SC §116 means anything at all, then you are already a liberal. For you have made the deserved place of Gregorian chant not a consequence of its inner nature, but an imposition (however benevolent) from without. Progressives maintain that the environments which afford Gregorian chant pride of place are rare, conservatives complain that they are common, and Barnes is content so long as the Church determines them. But no group questions that ontologically violent presupposition which says that the honor due to a thing flows not from what it is, but only from what the context makes it. Should Gregorian chant be given pride of place in liturgical services of the Roman Rite? The postliberal says, “yes,” while the liberal says, “it depends.”
From Sensus Fidelium to Magisterium
This is the more believable interpretation of SC §116, not just because of the aforementioned etymology and my testimony (as well as my once-corrected-but-still-surely-incomplete interpretation of Barnes). [14] It just makes more sense of the historical data. What did Catholics by-and-large do from 1969 to this day? A few one-off parishes continue to plainchant [15], but the rest promptly and completely forgot all of it—that is to say, a liberal prescription was applied liberally in a liberal world. I was delighted that a simple tone Salve Regina broke out one night of the inaugural New Polity conference. Barnes and I seem to agree that this was an oddity among collections of Catholic men because of SC §116, not despite it. [16]
Our common ground, however, quickly gives way to questions which neither Barnes nor I can answer. What are these “other things” which must be equal for Gregorian chant to deserve pride of place? “Equal” to what? How close is close enough to constitute equality? How frequently must we check? Who decides? Thankfully, we lay Catholics are not on our own in interpreting the passage. The most extensive exegesis from the Magisterium comes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2007:
73. The “pride of place” given to Gregorian chant by the Second Vatican Council is modified by the important phrase “other things being equal.” These “other things” are the important liturgical and pastoral concerns facing every bishop, pastor, and liturgical musician. In considering the use of the treasures of chant, pastors and liturgical musicians should take care that the congregation is able to participate in the Liturgy with song. They should be sensitive to the cultural and spiritual milieu of their communities, in order to build up the Church in unity and peace. [17]
This may feel more solid, but, intentionally or not, the ambiguity remains. The bishops could be implying that only Gregorian chant allows a congregation to participate with song in the Roman Rite; that it alone responds sensitively to the depraved cultural and parched spiritual milieu of our communities; and that it is uniquely capable of building up Church unity. However “based” the kids might find this interpretation, it is a strained one. If it were true, the “pride of place” given to Gregorian chant would not need to be “modified” in the first place. [18] Rather, our bishops most likely anticipated Gregorian chant as an obstacle to the full participation of the faithful, an insensitivity to modern needs, and a disturbance of the peace, and so duly qualified it to impotence.
We cannot blame the USCCB if, in their equivocal statements, they allow Gregorian chant to be considered a stumbling block. Certainly, they needed to accommodate the unequivocal statements of Pope Saint Paul VI. In 1969, six years after Sacrosanctum Concilium and just prior to the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, Paul VI gave a frank address to the pious people disturbed most by the impending changes:
8. It is here that the greatest newness is going to be noticed, the newness of language. No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant.
9. We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church's values?
10. The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human, because it is apostolic.
11. Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more—particularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech. [19]
Notice what Paul VI is and is not asserting here. He did not want Gregorian chant to simply stop being sung. Indeed, in 1974, he sent a booklet with some of the easiest chants to every bishop in the world for the edification of the faithful. [20] His sacrifice was much more subtle. Paul VI redefined Gregorian chant to be an impediment to modern man, in lieu of precisely what modern man, once converted, was to sing. The ancient custom was no longer a tradition, to be faithfully received and passed down, but a left-handed tool that no longer suited the understanding or participation of a right-handed world. Gregorian chant could still be sung within the Roman Rite, but no longer as the Roman Rite.
Paul VI rhetorically asked, “If the divine Latin language kept us apart from the children, from youth, from the world of labor and of affairs, if it were a dark screen, not a clear window, would it be right for us fishers of souls to maintain it as the exclusive language of prayer and religious intercourse?” [21] This question assumes the worldview of the world, wherein “divine” things can bar bishops from helping the rest of men. In granting this anti-Incarnational premise, Paul VI trusted not in the philosophy of Aristotelian-Thomism, but of Coca-Cola.
Seeing Our Nakedness
Within fourteen months of Paul VI’s self-professed “grave change” [22], Coca-Cola and ad agency executives hatched one of the most famous television advertisements of all time. [23] They wrote: “On a hilltop in Italy, we assembled young people from all over the world…” to sing these lilting words:
I’d like to buy the world a home And furnish it with love Grow apple trees and honey bees And snow white turtle doves I’d like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony I'd like to buy the world a Coke And keep it company.
It’s the real thing. Coke is…what the world wants today. [24]
The advertisement presents attractive youth of all sexes, races, and dress united in Italy (of all places!) by one creed, actively participating in a perfectly intelligible English song about a soft drink. This is the diabolical inversion of the vision of Isaiah:
And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. (Isaiah 2, 2)
From its fleeting molehill of monetary profit, the world mercilessly mocked the Church as failing to accompany the young, failing to unite the common man, and failing to understand “the real thing.” And Paul VI in some sense agreed.
With the blame squarely cast upon Latin, Paul VI’s solution was not to replace Gregorian chant with any one genre. The sacrificial victim becomes holy by the very law of God, and no other goat can be substituted for the scapegoat. [25] Rather, he presumed that dethroning Gregorian chant as the chief musical expression of Roman Catholicism would clear the way for a democratic invigoration of the entire religion. In the same 1974 booklet advocating for a “minimum repertoire of plain chant,” the Vatican encouraged bishops to encourage the musically-inclined to pick up the slack:
When vernacular singing is concerned, the liturgical reform offers “a challenge to the creativity and the pastoral zeal of every local church.” Poets and musicians are therefore to be encouraged to put their talents at the service of such a cause, so that a popular chant may emerge which is truly artistic, is worthy of the praise of God, of the liturgical action of which it forms part and of the faith which it expresses. [26]
After 50 years, I compare the glory of Gregorian chant, just now being rediscovered, with the “popular chant” that Paul VI attempted to summon into existence, and wonder if a mistake was made. Paul VI sacrificed a real thing to first allow, then “challenge,” then require his flock to invent a new thing. Thus, he could not praise the tradition as such, but only insofar as it historically served the private goals of understanding and participation—goals which, in his mind, were far better served today by the chosen genres of “every local parish.”
The immediate successor to Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, came tantalizingly close in 2003 to reinstating Gregorian chant as the template for sacred music. He said:
12. With regard to compositions of liturgical music, I make my own the “general rule” that St Pius X formulated in these words: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savour the Gregorian melodic form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple”. [27]
Though this rule is made “general” (scare quotes per the Vatican website), it remains shockingly illiberal. Gregorian chant itself—down to its simple, monophonic, free-rhythm “melodic form”—is held up as the exemplary cause of all sacred music. If John Paul II had extended his quotation of Pope Saint Pius X, he would have effectively abrogated SC §116: “The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship.” [28]
But John Paul II did not say this. Instead, he continued:
It is not, of course, a question of imitating Gregorian chant but rather of ensuring that new compositions are imbued with the same spirit that inspired and little by little came to shape it. [29]
Anyone seeking a return to Gregorian chant as such is thus rebuffed by a fiery sword. We can even imagine John Paul II as lamenting this exile, but he admits no power to end it. In this new world, “of course” the plain meaning of Pius X’s rule cannot hold. The “spirit” of Gregorian chant remains to be imitated, but its sharply distinguished letter has been relegated to out of the question.
Lament for paradise lost can easily give way to anger at the intransigence of “restorers.” How dare someone today compose a new free rhythm Gradual? Who lacks the pastoral heart or musical skill to go beyond merely “imitating Gregorian chant”? A man can press on and still sing a plain old Sanctus XVIII, but no longer is he doing so in humble obedience to Rome. Instead, it is borderline selfishness, filling the air with a dead language that few—perhaps not even he!—understands. If Gregorian chant itself is opposed to modern man’s active participation, then how much more so a lofted Latin schola which includes only the diligent or the talented?
The Fate of Tradition After 1776
The victory of liberalism over Roman sacred music comes into view. Gregorian chant appears no longer good for the whole body of Christ. Instead, it is of varying degrees of usefulness to individual Christians in each’s musical quest to understand and participate. It is hard for me, American that I am, not to see this as the outworkings of the American Revolution.
In The Politics of the Real, D.C. Schindler proposes that the Declaration of Independence installed “ ‘Nature’s God’ as the sovereign principle of the new political order. This is a God defined specifically abstracted from any particular, i.e., actual, tradition so as to be potentially available to any and all of them.” [30] What Schindler says of the American Revolution and traditions broadly construed seems to apply, with only slight tailoring, to Vatican II and sacred music:
It represents the liberation of all possibilities, the inclusiveness of all possible traditions and cultures—within certain minimal constraints (the tradition one chooses for oneself cannot disrupt the public order, it cannot threaten public safety, it cannot harm others or exclude their own cultural expressions.) The point is that all of the contents of tradition can be affirmed, but now only in a new form, as not traditional, no longer representing something that precedes me as an authority and entails a claim on me prior to any choice I might make. All traditions are welcome—indeed, the greater diversity of traditions the better, since a single tradition would inexorably tend to take on a traditional form. But they are welcome only as “neutralized,” as various species of “tradition” in general that present themselves now as objects of choice, submitted to the only actual authority in play—reason as exercised by the private individual. [31]
It may be the case that Schindler’s argument can only hold because Roman Catholicism and liberalism are each totalizing forms, while Gregorian chant is not. Pope Boniface VIII declared, stated, and defined that “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff,” [32] not “that every human creature sing Tantum Ergo.” But we should expect that if liberalism is, in fact, a societal form, it is re-presented fractally within every subdomain of human activity, and analogies from subworld to world can hold water.
In the analogy, the SC §116 places Gregorian chant in the same liberal domain as the Declaration places the true God. A pastor cannot settle the liturgy wars—as a true authority could—because he himself is recast as just one more private individual taking a side. These wars have resulted in statistically less Gregorian chant, instead of more, because Gregorian chant fails to meet Paul VI’s new “minimal constraints”: music cannot disrupt public participation (analogous to order) nor threaten public understanding (analogous to safety).
Each citizen within a parish’s boundaries (not just the fraction that attend Mass) has similar veto power over traditional music in the sanctuary as he does over religious direction in the neutral public square. In both cases, this veto is made stronger by his absence, since a music minister or state representative can more easily indict custom by pointing to an empty chair than to a man. Once living, breathing people are involved, piety sometimes wins.
Coming to the present day, it seems that Pope Francis has reaffirmed the private ability to negate tradition and neglected the corporate strength required to live it. In revoking Summorum Pontificum, Francis indicated that bishops should “discontinue the erection of new personal parishes tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the ‘holy People of God.’ ” [33] Francis frames the Traditional Latin Mass, so intimately bound to Gregorian chant, as nothing more than a hobby of individual priests that today competes with the unity of the Church. Anyone who maintains love for it is thereby suspected of schism. Barnes himself makes no excuses for the “dissent, disobedience, and sedevacantist playacting that characterizes the traditionalist movement today” (emphasis mine). [34] In his letter, Barnes does not praise Gregorian chant above the liberty to refuse it. Within liberalism, no one can.
Clinging to “the One Blessing Not Forfeited by Original Sin”
In the place of allegiance to actual traditions, liberalism ushers in all traditions in potentia. Likewise, after SC §116 supposedly elevates Gregorian chant, it states the following:
But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.
This neutralizes the (already hopelessly hypothetical) “pride of place” due to Gregorian chant should it somehow spill over from potency to actuality, from bridesmaid to bride, and root itself in that highest of liturgical celebrations, the Mass. [35] Just how married are you to a particular woman if you “by no means” forsake any other? When you appear to compliment your lawfully-wedded wife, do you take pains to reassure other women of your continued favor? Even the holiest saint on Earth cannot sing both the Introit and the St. Louis Jesuit’s “Let us build the City of God” [36] at the same time. One genre must be excluded, and only one option (by its membership in the set of “kinds of sacred music” other than Gregorian chant) merits Vatican II’s protection from exclusion.
To clarify the marriage metaphor, it is not every soul on earth that should be wed to Gregorian chant. Rather, it is the Roman Rite which was historically, culturally, and theologically wedded to Gregorian chant till death. And who has checked in on the widower since his house fell silent? Liturgists of both conservative and progressive persuasions concur that the traditional Roman Rite was “destroyed” in the making of the new, [37] but this will nonetheless seem exaggerated to those unfamiliar with all that changed in 1969. I include Dr. Barnes in this category because of the attempt in his letter to backhandedly compliment traditionalists. He wrote that traditionalists’ local parish “could probably use their knowledge of the propers,” [38] but I can assure him that devotees of the 20th-century Tridentine Mass do not know the Novus Ordo propers in the first place. Only 13% of the 1,273 rotating orations of the traditional Roman Missal were preserved intact in the “flood,” [39] and precious few readings were left in their original place in the impossible-to-memorize triennial lectionary.
I know that reform-of-the-reformers such as Barnes earnestly wish to hear Gregorian chant again fill the sanctuaries of the Roman Church. But the Council Fathers gave and Paul VI confirmed an infinitely wide cop-out which we laity cannot rescind. What is worse is that we liberals, more than anything, love “keeping our options option.” We felt privileged rather than slighted to honor Gregorian chant with our fingers crossed behind our back. Where before there was a gold standard of sacred music, now there is a free market, with every individual as the arbiter of value.
It takes considerable virtue to deny such license. Suppose that a father of a bride makes a solemn request to his soon-to-be son-in-law: “Take care of my baby girl.” The groom starts to promise, “I will”, but the father continues, “other things being equal, of course.” Would not the righteous man, in a fit of offended chivalry, reject this interposed condition, saying “no, sir, other things being damned!”
It is with this degree of fervor that I wish for the Roman Catholic Church to un-sacrifice Gregorian chant, relinquishing in totality the potential to conjure up something better. Restoring Gregorian chant to true pride of place would in fact exclude other worthy genres such as polyphony, motets, and hymns from occupying the exact same honor. However, I grant D.C. Schindler’s point that “there is no going back” to simply reproducing the old pre-liberal forms. [40] Recommending that every smartphone-wielding Catholic download the free app Chant Tools [41] will not fix things to God’s satisfaction, but I suspect that seeing again the good of Gregorian chant might do the trick.
I myself cannot teach the depths of this good, but I can defend chant as not evil. Gregorian chant is a wonderful gift of “priceless worth” [42] (as Paul VI affirmed) because by its nature it fosters actual participation and understanding of prayer (as Paul VI denied). If it did not so augment the faith of all, it would not have “priceless worth” in the first place, nor would Pope St. Pius X have described active participation by the laity as preciselycontingent upon it in his 1903 command: “Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times.” [43]
A mere sixty years later, Vatican II required the Church to forever look this gift horse in the mouth, rather than ride it roughshod over Her spiritual enemies. SC §116 may at first seem to level the sacred music playing field for the benefit of all men, but it only succeeds in erecting the prison of human opinion. Within it, Satan holds our musical dowry from the ancient fathers, our patrimony from St. Gregory the Great, the crown of the crown of all sacred art, behind illusory gates constructed of our own pride. No one should prize the “freedom” to respect the liberal mirage.
[3] I believe that “chief place” is a better rendering of the original Latin, principem locum, but the translation on the Vatican website, when read charitably, conveys the same sentiment.
[6] I am sure that there is a better story here than I can tell. Can it be a coincidence that, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the words ceteris paribus were scarcely used between Cicero and Luis de Molina, those two bookends of Christendom?
[7] “John Stuart Mill used the explicit phrase ‘ceteris paribus’ only occasionally but it had an important impact because he characterized economy by its way of coping with disturbing factors: ‘Political economy considers mankind as solely occupied in acquiring and consuming wealth […] not that any political economist was ever so absurd as to suppose that mankind is really thus constituted […] when a concurrence of causes produces an effect, these causes have to be studied one at a time, and their laws separately investigated […] since the law of the effect is compounded of the laws of all the causes which determine it.’” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ceteris-paribus/index.html#ref-7
[8] “The difficulty with ceteris paribus is the challenge of holding all other variables constant in an effort to isolate what is driving change. In reality, one can never assume ‘all other things being equal.’” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/ceterisparibus.asp
[9] “Now, food independence is a great goal, and all things being equal we’d love to reach for it, but given all the demands already made on our time, is it realistic to imagine that we can keep a dairy cow?” Considering the Family Cow: Why you want one and what it takes, page 8, Beth and Shawn Dougherty, 2021.
[12] Nor does the Manifesto say why, in its words, “the liturgy was unable to develop organically in this [the modern] era, all while Christian culture endured centuries of militant secularism and industrialization.” This sounds much like the liturgy was “smothered by an oppressive, institutional body,” since it would be hard to argue that the Church was not in control of Her own liturgy for hundreds of years. The New Traditionalists may be as guilty of liberalism as the Old.
[14] We are joined by other interpreters of various philosophical stances:
Summing up Joseph Gelineau’s position, Anthony Ruff states that “in effect chant has priority only when other factors do not overweigh, such as ‘functional value, or pastoral concern regarding the language employed, and also regarding the adaptation of the melodies to the capabilities of the assembly, etc’.” Ruff, Anthony. Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations (Chicago, IL: Liturgy Training Publications, 2007), 321-332
Joseph Swain states “The famous qualifier ceteris paribus (other things being equal) makes its appearance here to accommodate local conditions that might obstruct the use of plainchant or warrant its replacement by something more suitable for the sacred liturgy. In the light of both the theoretical nature of plainchant and the experience since the council, it is difficult to imagine what these conditions might be in any general case. The American Gospel Mass, sung where the local people have grown up with an alternative musical language owning a true sacred semantic, might be judged a situation where ‘other things’ outweigh the Gregorian advantages of biblical Mass propers specific for each Sunday: a universal and neutral language and a musical means to connect with the rest of the world.” Swain, Joseph P. Sacred Treasure: Understanding Catholic Liturgical Music (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 321.
[15] “A few” is very likely less than 1 in 20, based on a straw poll of ReverentCatholicMass.com and some back-of-the-envelope calculations on the number of parishes listed versus the total parishes in the United States..
[16] Conservatives may be right when they assert that Msgr. Johannes Overath and the Council Fathers did not intend this outcome. I, however, cannot read the hearts of the Council Fathers, but only their words. Nor can I change what those words mean. If their words misrepresent their will, I require another word from them (or their successors) to know this.
[18] The bishops’ intent to qualify any deference to be paid to chant, rather than boldly promote it, is also seen in their footnote citing the Vatican’s 1967 Instruction on Music in the Liturgy Musicam Sacram, which they write “further specifies that chant has pride of place ‘in sung liturgical services celebrated in Latin.’”
[23] The executives were quite explicit in their desire to fill the “niche” of uniting the world: “So that was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be — a liquid refresher — but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes… Davis slowly revealed his problem. ‘Well, if I could do something for everybody in the world, it would not be to buy them a Coke.’ Backer responded, ‘What would you do?’ ‘I’d buy everyone a home first and share with them in peace and love,’ Davis said. Backer said, ‘Okay, that sounds good. Let’s write that and I’ll show you how Coke fits right into the concept.’” “Creating ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.’”
[25] To this day, Catholics are associated only with Gregorian chant despite its disuse and disfavor among them. Steve Martin, a comedian and agnostic, sings in a 2019 song “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs”: “Catholics dress up for Mass and listen to Gregorian chants. Atheists just take a pass, watch football in their underpants.” Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers, Rare Bird Alert, 2019, Universal Music Group,
[28] Nov 22, 1903 Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini, Pope Pius X, n. 3. Pius X’s word choice of “restored” dispels any false history of a pre-Vatican II “golden age” for Gregorian chant. We can grant Mike Lewis’s point in his article “Gregorian chant and the post-Vatican II liturgy” that chanters today may be more competent, or even more in love with chant, than before. However, consistent with my argument, Pius X also said the word “must” without qualification, insisting on a moral obligation which was turned inside out post-Vatican II.
[29] Chirograph of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II For the Centenary of the Motu Proprio “Tra Le Sollecitudini” on Sacred Music.
[30] Page xvii, The Politics of the Real: The Church Between Liberalism and Integralism. D.C. Schindler, New Polity Press, Steubenville, OH, 2021
[32] Bull Unam Sanctamof Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302.
[33]Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the whole world, that accompanies the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Data “Traditionis Custodes” 16 July 2021
[37] “At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old, has been destroyed.”
Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, K. Gamber ( Harrison, N.Y.,1993), p. 99. “Let those who like myself have known and sung a Latin-Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed.” [Gelineau, Demain la liturgie: essai sur l’évolution des assemblées chrétiennes, Éditions du Cerf , Paris, 1976 pp. 9-10.]
[39] Rotating orations defined as “collects, secrets/super oblata, postcommunions and super populum,” excluding prefaces, hymns, and sequences. (October 01, 2021, “All the Elements of the Roman Rite”? Mythbusting, Part II, Matthew Hazell, New Liturgical Movement)
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