A Vindication of St Pius X on Sacred Music and Perspectives on the Church in Africa

Os Justi Press is pleased to announce a pair of new releases.

First, in the “Studies in Catholic Tradition” series, we have Dr. Patrick John Brill’s The Great Sacred Music Reform of Pope St. Pius X: The Genesis, Interpretation, and Implementation of the Motu Proprio “Tra le Sollecitudini”

Professional singer and choir conductor Dr. Andrew Childs sums it up well: “Dr. Patrick Brill provides thorough and much-needed support for what many traditional-minded Catholics have long known or at least suspected: that St. Pius X’s 1903 motu proprio Tra le Sollectitudini still provides the surest guide for the restoration of Catholic sacred music. Part I of this book provides a detailed commentary on the motu proprio, enlightening for amateur and expert alike, while Part II examines the document’s fate from the time of Pius to today, looking at its canonical force and status, positive efforts of implementation, and the neglect it has suffered since Vatican II. As tradition continues to make crucial gains, it will be books like this that serve as practical guides for restoration.”

The new president of the Church Music Association of America, Fr. Robert C. Pasley, concurs:

“Despite the sorry state of music in the Church today, the official documents of the Church still clearly proclaim that Gregorian chant has ‘first place’ (principem locum) in the liturgy. St. Pius X’s motu proprio is the definitive teaching on this subject. Brill’s book is valuable for Church musicians, an immersion in the fundamentals… A fascinating and important read.”

Music director Jonathan Bading, the coordinator of the massive Palestrina500 festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan, adds:

“St. Pius X’s motu proprio on sacred music is the bravest, loftiest, most exhaustive attempt ever to protect and promulgate the precious musical riches of our Roman Rite. Brill’s work particularly shines by placing this great document in its tumultuous historic context and by thoroughly dismissing the naysayers who attempt to water down the urgency of this holy pope’s directives.”

Dr. Edward Schaefer, musicologist and president of the Collegium Sanctorum Angelorum  notes the timeliness of Brill's study:

“Even though they met with certain challenges, these reforms [of Pius X] supported both the twentieth-century revival of chant and a renewed sensitivity to the importance of music in the liturgy…. Patrick Brill’s study comes at an opportune moment, when Catholics are increasingly rejecting the banality of much of today’s ‘church music.’ Brill’s work conveniently gathers into a slim volume the historical context of Pius X’s reforms, the reforms themselves, their implementation, and the place of these reforms in a Church rediscovering tradition. It will be a standard resource.”

Lastly, music professor and author Susan Treacy points to its practicality:

“An indispensable volume for every Catholic—musician or not—who wants to understand the sacred music of the Church.… Provides a detailed exegesis and history of Pius X’s 1903 motu proprio on sacred music Tra le Sollecitudini, as well as the subsequent history of Catholic liturgical music through the aftermath of Vatican II.… Also offers a plan to help pastors and musicians restore sacred music in today’s Catholic parishes, according to the evergreen reforms of St. Pius X.”

*  *  *

The second new release is in a rather different vein: a collection of essays around the theme of the state of Catholicism on the African continent.
 

The familiar claim that Catholicism is booming in Africa—that it is the one continent where the Second Vatican Council has yielded abundant good fruits—does not square with available data and descriptions, as we discover in the late George Neumayr’s articles on Ivory Coast, a Nigerian Catholic’s analysis of harmful inculturation inflicted on Africans by racially stereotyping European liturgists, Claudio Salvucci’s questioning of the Zaire Use on the basis of Congolese history, and Peter Kwasniewski’s evaluation of the evangelical potency of preconciliar faith, life, and worship. In Africa as elsewhere, traditional Catholicism conquered whole populations and fostered immense cultural creativity. Under the new ecclesiology, new ecumenism, and new liturgy of progressive Western intellectuals, ever-larger numbers are falling away to Protestant sects and deracinating secularism.

What readers are saying:

“Accessible and informative, this agile volume…questions much of the received wisdom about the alleged ‘success’ of the Catholic Church in Africa in the last few decades… Will introduce the reader to an ecclesial reality far more problematic and fractured than the naively optimistic portrayals often found in Catholic publications… An important critique of simplistic accounts of liturgical inculturation.” —Thomas Cattoi, PhD, Angelicum, Rome

“Serves as a welcome corrective foray into a fraudulent historiography…based on eurocentric ideological preoccupations.” —Michael Kakooza, PhD, Eastern Africa

“The entirety of this book, brimming with intelligent observations and illustrated with unknown and appealing historical examples, will trigger conversations that should not be postponed.” —Fr. Federico Highton, PhD, ThD; co-founder of two sub-Saharan parishes

“As a priest celebrating the traditional Latin Mass in East Africa for twenty years, I appreciate your collective work. The Catholic Faith has been damaged by the new spirit of this council in Africa like everywhere else, even if the consequences are not of the same magnitude (yet).” —Rev. Christophe Nouveau, Kampala, Uganda

146 pages, full color, in paperback, hardcover, or ebook.

*  *  *

Both books are available directly from the publisher:

Brill on Pius X | paperback $14.95 | hardcover $21.95 | ebook $9.95

African Catholicism | paperback $16.95 | hardcover $24.95 | ebook $9.95

Or from any Amazon outlet (see, e.g., here and here).

Mythbusting: “African Catholicism is a Vatican II Success Story”

Bishop Gregory Ochiagha, of Orlu Diocese in Nigeria, offering pontifical Mass in the old rite

In a recent episode of “Word on Fire,” Bishop Barron responds to Ross Douthat’s two NYT pieces on Vatican II and its failure, by making two arguments:

Argument #1: To blame the collapse of Catholicism in the West on Vatican II is a “post hoc propter hoc” fallacy.

Argument #2: The growth of the Church in Africa since Vatican II is entirely thanks to The Council.

It hardly requires pointing out that he has fallen into the same fallacy of which he accuses Douthat and others.

Nevertheless, this oft-repeated claim about Africa really deserves to be examined more closely, as it is one of the great myths of our time.

A certain “MrCasey” on Twitter noted:

In Africa, touted most frequently as a “Vatican II success,” the number of Catholics receiving the sacraments per 1000 also collapsed after Vatican II, as this chart indicates (source; interestingly, it seems that CARA has removed the study from their own website, without explanation, although it was reported on widely at the time): 

MrCasey continued:

In 1900 Catholics were 2% of the total African population. By Vatican II, that had ↑ to 13%. After Vatican II, the number's been nearly stagnant: ~16%, paling in comparison to Prots, whose % doubled during that time, 15% → 29%. The “Catholics” ↑ = b/c the population tripled. (source) “But that [post-Vatican II] growth is primarily due to a higher birth rate, ‘not to conversion or evangelization,’ observed Fr. Thomas Reese, social scientist & columnist for NCR.” (source) “CARA: the growth can be attributed to high fertility rates...” (source)

Another interesting graph shared by MrCasey:
 

A reader pointed out to me this graph (click to enlarge):
 

His comment:

The 600% increase in Catholics in Africa to 1970 has been followed by a 50% increase since. What, I wonder, caused the inflection in the graph? Oh right: the counterfactual that it would have been worse had the Council never....

George Neumayr, the investigative journalist whose death in Africa last week shocked the Catholic world, was in Ivory Coast working on a book on the state of the local Church. One can read on his Twitter feed, from December 26 to January 15, some initial impressions. For example, concerning this photo—
 

—he comments: “Here is a picture of the 9am Mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Abidjan. I spoke to the presiding priest before Mass. He was in complete denial about the crisis and said that Islam is only stronger than Christians because of ‘immigrants.’”

On January 13, he tweeted: “As the Freemasons got stronger and stronger on the Ivory Coast, they were condemned not by Catholic bishops but by Pentecoastal preachers. The bishops only weakly criticized them out of embarrassment after it came out that the head of a Masonic lodge had been receiving Communion.”

In recent weeks he has published a series of articles at The American Spectator, enlightening though depressing, about the downfall of Catholicism in Côte d’Ivoire, with many parallels to other parts of postconciliar Africa:

• “The Decline of Catholicism on Africa’s Ivory Coast” (Dec. 28, with the subtitle “Decolonization and the liberalism of Vatican II didn’t help”)
• “Islam and Protestantism Grow on Ivory Coast While Catholic Church Fades” (Dec. 31)
• “Why Are the Evangelicals Eating the Church’s Lunch in Côte d’Ivoire?” (Jan. 14, with the subtitle: “It is because they are more Catholic than the Catholics”)
• “The Curious Story of Ivory Coast’s Notre Dame Basilica, Africa’s Largest Catholic Church” (Jan. 7; the church and its grounds were built to accommodate 200,000 worshipers—18,000 indoors—but only 70 come for daily Mass)

In their article-series at Church Life Journal, Drs. Cavadini, Healy, and Weinandy commit the error of “African exceptionalism” when they write: “Across the continent of Africa, for example, celebrations of the Mass that are both vibrant and reverent attract thousands of people to the Church.”

The assessment of Mass in Africa as “vibrant and reverent” seems to be true as far as it goes, but why should this be attributed to the celebrations rather than to Christ Himself who draws people to the Church? After all, before the imposition of the Novus Ordo, it was the traditional Latin Mass that served marvelously to convert Africans to Catholicism in the first place. I suspect anyone visiting their Masses then would also have found them full of reverence and joy.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was a missionary in Africa from 1932–1959 and oversaw an astonishing spread of Catholicism in the regions of Africa for which he was responsible, which came to include twelve archdioceses, thirty-six dioceses, and thirteen Italian Apostolic Prefectures.

Just like everyone else on the globe, Africans, too, have been denied something that had already been an appreciated part of their Catholic heritage. The several flourishing TLM parishes currently in Africa, especially in Nigeria and Gabon, suggest that African Catholics, like so many in the West, might flock to the TLM were it made more available to them. The lack of its availability can hardly then be used as an argument against its appeal or power of attraction.

Here it is not inopportune to mention that the notion of an “inculturated” African-style liturgy was not the work of Africans themselves but of European experts who imagined in their classrooms how their southern brethren might best be served. (For a thorough treatment of this question, see “Inculturation: A Wrong Turn” by a Nigerian Catholic, published in parts at New Liturgical Movement in August and September 2022 and available as a single PDF here.)

As we have seen, any honest examination of the state of Catholicism in the “global south” must include reference to the fact that, while Catholicism is growing in absolute numbers due to population growth, Protestant and Pentecostal sects are experiencing much higher rates of growth — and tragically, attracting fallen-away Catholics into their numbers. This does not sound like an unmitigated “success story.”

Notably, the growth rate of Catholicism in Africa was proportionately much higher prior to 1970 — that is, at the tail end of the much-maligned “Tridentine” period. (See the Pew Research Center, “Overview: Pentecostalism in Africa.” For further considerations on the question of missionary expansion, see my article “Did the Reformed Liturgical Rites Cause a Boom in Missionary Lands?” from July 6, 2020.) In short, the African Church is growing simply because the population is growing (since Africans largely want to have families, unlike the trend in Western nations), so there are more Catholics in absolute numbers than sixty years ago; but the rate of growth is dramatically less today than it was prior to the Council. The conclusion is unavoidable: if Vatican II was supposed to be not just about maintaining the status quo of the 1950s but about launching a new evangelistic and missionary expansion, it failed in Africa, as it did everywhere else, compared to the old-fashioned approach followed over the preceding century.

* * *

What we are seeing with claims of African exceptionalism, a myth called into question by the facts, is very similar to what we see in nearly every discussion of the glories or successes of Vatican II or of the liturgical reform that followed it: namely, a willingness either to ignore evidence or, possibly, even to twist the truth for ideological reasons.

Inculturation: A Wrong Turn - Part 5: More on the Africanism of the Zaire Usage, and the Failure of Inculturation

This is the conclusion of a guest essay on the problems of inculturation in the liturgy, written by a Nigerian Catholic, whom we thank profusely for sharing it with us. Here are the links to the previous parts: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4. The entire essay may be downloaded as a PDF here.

Besides the “invocation of ancestors” and lively singing and dancing, other unique features of the Zaire Usage that have been held up as genuinely African include the role of a liturgical announcer, which parallels the role of a town crier in many African communities, and the placement and nature of the penitential rite, “whose structure is inspired by the African palaver.” [85] The last two innovations are drawn from the social organization and operation of African communities. There is no doubt that the Church’s liturgy and organization have been influenced and have influenced the structure of secular government over the course of history. [86] However, the services of town criers were certainly not restricted to African communities, nor were they ever employed in Africa or anywhere else for the moderation of the religious function of the community in the capacity of the “liaison between the priest and the assembly” [87] as stipulated in the Zaire Usage. In traditional African religions, as in many other religions of the world, past and present, the priest or priestess is the liaison between the people and the deity. An “official” role for the town crier or “announcer or herald, who is neither a religious nor a priest” [88] beyond the marketplace or street corners and well within the shrine of the gods, is unheard of, and cannot even be imagined.

Touching the placement and nature of the penitential rite that was said to have been inspired by the African palaver, it is obvious that parleying and reconciliation need not belong exclusively to Africans. Neither should the liturgy be tinkered with in order to teach history lessons or re-enact social practices long obsolete. [89] Overall, it is hard to see anything genuinely African and at the same time genuinely relevant to the liturgy in the two organizational innovations in the Zaire Usage, but it is not hard to see a common thread in the novelties: the weakening of the ministerial priesthood in favor of lay participation. The “announcer” innovation does this overtly while the allusion to the African palaver in positioning the penitential rite approaches the same goal more covertly.

The failure of Inculturation and insights from this failure

If inculturation or liturgical adaptation seeks to help the local population pray in a way which, while being natural to them, has been purified and elevated by the light of the Gospel and the Christian civilization, then inculturation, as has been practiced in Africa with the Zaire Usage its apex, has been an unqualified failure. This same conclusion applies to inculturation implemented in other parts of the Catholic world. The relevant data cited earlier showed that no modern effort at liturgical inculturation has invigorated the local Catholic population or accelerated the conversion of non-Catholics. On the contrary, in every part of the world, various sects and false religions are snatching souls at alarming rates from the fold of Christ.

One thing that must be clear from the failure of the recent efforts at inculturation across the Catholic world is that true inculturation, like any genuine cultural advancement, knows of no central committee of experts and elites working out an on-the-spot program of revision or innovation. A genuine culture grows organically. It borrows; it always does; but only that which has grown organically and stood the test of time. It survives and flourishes by establishing clear demarcations between the various aspects or levels of life in the community, without disconnecting these. The demarcations erected by genuine cultures are “semi-permeable,” i.e., they allow the exchange of refined elements between the cultural levels. In a balanced culture, each level grows naturally, influencing and being influenced by the other levels, but in such a way that the cultus, theology and/or ultimate philosophy of the people have the final and binding say in what is uprooted or allowed to grow.

The example of antebellum Irish American society

The musical organization of Irish Catholic parish life in pre-war United States provides us a good example of a natural ordering of community life, showcasing organic development, natural demarcations, and the flux of refined elements between the cultural segments over time. The five distinct musical categories, evidence of natural demarcations, which existed in this community, may be described as liturgical, devotional, sodality, social, and home music. [90]

Liturgical music, which is usually in Latin and following the norms of the universal Church, is at the heart of the community and used exclusively in solemn liturgical ceremonies. Next is devotional music, which could be in the vernacular, but of style and text suitable for religious use. Devotional music may feature in “low” Masses or other liturgical or extra-liturgical ceremonies. The sodality music category included not only the music that is used in pious associations in the parish, but also the music produced by political clubs, parochial schools, and other interest groups that meet or are organized under the auspices of the parish. The music in this category is usually in the vernacular and may vary substantially in style and subject. The various forms of music employed in Catholic public events such as St Patrick’s Day celebrations and other cultural events are here described as social music. Social music is typically in the vernacular and the style is dictated by popular taste. At their homes, Catholics made music for purposes of devotion, amusement, and education, which may be in the vernacular or in Latin.

(Young people in Ireland sing the Sanctus of Fauré’s Requiem.)

It should be noted that the category of devotional music is a hybrid of sacred and secular music with elements of the former predominating. The secular elements may predominate in the sodality music, which is also a hybrid category. These hybridizations are evidences of the natural exchange occurring across the musical demarcations. The overall musical organization was profoundly successful in inculcating and transmitting the Catholic Faith and the Irish traditional culture – as much of that culture that could be re-lived in a foreign land. The community joyfully and profitably “sang the ‘music of the Catholic Church’ and the songs of Thomas Moore, Samuel Lover, and the ‘national airs of Ireland’ ” [91] in Latin, Irish, and English. Both sacred and secular music performed by the Irish Catholic community attained professional excellence and attracted huge crowds of people, Catholics and non-Catholics, in audiences when performed at Mass or concert. [92] There was no incentivization of bad music by forcing it on helpless parishioners under the guise of liturgical adaptation. [93] Naturally, but not without some controversies, cross-pollination between music categories abounded, with the local hierarchy of the Catholic Church serving as the ultimate arbiter in sacred matters and popular taste the arbiter in the secular. [94]

The Irish Catholic music life in pre-war United States clearly shows that to engage the cultural depth of a local population, there is no need to replace Latin with Gaeilge or Igbo or to substitute Catholic pieties with druidic or animist rituals. Even before the migration to America, and this for centuries and in the face of the most brutal persecution, Ireland held fast with love to the truth and liturgy of the Catholic Church expressed mostly in Latin. This language and discipline that was described as “dead” and “foreign” was certainly alive and familiar to the Irish soul. So great was Ireland’s loyalty to the Traditional Latin Mass that men and women, literate or unlettered, were willing to, and many in fact did, give up everything, land, culture, and life for the joy of “Introibo ad altare Dei.” [95] Shockingly, such an undaunted Catholic will as was Irish that “survived dungeon, fire, and sword,” [96] did not survive liturgical inculturation and disciplinary accommodation to contemporary cultures. [97] It follows then that while inculturation is made to pass as an innocuous and beneficial practice, the overwhelming evidence shows that it is a life-threatening invasive procedure with no known case of holistic success.

Conclusion

The inescapable conclusion from our brief survey is that whether in Ireland, Nigeria, Brazil, the Philippines, the USA or any part of the Catholic world, modern inculturation was a wrong turn for the Church and for civilization. “And if you have taken a wrong turning,” C. S. Lewis remarked, “then to go forward does not get you any nearer [to your goal].” [98] This is common sense. “If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road…” [99] What we must do cannot be simpler and more concrete. And we know what the right road to walk back to is. In Microsoft’s Windows, it used to be called the “Last Known Good Configuration” option. In the Catholic Church, that configuration has always been the Traditional Latin Mass and its associated liturgical disciplines. The least any bishop can do is to give the Traditional Latin Mass a chance after the letter and spirit of Summorum Pontificum. Let us start there generously and see the dry bones rise again! [100]

NOTES (numeration continued from previous articles)

[85] Conference Episcopale du Zaire quoted by Chase N. P., 2013, 6, 1, p. 33

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Inculturation: A Wrong Turn - Part 4: The Zaire Usage and False Africanism in the Liturgy

We continue with the fourth part of this guest essay by a Nigerian Catholic on the problems of liturgical inculturation. The first two parts were published earlier this month (part 1; part 2; part 3).

Returning to the Zaire Usage and drawing from our discussions above, we are compelled to admit that the excited singing and dancing at the Vatican on the First Sunday of Advent in 2019 that made such glowing headlines in the global media were neither a unique African religious/cultural expression nor were they the most dignified actions at the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. Dancing as a liturgical or devotional exercise has existed in many societies, African and non-African, and in several of these communities, including traditional Jewish and Christian communities, reverence for the divine has meant that such expression of excitement was kept away from the most sacred action of religion or the principal cultus. Many traditional African religions extensively employ the emotion of fear to elicit and maintain religious fervor. [74] Practitioners are strictly obliged to offer sacrifice and libation or suffer grave consequences. [75] Such stringent obligation requires for compliance, and confers on the associated religious service, a stern and terrifying outlook. Hence, the attitude of “respectful distance” in dealing with the sacred that is practiced in traditional African societies. [76]

This fact was graphically related by Chinua Achebe in his novel Things Fall Apart [77], from which it is evident that nothing could be more out-of-place, even downright “sacrilegious”, than a smiling and swaying worshipper, dancing to the tune of rhythmic joyful music, at a sacrifice or divination service in the shrine of Agbala or Amadioha or any of the other Alusi or deity of traditional Igbo religion.

The cover of the first edition of Things Fall Apart. (Fair use file from Wikimedia Commons)

But how then did the notion of lively singing and joyous dancing become so intimately connected with the religious expressions of Africans in modern times if such behaviors, in that context, are alien to the indigenous religion? We must look for the root of the rhythmic dance music not in the cultus of the African people but in their secular cultures or social tradition. In marked contrast to the petrifying scene of divination painted by Achebe, his description of a village wrestling contest showcase the delightful and lively atmosphere we have come to associate with African religious sentiments. [78]

Thus, rhythm, excitement, and frenzy, those supposed iconic marks of African religious expressions, are in fact “the unmistakable wrestling dance – quick, light and gay [79], ” or the overriding sentiments of other social functions that are only tangentially related to the traditional religion rather than typifying it. Interpreting Achebe in Things Fall Apart, one readily comes to the conclusion that while Africans may be extravagant in their joy when at play, they have the tendency, or rather intuition, of assuming a more or less severe and somber air when they pray. Africans understand that prayer is not, and should not be a joke. Furthermore, Achebe contrasted the gravity of the pre-colonial Igbo people in religious matters with the jovial mood of evangelical Protestantism as follows:

“Then the missionaries burst into song. It was one of those gay and rollicking tunes of evangelism which had the power of plucking at silent and dusty chords in the heart of an l[g]bo man.” [80]

Protestantism is an attempt to demystify and popularize the Catholic Faith. It is the removal of elements which offend contemporary sensibility, and the injection of accessible and “respectable” notions. Such popularization amounts to secularization, the turning away from the divine to the human. This is why the Protestantization of Europe was only a step away from its secularization. Similarly, the identification of native African cultus with secular African cultures in the popular psyche, the identification of how indigenous Africans pray with how they play, and the transfer of these playful ethos (rather than the prayerful) into Catholic liturgy as inculturation constitute genuine liturgical popularization and secularization. It is the direct parallel of introducing rock music or operatic singing into the liturgy in the United States or in Italy in the name of inculturation. Such actions merely trivialize and secularize the liturgy, stripping it of its mystery and solemnity.

The world-acclaimed Missa Luba, “an African setting of the Mass sung in Latin,” [81]  originally performed by a Congolese choir under the direction and inspiration of Belgian priest Guido Haazen, was developed entirely from tunes drawn from the Congolese repertoire of traditional folk music rather than from the stock of religious music. Why? Maybe this is because the religious music is largely unpopular or largely undeveloped. These two possibilities are derivatives, I think, of the extreme austerity of native African religious disposition. We do not thereby inculturate the Mass in the Congo when we ask the Congolese to pray as they would play. We merely trivialize and secularize the sacred function. Missa Luba was a huge success in several concert halls in Europe and across the world, and rightly so, because it was an innovative composition for concerts, a novel exhibition of African rich secular music tradition. It was not intended, nor was it suitable, for use as prayer at Mass, just as operatic settings of the Mass are unsuitable in Italy or in any part of the Catholic world. This thought was more fully developed in St. Pius X’s Tra Le Sollecitudini, which declared:

“Among the different kinds of modern music, that which appears less suitable for accompanying the functions of public worship is the theatrical style, which was in the greatest vogue, especially in Italy, during the last century. This of its very nature is diametrically opposed to Gregorian Chant and classic polyphony, and therefore to the most important law of all good sacred music.” [82]

To maintain the effective and necessary demarcation between the playground and the sacred ground, St. Pius X insisted that musical compositions “which are admitted in the Church may contain nothing profane, be free from reminiscences of motifs adopted in the theaters, and be not fashioned even in their external forms after the manner of profane pieces.” [83]

There is hardly any doubt that Missa Luba and other African musical compositions of the Mass contributed to the development of the Zaire Usage. [84] Today, whether in a Mass celebrated according to the Zaire Usage or any other inculturated forms of the Roman Rite celebrated in Africa, music in the Missa Luba style, or forms much more unrestrained and theatrical, have become normative. While it is true that in some instances such inculturated liturgical services do afford some opportunity for prayer and union with the Sacrifice, I have many experiences in several parishes across Nigeria in which the sacred function was reduced to almost a mere jamboree, especially during fundraisers such as Uka bia nara Ngozi, Harvest Thanksgiving or Seed Sowing, etc. Unfortunately, such fundraisers within the Mass are increasing in frequency and excesses in many parts of Nigeria.

The disturbing secularization of the liturgy that goes with inculturation bridges the gap Achebe noted in Things Fall Apart between native African stern approach to religion and the happy-clappy mood of Protestantism, especially the Pentecostal camp. It should be noted that the popularization introduced into the Mass under the guise of inculturation is often behind the latest trends in Pentecostalism, whose raison d’être is religious secularization or rapprochement with the zeitgeist. One result of this state of things is that Catholics unsatisfied with half-measure popularization in their parishes stream into one of the up-to-date Protestant congregation. Hence, inculturation is arguably the main reason why Catholics in Nigeria defect to Pentecostal or Evangelical groups.

NOTES (numeration continued from previous article):

[74] Wielzen, D. R., 2009, p. 43

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Inculturation: A Wrong Turn - Part 3: Common Assumptions about Inculturation

We continue with the third part of this guest essay by a Nigerian Catholic on the problems of liturgical inculturation. The first two parts were published last week (part 1; part 2.)

Having completed our short overview of the propositions usually advanced in support of inculturation, and seen how unfounded these assertions are; we will now briefly explore the foundations of a number of scholarly and popular assumptions connected with inculturation in general and African religiosity in particular.

I. Mutual enrichment

We will start off with the common talk about the mutual enrichment of the local and universal Church that necessarily results from inculturation or liturgical adaptation to particular communities. Without denying the salutary effect of genuine liturgical adaption and the beauty of ordered diversity, it is important to remind ourselves of the other reality: we cannot have our cake and eat it too. Keeping the victual metaphor, it is to be expected that one who has always drunk coffee will likely contribute little to a discussion on tea tasting. Likewise, to the extent and in the respect that a local Church adapts a unique practice, to that extent and in that respect is she decoupled from the universal practice of the Church. As discussed earlier, diversity per se is not an evil; on the contrary, it may be a great good, especially if there were legitimate grounds for it. Nevertheless, for the wellbeing of the polity, such deviations from the universal should be the exceptions rather than the rule. Liturgical uniformity, on the other hand, by building a liturgical bridge, as it were, between two or more cultures and nations with different temperaments and persuasions, does result in mutual enrichment of the Church’s communities, as the history of the Church give ample witness to.

As a case in point, the Carolingian kings only desired that their kingdom pray as Rome did, but in their humility, they not only granted their people a share in the heritage of Rome, the principal See of Christendom, but afforded the Gallican rite the unique opportunity of substantially enriching the ancient Roman Use itself. The resulting Frankish-Roman liturgy became the liturgical and disciplinary patrimony of the Church in the West. [58] This liturgical tradition and the associated disciplines and principles produced Western civilization, and not the other way round. [59]

Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel at Aachen. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Horst J. Meuter, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Christian Faith as expressed in the Roman Liturgy and discipline, in its original or hybrid forms, has had as much efficacy in civilizing the pagan and primitive tribes of Europe as it could have in civilizing the pagan and primitive tribes of Africa, if it is allowed to work its way into the fibres of the cultures of the latter as it did in the former. Unfortunately, a hasty effort at the “Africanization” of the Liturgy, sometimes driven by ideologies antithetical to the Faith, and often times without any objective evaluation of the impact, has stalled the salutary effect of the Latin heritage in Africa. A relevant example that presents itself is the Zaire Usage’s close association with the Congolese dictator Mobutu [60] and his aggressive and sometimes anti-Christian cultural agenda, which included the abandonment of his Christian name.

II. Liturgy and culture

The opinion that non-European liturgies are required for the preservation of non-European cultures is the second popular assumption for our examination. It is interesting to note that many Africans and other non-Europeans who clamour for an African or non-European liturgy to preserve or rescue African or other non-European cultures from Westernization, have themselves, alongside the vast majority of people living today, embraced much of all secular Western cultures – language, technology, philosophy, government, entertainment, etc. Their coldness towards, or outright rejection of, the Traditional Latin Mass and other traditional Catholic devotions deprive them of the necessary counterweight to the toxic effects of the post-Christian Western cultures they have adopted. At any rate, do we have any concrete evidence that the Latin Liturgy poses any threat whatsoever to the positive culture of any nation?

We can readily examine this question with reference to a nation that has had a long Catholic history. St. Patrick’s Ireland is a good candidate having always being outside the Roman Empire and its pre-Christian civilization. [61] Certainly, the Roman Liturgy, for all the many centuries it was prayed in Latin by the Irish people, did not destroy the Irish culture; on the contrary, it nurtured it. Latin did not displace Irish, but English did. [62] In the same vein, Latin has never been a threat to the Igbo language, but English is. And this is not because English is taught in school or sometimes used in the church, but principally because Igbo is no longer spoken in many Igbo homes, no longer the Mother tongue; making it the liturgical language does not help. The English language may indeed threaten the identity of the Igbo people, but post-Christian Western values, torn as it were from God and from the natural law, pose a more mortal and infernal danger. A largely sentimental revitalization of traditional Igbo customs and its incorporation into the liturgy stand little chance in stemming the surging and sophisticated onslaught of the decadent West. Western culture became dysfunctional and corrosive by rejecting the traditional Catholicism that nurtured it; it can be tamed and harnessed for the well-being of any society only if it is reconnected to holy Mother Church, its wellspring.

(The first episode of a series broadcast on Irish television in 2007 called “No Béarla”, Irish for “No English”, in which a man tries to make his way through daily life speaking only Irish, with less success than one might imagine, given that the study of the language is compulsory in Irish schools.)

III. The roots of the traditional Catholic liturgy

The third popular assumption for consideration is really a common oversight. In the frequent discussion of inculturation today, it is evident that many have lost sight of the fact that the traditional Catholic liturgy and discipline is a product, to the extent that it is man-made, of societies with values and hopes much closer to the indigenous people of Africa, Asia and Latin America than to post-Christian Western societies. It was the product of customs that value the family, respect life as a gift from God, dances and claps in its joys, and shares the sorrow and fears of neighbours and strangers. In an effort to identify a distinguishing and central African value as a basis for building a “theological model of inculturation,” one African theologian claimed for Africans the eminent exhibition of hospitality. The apparent suggestion, perhaps, is that Europeans are less hospitable. Another countered the proposition only to advance Africans’ eminent sense of communion or “covenant” with people and nature. [63] The individualism of modern Western societies may de-emphasize personal responsibility towards neighbours and strangers, but such an unsocial disposition does not reflect the values of the Church nor the cultures from which the Church elaborated her liturgy and discipline.

IV. Africanism in the liturgy

We will say something here about the stereotypical association of African worship with dancing, drumming, clapping, and other bodily gestures [64] and its alleged incompatibility with silence, reflective prayer, and solemn forms of singing/chanting, because these latter, it is claimed, are religious expressions proper to Europeans. That a form of liturgical dance is still preserved in the ancient Abyssinian Rite of Ethiopia [65], but nothing of that kind exists in the Latin Rite, may seem to support the common supposition that dancing and other dramatic gestures of joy are, in relation to the West, genuine and exclusive African religious expressions. In reality, however, “[r]itual dance was not foreign to the old European Church,” [66] and about a century after the Ethiopian rite was fixed [67], St. Teresa of Avila and her nuns executed “sacred dance in the choir, singing and clapping … in the Spanish way, but with … holy reverence.” [68] As would have been the case in old Europe, it should be noted that liturgical dance in the Ethiopian or Coptic Liturgy is a feature of certain open air processions or celebrations recalling the famed Davidic dance, and has no place in the Mass. In fact, the Eucharistic sacrifice in the Ethiopian Rite, as a sign of profound reverence, is performed in secret, away from the gaze of the lay faithful. This tradition is reminiscent of the obsolete practice of dismissing catechumens before the Eucharistic sacrifice in the Latin Rite [69], the widespread custom of installing iconostases in Eastern rite churches, and, to some extent, the discontinued Mediaeval practice of setting up of rood screens in Western churches. Consequently, Africanism played no role in preserving in Ethiopia certain practices long out-dated in the West.

The Psalmist invites all nations to clap their hands and “shout unto God with the voice of joy;” [70] elsewhere, “let them praise his name in choir [dance].” [71] Practising what he preached, King David famously danced ahead of the procession of the Ark of the Covenant. His actions were emulated down the ages by Ethiopian priests and European nuns. However, such excited displays are out of place in the Jewish temple worship at Jerusalem, in the Jewish synagogue worship across the world (from which much of Christian Liturgy developed [72]), or during traditional Eucharistic worship in Ethiopia, Europe, and the rest of the Christian world. Just as Elijah recognized the Lord not in the commotions of a strong wind, earthquake, or fire, but in the “whistling of a gentle air” and then covered his face in reverence [73]; so Christ often went away from the crowd to a quiet place, alone or with his disciples, to pray.

The note of reverence and solemnity that characterize the Jewish and Christian liturgies, especially when this involves direct communion with God in one shape or form, exist in various degrees in many non-Christian religions, including African Traditional Religions. In the latter, it sometimes takes the aspect of extreme secrecy, elitism, gravity, and even terror. At any rate, liturgical dance is not an African singularity but a universal phenomenon, which is however excluded from the most solemn religious activity in Judaism and Christianity, as well in certain Traditional African Religions.

Concerning the place of silence and contemplation in African religious experience and expressions, it should be noted that every human being can laugh and cry, and they know the experience that is neither crying nor laughing. Like lamentation and mirth, silence is a universal language that cuts across cultures and creed. Everyone knows what silence is – even the little baby that screams at Mass intent on disrupting the quiet he or she senses and is thrilled to pierce. It is equally true that all human beings are capable of introspection and reflective thought. In some cultures or civilizations, these habits are so developed that mysticism or philosophy becomes noticeable. In traditional sub-Saharan African cultures, meditation and thought are largely employed to reach out to the world of the spirit or to resolve pressing social and personal problems. Hence, philosophy is rather poorly developed, while mysticism is largely better developed.

Granted, the traditional African mystical experience is different from the Catholic notion of mysticism, but so was the mystical expression of other uncultured nations in the distant past that were brought under the Christian light. Hence, I am a little embarrassed to have to argue for a place for silence in the African culture or in any other human culture. It is therefore not true that the silence and sombreness of traditional Catholic piety, especially in the Traditional Latin Mass, is incompatible with the African temper. It is rather condescending to hold such an opinion. Even when singing in the vernacular, Africans do not always produce “throbbing dance music.” I vividly recall my experiences of weekday Novus Ordo Masses celebrated in Igbo in a neighbourhood village church during my undergraduate days in Nigeria. Usually, the sun was then just about to rise, the church poorly lit and poorly furnished, and without drumming, clapping or swaying, these poor villagers sang, mostly from memories and from the heart, the rich mysteries of the Faith in a simple and edifying form that has much in common with the decorum, balance, and prayerfulness of the Church’s Gregorian chant.

A Pontifical Mass celebrated at the ICRSP Apostolate in Libreville, Gabon, by His Excellency Basile Mvé Engone, bishop (now emeritus) of Libreville, in 2012.

NOTES (numeration continued from previous article)

[58] Duchesne, L., Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1904, p. 102-104

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Did the Reformed Liturgical Rites Cause a Boom in Missionary Lands?

This recent letter exchange may be of interest to NLM readers, as a sort of follow-up to my article last month “How the Traditional Liturgy Contributes to Racial and Ethnic Integration.”

Dear Professor Kwasniewski,

In my many discussions with fellow Catholics about the subject of the 20th century liturgical reforms, the objection often comes up that they directly coincide with the incredible explosion of Catholic faith in many parts of Africa and Asia.

I generally respond by saying that just because the totality of reforms may have had such positive impacts doesn’t justify any particular one of them, and a dispensation could have been allowed to use some vernacular in the Mass in mission territories without the enormous overhaul that was taken. However, I’m not sure this is a massively convincing response and wondered if you had ever given the idea some thought yourself? It seems like a gap in pro-Traditonal Liturgy discourse to me. It seems that for the legitimate points to be made about reverence, attendance, understanding, and so on deteriorating after the promulgation of the 1969/1970 Missal, one also has to take into account the positive fruits of the post-Conciliar era.

In Christ Jesus,
N.

*       *       *

Procession in China in the 1950s

Dear N.,

African missions were experiencing considerable growth throughout the 20th century, including (as I’m sure you know) the missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers under the guidance of Archbishop Lefebvre. There is every reason to believe that this upward trajectory would have continued, quite possibly even stronger, had tradition not been derailed. There was no proof that the traditional Roman rite was incapable of being introduced and cultivated among natives of many lands, together with a reserved and sensible approach to inculturation, and some use of the vernacular, especially for readings and music.

On a darker note, the loosening up of doctrine and worship after the Council has allowed abuses to flourish in missionary lands, since a patient and persistent will to curtail and correct them was no longer operative: the mingling of pagan and Christian rituals and beliefs, polygamy, clerical concubinage, and so forth.

+Lefebvre in the Congo

The growth witnessed in recent decades can be accounted for demographically without the need to invoke Vatican II or the reformed liturgy as a primary cause. This would seem to be a classic case where the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc might be operative — a fallacy that has often been thrown in the faces of traditionalists when they argue that Vatican II and/or the liturgical reform caused, or prompted, a massive decline in religious practice, at least in the Western nations. The latter claim, however, is at this point beyond dispute, whereas the claim that Vatican II and its reforms prompted the growth of churches in other parts of the world is by no means easy to argue. (Indeed, whether any good can be attributed to this Council has been the subject of intense conversation lately, prompted by writings of Archbishop Viganò and Bishop Schneider; links and discussion may be found here.)

Catholicism in Asia was generally experiencing steady growth in the 20th century with traditional modes of worship intact. Case in point: in China, the persecuted underground Church remained strong with the TLM until the late 1980s, when the Novus Ordo was first introduced with the collusion of the Communist Party. The situation in China today certainly cannot be said to be superior to what is was before. The Vietnamese were just as devout and single-minded in their Catholicism under tradition as under novelty, and today many who have rediscovered the TLM love it.

Chinese Trappists, 1947

As the book The Case for Liturgical Restoration argues (see especially chapters 25, 31, and 32), the Far Eastern mentality, broadly speaking, is well-suited to the contemplative ceremoniality and symbolism of the TLM (one need only think of the famous Japanese tea ceremony). Put differently, the novel aspects of the Novus Ordo that some modern people find appealing are the same aspects they will find — albeit usually more successfully — in Protestant Evangelicals and Pentecostals. It is therefore hardly surprising that Third World countries have experienced an explosion in conversions to (and, tragically, Catholic defections to) such Protestant sects. There are, needless to say, many other factors as well, such as a drift away from preaching the Word of God and fostering sound popular devotions, into alignment with socialist political programs. For those who are seeking God, for those who want to be saved by Christ, this will be a major turn-off.

It is true that a concession for some use of the vernacular was sought by some missionaries (although we may note that a large number of bishops at Vatican II spoke up against vernacularization), and there is no particular reason to think that this concession is necessarily a bad idea. However, there is much in the Catholic liturgy that remains constant from day to day; that content should certainly remain in Latin (for further argumentation, see, e.g., here, here, and here).

In my new book Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright, I say the following (p. 12, n. 3), which I think is relevant to the topic at hand:

That there have been a few saints after and under the Novus Ordo does not prove that it is equal in its sanctifying power to the traditional Latin Mass, just as the fact that some demons can be expelled by the new rite of exorcism does not contradict the general agreement of exorcists that the traditional Latin rite of exorcism is far more effective. At most, such things prove that God will not be thwarted by churchmen or their reforms. As theologians teach, God is not bound to His ordinances: He can sanctify souls outside of the use of sacraments, even though we are duty-bound to use the sacraments He has given us. Analogously, He can sanctify a loving soul through a liturgy deficient in tradition, reverence, beauty, and other qualities that ought to belong to it by natural and divine law, although in the normal course souls ought to avail themselves of these powerful aids to sanctity.

One might say something similar about “good fruits” after the liturgical reform. Are they precisely because of that reform, or are they rather in spite of it? God wills the salvation of mankind, so He will use whatever instrument the Church provides Him: a sharp knife or a blunt knife. The sharp knife will cut better, but the blunt knife will still serve in many cases. Yet it would be far better to have kept the sharp one, or to get it back as soon as possible.

Cordially in Christ,
Dr. Kwasniewski

A missionary bishop in China: traditional Catholicism inculturated

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

Personal Parish for the FSSP in Nigeria

The news is a bit older, but since it had not been mentioned before, and it is especially welcome to see the usus antiquior thrive beyond Europe and America, it is well worth noting that last August 15th, Feast of the Assumption, the Monsignor Augustine T. Ukwuoma, Bishop of Orlu, Nigeria, raised the Apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter at the Nne Enyemaka Shrine in Umuaka (Imo State, Nigeria) to the status of Personal Parish (art. 10 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum). You can read the entire history of this apostolate here. Some pictures of the solemn Mass for the occasion, at which Msgr. Ukwuoma together with his predecessor, Msgr. Gregory Ochiagha, attended, follow below.

In case you wonder where the diocese of Orlu is situated, I have taken two pictures from my atlas hierarchicus (click to enlarge). The first shows it within Nigeria and its neighbouring countries, while the second shows it in somewhat greater detail within the metropolis of Onitsha:


And now for the pictures of the Solemn Mass of the Assumption:



Apparently the event was covered by the local media:

Thanks to Una Voce Málaga for the tip.