“Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed” — New Book by Peter Kwasniewski

hardcover on the left, paperback on the right

I am delighted to announce to NLM readers that my new book from Angelico Press, Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed, has just been released.

As the title and subtitle suggest, the book replies to the cancer-phase Liturgical Movement arguments in favor of massively overhauling the old rite, explaining why it did not need the Consilium’s extreme makeover; and then refutes the idea that the new rite can be “reformed” or “done well” so that it might someday be the right thing. Instead, the old rite is fine the way it is, as long as it is well celebrated; and the new rite, regardless of good intentions, is irreparable.

The argument of this book is particularly important at a time when a lot of clergy and laity, feeling discouraged by various and sundry restrictions, are tempted to take the line that “As long as we do the new rite well, that will suffice.” The dangers of this approach are enormous, though seldom highlighted. I shine a giant floodlight on them.

What is more, it’s very possible we’ll see an attempt made in the coming years to impose “reforms” on the old rite: if you can’t beat ’em, beat ’em up in some other way. The enemies of tradition see that the TLM is not going to disappear entirely, so they will launch a campaign of “death by a thousand cuts”: “You can keep the TLM as long as you adopt the new lectionary, the new calendar, the new prefaces,” etc. etc.—basically, an attempt to force Sacrosanctum Concilium on recalcitrant trads 60+ years later. (And we mustn’t be naive: a “conservative” pope might throw his weight behind this campaign just as much as a progressive one would do, under the mistaken impression that it would offer “the best of both worlds.”)

My book explains why all of this is a non-starter, a dead end, a ruse, and a means of destroying the perfections of the old rite, which I describe and defend. What we love, we fight for; and to love it better, we must understand it deeply. That is the purpose of this book: to equip the reader with the deepest understand of why the old Mass isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing, and why the new Mass is a mess that cannot be fixed but must be set aside for good.

A Foreword by Fr. Thomas M. Kocik, world expert on the reform of the reform, graces the volume.

Publisher’s Description

The Mass of Paul VI is so deeply flawed that it cannot be repaired from within, whether by copious helpings of smells and bells, by arbitrary attempts at traditionalizing, or by an official “reform of the reform”; and the Roman Mass inherited from the Age of Faith did not (and does not) need to be “reformed” along antiquarian or pastoral-utilitarian lines, as it fulfills the highest act of religion in a fitting manner perfected over many centuries of prayerful practice. The liturgical revolution, driven by ideology, culminated in balkanization, banality, and boredom; its fabrications must be retired from use, and the traditional rite must be restored to its rightful place of honor in the Church of the Latin rite.

Such are the bold claims defended in Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed, in which Peter Kwasniewski refutes the reformers’ own case for reforming the old rite and illustrates the subtle dangers to which clergy and laity are exposed by attempts at “doing the new rite reverently.” Simultaneously he reminds traditionalists that they should aspire to the noblest possible celebration of the Mass, always faithfully observing the rubrics and resisting bad habits that interfere with the rite’s full splendor and efficacy: unseemly haste, minimalism, ineptitude, and the itch for pastoral experimentation.

If the Catholic Church in the West is ever to recover her internal soundness and external cultural influence, her shepherds and her flocks must let the ill-advised Council of the 1960s and the Bauhaus liturgy fabricated in its name lapse into obsolescence, so that the perennially fresh theology of the Council of Trent and the immortally beautiful liturgy of the Roman Church may once again flourish unfettered.

What Readers Are Saying

“We are grateful to Dr. Kwasniewski for showing to the readers of our day the inestimable treasure of the Catholic liturgical tradition, which, in its prayers and rites, most perfectly reflects the integrity and the ineffable mystery of the Faith, and at the same time for exposing patiently and no less thoroughly the severe flaws of its attempted replacement.” —Most Rev. Athanasius Schneider

“David slaying Goliath is the only apt metaphor for Dr. Kwasniewski. At the Goliath of systematic lies perpetuated about the traditional Mass, he has aimed the five shiny stones of his prodigious scholarship. He has mortally wounded the giant of liturgical mendacity; it is hard to see how any thinking Catholic could ever grant it credibility again.” —Fr. John A. Perricone

“Dr. Kwasniewski has produced a volume that demands a verdict. Agree or disagree with this work as you see fit—but it cannot with integrity be dismissed or ignored.” —Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.

“Most of Kwasniewski’s conclusions in this volume are diametrically opposed to those of the Vatican, which is all the more reason they should be read—not as a proud act of dissent but in order to gain a different perspective, one that raises serious questions about a matter vital to the Church.” —Michael P. Foley

“An impassioned, uncompromising defense of the traditional Latin Mass…. An encyclopedic review of the current issues in the Catholic traditionalist movement, both clarifying fundamental theological principles and offering practical advice on celebrating the TLM today.” —Stuart Chessman

“The author makes an important contribution to a question that has become only more urgent over time: Did we certainly and genuinely need a substantial reconfiguration of liturgical rites that exchanged a venerable patrimony for a manufactured product that was (or was at least intended to be) adapted to ourselves and to the zeitgeist—or do we actually need to reform ourselves and our culture, adopting as our own a tradition passed down from time immemorial?” —Shawn Tribe

Table of Contents

Close the Workshop is available in paperback or hardcover:
• from the publisher;
• from any Amazon site;
• or via the Os Justi Press website.

Refuting the Commonplace that “Liturgy” Means “Work of the People”

In 2020, Angelico Press released a very interesting book entitled Christ the Liturgy by William Daniel. Serious students of liturgical theology should pick it up if they have not already done so. While I do not agree with all that the Anglican author presents, he offers unique perspectives I have not seen elsewhere and, in particular, makes a deft and profound use of both Church Fathers (Clement, Ignatius, Cyprian, Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus) and modern philosophers (Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Voegelin, Gadamer, Pickstock).

Chapter 1, worth the price of the book all by itself, delves into true and false, or perhaps we should say truer and falser, meanings of the term leitourgia, “a word,” writes Daniel,

that has been mistranslated, the first instance of which appears to have been at The Fourth General Council of the Alliance of The Reformed Churches holding The Presbyterian System (London, 1888), whereby liturgy is translated as “the work of the people.” To speak of “the work of the people” assumes a work, an offering, or the human capacity to give something to God that God doesn’t have. Translating leitourgia as “the work of the people,” a distinctly post-Enlightenment translation, inverts the human’s relation to the salvific offering of the Son to the Father. That is, this redefining of liturgy elicits a lack in God—the lack of God’s own worship. Additionally, liturgy as the “work of the people” separates the liturgical action from the creative agency of the Son and the human’s volitive participation in the re-creating of the world, infinitely actualized—recapitulated—in Christ. The Transcendent is hereby absolutely transcendent; there is no mingling of God and creation. What is important to note at the outset is that to translate or (re)define leitourgia as “the work of the people” detracts from the inherent, relational nature of liturgy as that which gathers the people of God into the eternal life of reciprocity that is Holy Trinity. (1–2)

This mistranslation is very prominent among supporters of the liturgical reform in the Catholic Church. For example, Kevin W. Irwin in his book Responses to 101 Questions on the Mass (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999) speaks of “the Greek term leiturgia, meaning “work of the people” (p. 31).

The author then looks carefully at instances of classical and patristic texts that employ the term leitourgia to make his case. His goal is 

to lay the foundation for understanding liturgy as the manifestation of divinity in Christ, attested to by the early and medieval church, and as the anagogic relation of participation that is the essence of the church Catholic. Liturgy is hereby to be understood not as “the work of the people” but as “the work of the One for the sake of the many.” Christ himself is this “work,” this event, who is the Liturgy he enacts—both priest and victim, an offering to the Father for the life of the world. (2)

In ancient Greek authors, leitourgia first means “public work” or “public service” (laos ergon), which often took the form of a sacrificial gift or financial offering without expectation of repayment, solely for the common good, such as sponsoring a festival or holding (without pay) a public office. In Aristotle, leitourgia names the bearing of a communal burden for the benefit of the many. Not just the rich who fund banquets, choruses, and lyric contests, but also priests, doctors, the miliary, and innkeepers are all “liturgists” in this context. It is always a gift of one for the sake of the many.

St. Paul uses the term in continuity with Plato and Aristotle to refer to the one who gathers and offers funds for the sake of the building up of the Church, in analogy with the priests of the temple who gather the offerings to give glory to God. Paul describes himself as a libation poured out for the people. The one ministers to and for the many:

Paul is the liturgy he enacts—Christ. His liturgical role is to serve as Christ, to gather the offerings of the faithful into the offering Jesus is in himself. Only in this way do the liturgical actions—offerings—of a people become bound to the offering of Jesus to the Father—the one, holy acceptable offering. (8)

In the first epistle of Clement, leitourgia points to the hierarchical office that belongs to the various members of the body, all acting in and through Christ to participate in His high-priestly offering; but most especially the bishop, whose role is to gather up the many into the One (11). “Leitourgia is a sacrificial offering to God, which is consequently beneficial to others” (12). 

Office and action, as in the ancient world, are inseparable in Christ. The hierarchical administration of the liturgical economy is a division of labor, not a partitioning of classes. Just as the bishop makes the people available to God, likewise do the people make God available to the bishop. There is a logic of reciprocity embedded in the action. By necessity of her communion with God, the Christian must be in fellowship with Christ’s holy church, through its bishops. (19) 

We are led to see from the sources that in no sense is liturgy understood as the working of the people at some activity that is primarily theirs to claim or to conduct. On the contrary, they are the receivers of the largesse of the Father in Christ poured out by the Spirit through the Church’s rites enacted in obedience by those who are in the position of rulers and benefactors, who bear the communal burden, who “put on” liturgy (so to speak). In this vision there is no competition between parts of the body, but only gratitude for the complementary roles that allow worship to come alive. God gives the offering to the priest, and the priest returns it to God for the people: “the work of the One”—Christ, or His hierarchical representative—“for the sake of the many.”

The politicization of the liturgy, the jockeying for roles, the spreading out of activities, appears therefore to be a fundamental misreading of the economy of worship, in which “God is the sole giver of gifts; and it is only God who can receive God. Abraham’s giving and receiving are to be understood, therefore, as a participation in the giving and receiving of God from and to God” (24).

Daniel reaches his conclusion, invoking a major theme of the theologians associated with Radical Orthodoxy: 

The commonplace (mis)translation of leitourgia as “the work of the people” describes a chasm between what Christians do when they gather to worship and who the God they confess to worship is. The modern translation of this term dislocates the human from the action of Christ, thereby suspending the gift from the recipient—giver and receiver remain separate. In a falsely humanistic attempt to emphasize the work of humans in liturgy, “the work of the people” actually narrates a deistic understanding of the human as completely separate from God, or univocally maintains a sameness between God and humanity in “Being.” (34)

Almost as a corollary, Daniel points out how this univocity traps God in a human construct and evacuates our experiences of the possibility of redemption:

Paul’s sufferings (cf. 2 Cor 4:8–12; Col 1:24) are the sufferings of Christ, born in his body, for the sake of the church. It is the cross that is paradigmatic for participating in divine action—in the Liturgy-Christ. The cross is also that which makes all suffering intelligible and meaningful. The oft-repeated notion that Christ suffers when we suffer is yet another aggrandizing of the human in relation to her sufferings. We must not invert the relation between the suffering of Jesus and the sufferings of humanity. Again, while it may at first seem to elevate the suffering of humans to say that God suffers with us, it has the adverse effect of flattening human suffering as something that in no way transcends the present sensation of pain. What makes human suffering meaningful is that it participates in the bodily suffering of God on the cross. (35–36) 

At the end of the chapter, Daniel ties together his research into a thundering critique of the contemporary misappropriation of a noble ancient term:

We have seen how liturgy as “the people’s work” locates a person’s identity in her own hands—the human nature entirely separable from divinity—a liturgical nominalism, as it were. Naming, as it does, the service of worship of the church, liturgy has been mistaken to be humanistic in the worst sense of the term. It has been wrongly understood as an isolated act in time, either performed by a professional class of persons (clergy) for an audience (laity) or enacted collectively as a body of people (priesthood of all believers), which can only be assented to by faith, not participated in through the reason of the body.
          In each instance the understanding is the same: God has given salvation to those who follow Christ; Christians, therefore, perform liturgies to offer thanks and praise for the gift of salvation. The assumption here is that the baptized have a gift to offer unto Almighty God, i.e., their selves. To say that the human has something she can give—even herself—to God, is to suggest that a person possesses within her being the capacity to initiate contact with God, thereby inverting the Creator-created relation. It is at once a rejection of human contingency and a denial of God as his own absolute contingency. God becomes somehow dependent on creation.
          This “self-possession” is the ultimate affront by the created to her Creator; it is the sin of all sins—it is Adam and Eve. Leitourgia as illuminated throughout the writings of the early fathers refuses both the Gnostic rejection of matter and the humanist departure from metaphysics. The modern mistranslation is more than a matter of semantics; it is an ontological chasm. (38–39)

He returns to this point at the start of chapter 4, providing an especially helpful summary of his position, which certainly shares much in common with the traditionalist critique of the radical branch of the Liturgical Movement and its triumph in the post-Vatican II liturgical reform with its humanist, activist, utilitarian, consumerist, and reductionist assumptions and stylings:

What is often misunderstood about liturgical action, specifically as it regards Christian liturgy, is that it is neither performative nor initiative. That is, it is not a performance before God to somehow please God or curry favor, nor is the Christian to understand herself as one who initiates contact with God. As outlined in the first chapter, this is a gross misrepresentation of liturgy that stems from a mistranslation and misunderstanding of the word and meaning of leitourgia. Any claim that liturgy is instigated by, or an experience simply to be taken in or enjoyed by, humans reduces liturgical action to a temporary, flattened affair that has little or nothing to do with God, save the gross objectification of the same. Such a reduction bears an implicit, disenchanted anthropology, a conception of humanity that is biological at best and animalistic at worst.
          Liturgy, however, does not originate in human action, even though it implicates humanity in its activity and elicits human participation. Liturgy is the creative agency of God who in Christ has gathered human nature into divine reciprocity, a reciprocity that is without beginning or end. The human’s participation in this eternal action is medial by nature. That is, the human is caught up in the divine self-relation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Liturgy hereby names the self-relation of eternal reciprocity that God himself is. To worship, therefore—to participate in the liturgical action—is to be involved in an action that begins outside of human agency yet implicates the human in divine agency. (121–22)

Based on this conclusion, Daniel then goes on later in the book to emphasize that liturgy is “medial”—that is, neither pure activity on our part, nor pure passivity, but both and neither, like the “middle voice” of some ancient languages.

One way to say this, however awkward it might strike the modern English-speaker’s ear, would be to say, “I was gathered into the offering of the Son to the Father.” Shorthand would be modestly simpler: “I participated in the self-offering of God today.” (127) 

One can see the care with which he banishes the idea that the worshipers are the primary agents, which has been the bane of liturgical reform for the past hundred years, and has led to many absurdities: making everyone say all the responses and do all the actions together in lockstep; giving clerical tasks to laity; opening up space for creative and spontaneous expression and motion on the part of the clergy; the statement that “I like Fr. So-and-so’s Mass best”; mobilizing the chickabiddies to make felt banners for their first communions; erupting into applause for the efforts of musicians or other groups; and so forth. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that the entire framework of the Liturgical Movement was always tainted with a certain Pelagianism, with what Jordan Aumann called “the heresy of activism.” The middle voice was lost: the insertion into the action of God that begins before we even exist and is eternally simple, circular, fruitful, and silent. Daniel concludes:

Liturgy, hereby, is not a matter of self-expression. It is not to be governed by the whims of any one individual’s sensibilities. Rather, liturgy is the confluence of linguistic worlds which have passed through the torcular of Christ, who is the wine press of God…. It is in this sense that liturgical mediality can be understood as an active-passivity, perhaps our best way of pointing toward the middle voice. It is a giving of ourselves to an action happening to us, to an agency that is not our own. Hereby do we become leitourgia—the work of God. We become Christ in proportion to our participation in the work of the One, which is for the sake of the many. (157–58)

To sum up: leitourgia does not mean “the work of the people.” It means “the work of One on behalf of many.” This definition is properly theocentric and Christocentric; it justifies, even as it relativizes, the “sacerdotalism” (in Dix’s expression) of all traditional liturgical rites.

There is much else of value in this book, such as its treatment of church architecture in chapter 3 (about which I will write separately). I encourage you to check it out.

William Daniel. Christ the Liturgy. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020. 206 pp. Paper ISBN 978-1621385554, $17.95. Cloth ISBN 978-1621385561, $32.00.

On the Origins of the Devotion to, and Depictions of, the Wounds, Blood, and Heart of Christ

Louis Charbonneau-Lassay. The Vulnerary of Christ: The Mysterious Emblems of the Wounds in the Body and Heart of Jesus Christ. Translated by G. John Champoux. Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2021. 586 pp. Paperback $28 / Hardcover $40. Available at Amazon and Tumblar.

The author of The Vulnerary of Christ, Louis Charbonneau-Lassay (1871–1946; hereafter C-L), was among the most versatile and erudite researchers of Christian archaeology and symbolism the world has ever seen. He traveled throughout Europe looking at churches, monasteries, public buildings, monuments, manuscripts, paintings, vestments, stained glass, furniture, host-molds, escutcheons, banners, trademarks, objets d’art, anything that bore or could possibly bear Christian symbols, and carefully drew copies of them into his notebooks. He left behind in his files tens of thousands of drawings and notes which he planned to include in a series of books. The one major work published in his lifetime, The Bestiary of Christ, appeared in English in an abbreviated version.

To add intrigue, the finished manuscript of his masterpiece, The Vulnerary of Christ, was stolen by a visitor who arrived at C-L’s home shortly before his death. Fortunately for us, a detailed outline of the book, the notes used to compose it, and the drawings all remained in his home. Thanks to a painstaking reconstruction by Gauthier Pierozak, it was possible to publish the work in French in 2018. In 2021, Angelico Press brought out a deluxe, copiously-illustrated English translation, of which I had the privilege of reading the page proofs, and which I cannot recommend too highly.

How best to describe this encyclopedic work—at once archaeological, artistic, historical, literary, liturgical, and devotional? The author’s fundamental thesis is that devotion to the wounded Heart of Christ, far from being a pure invention of eighteenth-century French piety or even of high medieval piety, as is so often claimed, has its roots deep in the early Church, in the earliest artistic representations and symbols of Christ. We find ubiquitous use of the “signaculum Domini” that consists of five marks (be they points, crosses, crescents, hearts, flowers, lozenges, asterisks, annulets), in which the mark that represents the wound in the side becomes progressively more important, until the Heart that was pierced and exposed by the lance becomes the object of loving adoration, the visible symbol of the immensity of divine Love: “We will see later that this particular cult of the wound in the side has quite naturally led to the exteriorizing of the cult of the heart of Jesus under its anatomical form, which it contained in potency and towards which it inevitably oriented thought; but here, as in all such cases, the symbol has necessarily preceded the thinking responsible for interpreting it” (62).

There is a gentle anti-Protestant and anti-Orthodox polemic underlying the argument: on the one hand, the Protestants do not understand the implications of the Incarnation for Christian art and liturgy; on the other hand, the Orthodox, who possess a rich iconographical tradition, too quickly write off Catholic devotions and artistic representations as decadent corruptions when, in fact, they find support in Scripture, the Church Fathers, and early artistic evidence. C-L successfully shows that the devotion to the Passion, the Five Wounds, the Sacred Heart, the Precious Blood, and the Holy Face are all inseparable from one another, mutually implicatory and reinforcing. “At the place of the wounded heart of Jesus, as with everything that is the object of adoration, today’s Christian rediscovers, in bending the knee to the ground, the incontestable trace of the knees of all his ancestors” (84).

Protestantism, with its surface rigorism and theological sophisms, Jansenism, with its narrow and rigid conception of the idea of Christ, cast upon France a cold mist that obscured and weakened, though without extinguishing it, the broad piety for the heart of Jesus. After them, it would take the great breath of Paray-le-Monial to stir up the embers and kindle the flame. (281)

The book is organized into eight parts:

1. Representations of the Five Wounds of Christ in Earliest Christian Art
2. Depictions of the Wound in the Side of Christ
3. Representations of the Redemptive Shedding of Blood
4. Plants Emblematic of Christ’s Five Wounds
5. Stones Emblematic of the Wounded Christ
6. The Iconography of the Wounded Heart of Jesus
7. The Iconography of the Heart of Jesus in the Counter-Revolutionary Armies of the Vendée
8. Diverse Representations Relating to or Foreign to the Cult of the Heart of Jesus

Although much of the time C-L is patiently reviewing, comparing, and drawing conclusions from the hundreds of artistic objects he has sketched—there are 359 engravings and 32 plates in the book, all of them commented on—the prose rises every few pages to the heights of poetry:

Nailed to the wood of his cross, the tortured divine Victim had sensed death achieving its conquest within him, and, with one last effort towards the world, he had cried out that his redeeming work was consummated.
       Next, in the unexpected night that had suddenly fallen over it, as the earth trembled with emotion and rocks split apart, Jesus bowed his head and rendered up his soul to his Father.
       Then, as the hour of the sabbath approached, his own had to quickly take him down from the cross to be able to bury him. But, before allowing them to do as they wished, soldiers approached to break the legs of Jesus and of the two others crucified with him, so as to finish them off. But, seeing that the Savior was already dead, they did not break his legs. “But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side: and immediately there came out blood and water.”
       The wounds to his hands and feet, as well as the bruises over his entire body, had stopped the life of the Victim and satisfied justice. The wound from the spear-thrust, a wound of supererogation, brought forth from the very body of this corpse the blossoming of a divinely fecund life, and satisfied infinite munificence and love.
       And since that time, and for evermore, the Christian world has lived and will live from this life springing forth, through his side, from the opened heart of Christ Jesus! (67)

The sheer exuberance of the imagery C-L compiles—where we see, for instance, the Heart of Jesus depicted as a grape in the winepress (126–28), or as the cup of a holy water stoup (106); a chalice so depicted that its opening suggests the wound in His side (80); the Pantocrator reigning upon a heart-shaped throne (255, 277–78); the divine Blood depicted as a jewel in a cup (195); Adam and Eve in the garden, holding aloft a Heart surmounted by a Cross as a foreshadowing of their redemption (270); a trademark in which chant notation provides the “so-la” for the phrase “fides sufficit” (274); a Carthusian astronomical marble that depicts the constellations revolving around a wounded Heart glowing like the sun (354); the depiction of a flaming Heart on which has been drawn the map of the world (364); a brotherhood’s emblem consisting of thirty-three tiny hearts enclosed in a Heart surrounded by a braid of thorns (399); a carved wooden lyre in the shape of a Heart (417)—is enough to fill the reader’s mind with an ever-growing wonder at the inexhaustible profundity and playfulness of the Christian imagination suffused with faith in the Redeemer. Among the many categories of readers who would find this book enthralling must not be forgotten artists, craftsmen, and designers, who will discover in it a delightful catalogue of inspiration.

The level of detail in the book is nothing short of mind-boggling. Just to take an example at random, Part 4, concerning Plants Emblematic of Christ’s Five Wounds, tells us in chapter 11 about “The Trees of the Passion” (olive tree, trees shaped like crosses, gum trees that produce valuable sap by being wounded), in chapter 12 about “Plants of the Divine Torture” (St. John’s Wort, called “Flagellation grass”; prickly marine rushes; hyssop and sponge), in chapter 13 about “The Garden of the Wounded Christ” (the strawberry, the poppy, the lychnis, the red rose, the amaranth, the adonide, the passionflower, and the paulownia flower). C-L shares the conviction of the medieval allegorists that everything in nature was created not only through the Word but also in some way to reflect the Word’s Incarnation, the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. Certainly this principle is required for any intelligent “reading” of the works of Christian artists from all periods prior to modernity. Indeed, C-L complains at one point that artists of the nineteenth century had lost the ability to understand iconography and therefore produced atrocious art:

The admirable and zealous movement begun at Paray, a wonderful stimulus to piety towards the heart of Jesus, did not induce, with its iconography, any return to [artistic] order. At least the religious imagery posterior to this movement did not increase confusion further. Finally, the deplorable fantasies dreamt up in the nineteenth century for the populace succeeded in crossing the bounds of the ridiculous with their absurd compositions, where we find all mixed together: grinning angels, ecstatic urchins, any flower whatsoever, hearts without distinctive features, and flights of doves that draw on high other hearts with implausible garlands or cords; the whole arsenal of a winded and fretful art (?) that had its peak around 1880, and which is now, quite thankfully, over and done with. (295)

The Vulnerary of Christ contains some “bonus” chapters that one might not have expected from its title. The legend of the Holy Grail is examined in chapter 15, and competing stories about the vessels of Jerusalem, Genoa, and Valencia, each claiming to be the cup of the Last Supper, are compared. Chapter 16 presents evidence that the ancient Egyptians venerated the heart of the supreme God. The cult of the Holy Name of Jesus and the depiction of the monogram is explored in chapter 18. The use of Christic symbols in the coats of arms of royalty is the subject of chapter 20. Chapters 21 and 22 look at astronomical sculptures and heart-shaped sundials, primarily from Carthusian monasteries. Chapters 30 and 31 enter into the question of secular adaptations or thefts, misuses, even mockeries, of the Heart. For example, the Freemasons in France produced blasphemous versions of the Sacred Heart that they distributed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as “counter-propaganda” against the Faith. Large numbers of five-starred medals depicting the Sacred Heart bound with a chain and surrounded by the words “Psychology and Science” were sent to French soldiers on the front in World War II to combat the “threat” of popular devotional medallions.

Perhaps the most gripping portion of the book, at least for us at this time, is Part Seven, on the use of the Heart of Jesus as the identifying emblem of the counterrevolutionary armies of the Vendée (pp. 431–87). So far from fading with the passage of time, this characteristically Vendéan image has received new life in the postconciliar period as a potent symbol of the Catholic traditionalism that resists both the ideology of the French Revolution and its infiltration into the Church. The attentive reader will recognize how the ancient double heart symbol on p. 467 has gained a second career as the emblem of an important Society.

This book is a one-of-a-kind exposé of the subtle interplay between theology and symbolism, spirituality and art, faith and culture. It bears witness to the irreducibly visual, representational nature of Christianity, which (to paraphrase Maximus the Confessor) everywhere seeks its embodiment in the flesh, in matter, which it thereby seeks to illuminate and elevate as a herald of the Kingdom of God, which is both within and above. It is fitting to let Charbonneau-Lassay have the final word:

In truth, the cult of the wounded heart of Jesus Christ does not have its origin in the deep meditations and exaltations of theologians or teachers of the past, or in the conceptions of our old artists; it does not have its source in the revelations, the visions, the inspirations of the saintly men and women of any time or in the zeal of a particular religious order; it comes wholly and directly from the sole worship of the divine blood and the five chief wounds from which it poured, according to the word of the Nicene Creed, “for us men, and for our salvation.” By this well-marked route, the cult of the wounded heart goes back to the very birth of the Church.
       Of course, theologians, artists, doctors, saintly men and women, and religious orders, have added to, each has quickened, according to the providential views and according to their time, the cult of the five wounds, the worship of the open heart of Christ Jesus. But no, none of them has invented anything new. And when I look at Calvary, in spite of the darkness that enshrouds it with mourning, I see, already, worshipers of the pierced heart: Mary, “the dolorous Mother who stands upright,” John, Magdalene, and, surely from that moment, the legionnaire whose spear tip has just initialed with a flourish the “Consummatum est” of the Crucified One, who withdraws it from the open chest while his captain proclaims that this One, truly, is indeed the Son of God, whose heart, even now, pours forth blood and water through his wound! (245)

The Vulnerary of Christ is available in paperback and in hardcover.

“Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright” – A New Book by Dr Peter Kwasniewski

Angelico Press has just released a new book by our prolific and long-time contributor Dr Peter Kwasniewski, titled “Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright - The Genius and Timeliness of the Traditional Latin Mass.”

From their website: “At the crest of volatile years of experimentation, a new rite of Mass was introduced in 1969 — no mere cosmetic treatment but a radical reconstruction of the Church’s central act of worship. A minority of the faithful continued to hold fast to the traditional rite, which John Paul II and Benedict XVI gradually freed from restrictions. The steady growth of this  ‘traditionalist’ movement inevitably prompts questions in the minds of more and more people. What is it that Catholic laity, clergy, and religious are discovering and falling in love with? Could you — should you— be among them?

“In this engaging book, Peter Kwasniewski draws on decades of experience and, presuming no specialized knowledge, explains why the traditional Mass operates the way it does, what its distinctive features and benefits are, and how it still captures hearts with a beauty deeply rooted and perennially green. Every reader — whether already a lover of the Mass of Ages or a complete newbie, whether committed or curious, perplexed or skeptical, sitting on the fence or bouncing back and forth between old and new — will find life-changing insights in these pages.”

Here is the Table of Contents:

Blurbs from the back cover:

“Dr. Kwasniewski’s comprehensive new book has something for just about everyone seeking an answer to the question why it is so urgent that we take refuge in our tradition and reclaim our birthright as Catholics. Parents and grandparents with an interest in passing on the Faith to the next generation will also find much food for thought.” — ARCHBISHOP THOMAS E. GULLICKSON

“Peter Kwasniewski is the theological master and propagator of the usus antiquior. But never does he lose the common touch that appeals to the non-scholar or the mere onlooker coming to the classical Mass for the first time. Of books defending the usus antiquior, Kwasniewski’s Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright should hold pride of place on your bookshelf.” — REV. JOHN A. PERRICONE

“If you’re looking for carefully crafted, incisive, logical arguments as well as Pascal’s ‘reasons of the heart’ for why the Traditional Latin Mass is a lighthouse both for the Church and for your own soul’s voyage amid stormy seas, this is a book for you.” — REV. WILLIAM J. SLATTERY

“This eloquent work even fulfilled the function of spiritual reading for me, as so many passages rise into prayerful appreciation for the treasures of tradition. And if you love a good donnybrook, you’ll find plenty of deft argumentative pugilism.” — MICHAEL P. FOLEY

“Having recently rediscovered the Traditional Latin Mass, my spirit has been soaring ever since. I found Peter Kwasniewski’s writings to be a wonderful resource, erudite without being academically forbidding. This book could change your spiritual life forever.” — JANET E. SMITH

“Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright has that rare combination of readability and intellectual depth needed for responding to our ecclesial crisis. If you are already convinced of the pressing need to return to the beauty of tradition, it will provide you with sound rhetoric; if you are not convinced, it will draw you toward the truth.” — LEILA MARIE LAWLER

“Dr. Kwasniewski leads those who are curious about the traditional Mass into a thorough understanding of its superiority in language, music, prayers, postures, reverence, and piety. Although written by a scholar, this book is for everyone. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for our sacred birthright, meant to be passed on to all Catholic generations until the Lord comes again.” — JESSE ROMERO

The Mystery of Incomprehensible Love: A Remarkable New Book from Angelico

The Mystery of Incomprehensible Love. The Eucharistic Message of Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament. Foreword by Dom Mark Kirby, OSB. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020. 184 pp. 978-1-62138-521-9 (paper), $16.95; 978-1-62138-522-6 (cloth), $25. Available from Amazon and its affiliates.

CATHERINE DE BAR (1614–1698), later taking in religion the name Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament, was one of the great teachers of the interior life in 17th-century France, in regular contact with all of the prominent figures of that very rich age of saints and mystics. She began in the order of the Annunciades but, due to the upheavals of the time, ended up staying for a long period at a Benedictine monastery, eventually becoming a Benedictine nun. In 1653, with the support of Queen Anne of Austria, she founded the Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration, an order represented today by houses in France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Mexico, Poland, Germany, Uganda, Italy, and Haiti. The first house of Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration, Silverstream Priory, is located in Ireland.

Angelico Press has done yet another great service by bringing out the first book in English by and about Mother Mectilde, who is better known in the French and Italian spheres, where many publications have been dedicated to her eventful life and copious writings. The book consists of several parts. From Mother Mectilde herself we have excerpts taken from her many writings—conferences, chapter talks, letters, treatises—where she speaks about the greatest mystery of love entrusted to the Church. From other authors, we have a Foreword by Dom Mark Kirby, OSB (pp. 1–6); a probing commentary on one of Mectilde’s most famous pieces, “The Solemnity of Thursday” (pp. 11–14); a detailed biography by Canon G.A. Simon (pp. 113–51); and an essay by Dom Jean Leclercq, OSB, on Mectilde’s place in the history of Benedictine spirituality (pp. 153–70). All in all, I find it a splendid introduction to a spiritual giant who deserves to be better known: as Dom Mark writes, “Catherine Mectilde de Bar is, I believe, a woman of the stature of a Gertrude the Great, a Teresa of Avila, and a Marie of the Incarnation” (3).

I had the good fortune of being able to read this manuscript carefully and found myself continually astonished by the author’s insights into the Holy Eucharist, her writing style’s unusual combination of lyricism and bluntness, and the spirit of refined courtesy and audacious zeal that shines forth from the pages. It is a book to spark wonder, feed prayer, and enliven adoration. I cannot recommend it too highly. (The blurbs from Fr. Jacques Philippe, Fr. John Saward, Msgr. Arthur B. Calkins, Mother Immaculata Franken, Sr. Julia Mary Darrenkamp, and Anthony Lilles speak for themselves.)

My article on May 8, “Contempt for Communion and the Mechanization of Mass,” closed with a quotation drawn from this new book:

Can there be anything greater? Has Our Lord not extended His love even to excess? Ah! If we had the faith to believe it, and if we would think about how we receive a God of infinite majesty as He truly is, would we not be overwhelmed with reverence?

I cannot help being struck by how relevant her words are to the current situation. As Dom Mark points out, she “lived in a time marked by superstition, sorcery, dalliance with the powers of darkness, blasphemy, and sacrilege. Distressing events in churches on every continent have demonstrated that global society today has more in common with war-torn 17th-century France than one might think” (5). The Huguenots of her day threw hosts to the floor and trampled on them. Today, more horribly because they should know better, there are Catholic clergy who, by means of communion in the hand, let the particles of the Eucharist be scattered hither and yon, to be trampled under foot, or who have arrived at the limit of impious techniques for “delivering sacramental goods.”

Here are several more passages that continue the same theme:

A God — greatness, power, richness itself — reduces Himself to nothing for us in the Host, and we think no more of it than one would of something commonplace and ordinary. O stupidity! Oh, the ingratitude of men! One does not think of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and, yet, is this not, of all mysteries, the most divine, of all marvels the most prodigious, the most inconceivable? What has anyone said of this divine mystery up until the present that in any way approaches the reality of it? (55)

All must remain in the silence of admiration. A God makes Himself our food! O astonishing prodigy! What are all the miracles worked by Jesus Christ during the course of His earthly life in comparison to this one? What a spectacle! What bounty! What charity! A God who gives Himself to us! O love! He who with three fingers sustains the universe is held by the priest. He who commands all of nature obeys a being who is nothing. He who is all-powerful makes Himself so dependent that He is in the power of His creatures; they carry Him, they bring Him wherever they choose. This is too much. Your charity, my Saviour, goes even to excess! O incomprehensible miracle! Mystery forever inconceivable! No, the thought of man would not know how to attain it. (53)

We must be very surprised to see with what boldness people enter churches and we ourselves enter choir, which is a place sanctified by the Real Presence of God. Oh! If we could see the posture of the angels and the saints before the adorable Eucharist, we would not be so bold as to enter without fear, without respect, and without amazement. It is here that we lack faith. (126)

The Mass is an ineffable mystery in which the eternal Father receives infinite homage: in it He is adored, loved, and praised as much as He deserves; and that is why we are advised to receive Communion frequently, in order to render to God, through Jesus, all the duties we owe Him. This is impossible without Jesus Christ who comes into us in order to accomplish [in us] the same sacrifice as that of the Holy Mass. (31)

There is so much treasure in these pages — I could quote and quote until your eyes wearied of scrolling. There’s a better solution: get the book and read it. Mother Mectilde’s teaching shone brightly in the gloom of her age and it continues to shine in ours, radiating fervor, joy, devotion, inspiring a charity that runs happily to excess.

Link to the publisher page.

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

Best One-Volume Scholarly Introduction to the Traditional Mass, Now in English

I am delighted to announce the publication by Angelico Press of Michael Fiedrowicz’s masterful work The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite (first published in 2011, and now in its third German edition).

Having been blessed with the opportunity to read this book twice and really absorb its content, I can confidently say that there is nothing comparable to it in the English language, in its comprehensive scope, depth of research, and insight into every aspect of the liturgy. It is a compelling apologia for the old rite at every level and on every head. The author’s judgments are judicious, polished, sober, and clear; there is not a touch of exaggeration or unfairness. The result is both triumphant and devastating.

In these strange times, when we see the number of traditional Masses at an all-time high (thanks to a proliferation of private Masses), the CDF issuing decrees that precisely imply the permanence of the usus antiquior in the future of the Church, and an ominously-worded questionnaire sent out to bishops about the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, we may have many questions and a few anxieties, but we also enjoy a towering certainty: interest in and adherence to the traditional Mass will not subside. On the contrary, it will continue to grow, seminarian by seminarian, priest by priest, and even quite possibly bishop by bishop as the champions of rupture retire and churchmen with less rigid ideas about the “success” of the liturgical reform and the “outdatedness” of our heritage take their place.

Fiedrowicz’s work arrives, therefore, at exactly the right moment. If you are going to read just one serious book on the TLM, this is the one. In addition, I recommend purchasing copies for every priest you know who already offers the usus antiquior — indeed, for every priest who is, or may be, interested in learning more about the very Roman rite for which he was ordained.

Table of Contents

In the following excerpt from the book (pp. 58-61, minus the footnotes), Fiedrowicz applies Newman’s theory of development to the classical Roman rite:

The organic, homogenous unfolding of the traditional rite of the Mass can similarly be illustrated on the basis of the seven criteria identified by John Henry Newman in his work Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) in order to show how the changes witnessed in the form of the Roman Catholic Church over the course of centuries are the expression of a continuous and seamless development.
       The first criterion is the “Preservation of Type,” which deals with the protection of the original form and proportions. With all of the changes to the outward form, the Eucharist’s sacrificial character in the traditional rite of the Mass remained decisive, while the meal aspect of the action of the sacrifice is subordinate and secondary.
       The second criterion is “Continuity of Principles.” Theocentrism and never anthropocentrism has been part of the inner basic policy of the classical rite, which manifests itself in the outward form. The traditional form of the liturgy does not consider itself as a parish assembly, but rather as the performance of worship with two dimensions, the glory of God (latreutic goal) and the sanctification of the people (sacramental-soteriological goal).
       “Power of Assimilation” constitutes the third criterion of organic development, which derives its vitality from the adoption of outside and foreign elements, without losing its own identity. A concrete example of this is the so-called Roman-Frankish mixed liturgy, in which the original form of the Pontifical High Mass incorporated elements of monastic piety—such as private prayers of the priest—and was embellished through rich ceremonial forms and gestures.
       The fourth criterion, “Logical Sequence,” consists in recognizing, in retrospect, an inner coherence between the earlier and later stages of development. In this sense, the later silent prayers of the priest come up as the spiritual interpretation of the liturgical action that was already previously done without accompanying prayers (e.g., oblation, incensing, and washing of the hands). In the same way, the prayers at the foot of the altar are only the later organic development of the earlier acts of preparation (silent pauses or prostrations before the altar, apologia, and the praying of psalms belonging to the entrance ritual).
       The fifth criterion, “Anticipation of Its Future,” demands that later occurrences are not completely new; rather, future developments must already be suggestively present in some form. Thus, for instance, Communion in the mouth, accepted during the Middle Ages, was already anticipated in earliest times in those original gestures of Communion that manifested veneration (e.g., obeisance, veiled hands, and genuflection).
       “Conservative Action on Its Past” demands, as the sixth criterion, that previous achievements may not be overturned and abandoned by further developments. An indication of organic development is continuity, not breaking with the past. The classical rite of Mass perfectly satisfies this criterion, when, for example, elements of the original pontifical liturgy, such as processions, have been preserved in principle, even in the simple private Mass, although in a reduced form, such as a turning of the celebrant’s body or a change from one side of the altar to the other.
       The seventh and last criterion is “Chronic Vigor.” In contrast to many ideas and innovations that, after a sensational beginning, quickly grew old or completely vanished, genuine development can be identified by permanence and unspent vitality. The classical Roman rite organically and continually evolved from its core components over the course of 1,500 years. Its chronic vigor is apparent not least in the fact that on the eve of Vatican II, neither the laity, nor the parish clergy, nor the bishops were demanding profound changes to the liturgy. Its chronic vigor is also further demonstrated by the fact that it is just those monasteries, communities, and seminaries that have preserved the traditional rite, or at least maintained it alongside the newer form of the liturgy, that have found growing attention and increasing numbers of entrants in recent decades and years.
       Succisa virescit—having been cut down, it flourishes [again]: this motto of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino, which after afflictions and destructions was invariably rebuilt, can also be applied to the classical rite of the Mass, which despite exterior adversity over the course of history has proven and will continue to prove its chronic vigor.

*       *       *

Publisher’s Description

In view of ever deepening interest in the traditional form of the Roman rite of Mass — which, according to Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, demands “due honor for its venerable and ancient usage”—a comprehensive but concise introduction to its history, form, and theology is more than ever desirable. In contrast to conventional explanations of the Mass that offer practical or allegorical explanations of particular moments in the rite, the present work attends to the organic process by which the Roman rite was built up from its foundations into a magnificent structure, marked by the accumulated riches of each age through which it passed, and characterized by order, beauty, and piety in its texts, gestures, rubrics, chants, and calendar — ranging from the major elements to the most minute details. Treated as well are the reality of the sacred and how it is encountered, the irreducible role of ritual action, the eastward direction of prayer, the formation and value of a specialized sacred language, and liturgical participation correctly understood.

Product Details

History/Politics, Liturgy, Theology
350 pages
6 × 9 in
978-1-62138-523-3 (paper)
978-1-62138-524-0 (cloth)
Available at all Amazon outlets

Praise for The Traditional Mass

“Readers will find here much with which to grow in their appreciation of Pope Benedict XVI’s insistence that, in respect of the older liturgy: ‘What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.’ The publication of this English translation marks another important step towards achieving that goal.” — DOM ALCUIN REID

“This historically rigorous and theologically informed book is indispensable for anyone who cares about Pope Benedict XVI’s liturgical vision. I am delighted that this outstanding introduction to the traditional form of the Roman Mass is now available to Anglophone readers.” — FR. UWE MICHAEL LANG

“Michael Fiedrowicz here accomplishes something well-nigh miraculous: a comprehensive introduction to the elaborate history, complex structure, and sublime theology of the traditional Latin Mass — supported by abundant scholarship — all within the scope of a single highly readable volume. Quite simply, this is the best one-volume work on the classical Roman Mass published since the Second Vatican Council.” — PETER A. KWASNIEWSKI

“I am pleased that Angelico Press has made available in English translation Prof. Fiedrowicz’s substantive achievement — the fruit of careful research, orthodox faith, and reverence for the riches handed on in tradition.” — FR. THOMAS KOCIK

“The Roman Church has been rendered a great service with the publication of The Traditional Mass. Whereas previous tomes on the Roman Liturgy have often been too technical to appeal to the average Catholic, Fiedrowicz’s style — simple, informative, yet profound — grips and guides the reader from the outset. I heartily recommend this masterpiece to all Catholics who desire to better understand and appreciate the traditional Roman Mass.” — LOUIS J. TOFARI

About the Author

Michael Fiedrowicz, born in Berlin in 1957, is a Roman-Catholic priest of the archdiocese of Berlin. He studied Theology, Philosophy, Latin Philology, and Patristics at Berlin, Paderborn, and Rome universities. Since 2001 he has been Professor of History of the Early Church, Patrology, and Christian Archeology at the Theological Faculty of Trier. His many works include Apology in Early Christianity, Theology of the Church Fathers, Handbook of Patristics, and Ecclesia militans.

Angelico Press Launches New Series “Catholic Traditionalist Classics” with Houghton’s Mitre and Crook

Fr Bryan Houghton (1911-1992)

It is with great joy that I share an important development in the world of publishing: the launch of a new series by Angelico Press, Catholic Traditionalist Classics, that will bring back into print — for the benefit especially of younger readers born after the apocalypse — many fine works from the early years of the traditional movement, and until now difficult or impossible to acquire. The series is inaugurated, appropriately enough, with a towering classic: Fr. Bryan Houghton’s deliciously witty novel Mitre and Crook of 1979.

When the publisher asked me for an endorsement, I wrote (without any back-cover hyperbole) that I had read Mitre and Crook on a lark years ago and instantly fell in love. Bryan Houghton was the Robert Hugh Benson of the postconciliar crisis. He brilliantly portrays a bishop, Edmund Forester, who with equal parts cleverness and courage orchestrates a complete restoration of Catholic tradition in his backwater diocese. The novel is written in the form of letters from Bishop Forester to his presbyterate and to various allies and enemies, local and abroad; the epistolary narration is suspenseful and gripping. Along the way we are treated to a scorching portrait of the souls of reformists, unbelievably narrow in mind and oblivious to spiritual realities.

Although Houghton’s book appeared exactly 40 years ago, his characters read as if we met them yesterday, or will meet them tomorrow, now that the Church has entered into a second winter under a second Paul VI, with who knows who or what will follow next. Indeed, at one point Bishop Forester writes:

You ask me what I think will be the future of the Church. My dear Father, I have not a clue. I am not a defeatist because I believe in God. On the other hand I am a great believer in failure because it gives Divine Providence a chance. It is because in this year of grace the Church has the appearance and odour of a dung-heap that God will use it to manure the most exquisite flowers, fragrant with the odour of sanctity.

If you have not read this exceptionally creative and insightful work, I encourage you to do so. You will find it a moving tale, exhilarating in its denouement, and breathtakingly relevant. It will take you to a new level in your appreciation of Catholic tradition — as a classic is supposed to do.

This book would make an outstanding Christmas gift, especially for priests, whether already fully on board or moving in the right direction, and — dare one say? — for bishops, too. It’s about time that one of them, in flesh and blood, took this novel’s protagonist as a template.

Some quotations to whet the appetite . . .

The very volume of changes in the Church since Vatican II is sufficient to guarantee that most of them are for the worse. It is inconceivable that over the past two thousand years the Church has manifested and expressed the Faith so badly that any and every change must be for the better. If that were so, she would lose all credibility. What is conceivable, on the other band, is that some of the changes may have been for the better and some not. But this possibility is one which we are not allowed even to discuss. To do so is disloyal, divisive and conducive to schism. Every change is for the better; there has not been the least error, the slightest slip.

Now, in the revolution through which the Church is passing there is a victim which has suffered even more than the Mass. It is Confession, the Sacrament of Penance. The revolution claims to be a “renewal.” From the dawn of history there have been renewals and revivals. All have had the same message in a thousand forms: “Repent and do penance! God may yet relent and forgive.” The present renewal is unique: instead of repentance, permissiveness is preached, the Sacrament of Penance is neglected, and the confessionals abandoned.

How can anyone dare stamp on other people’s sentiments? Who has given them permission? “The hankering after the Old Mass is pure sentimentality.” Of course it is, and that is precisely why it is sacrosanct.

More harm is done by charity at the expense of others than by direct injustice. Even in civil life, a miscarriage of justice is less harmful to society than charity to hardened criminals.

I might be prepared to look at a new Mass form if it magnified God still more and exalted Him still higher; if it lowered man still further in the imagination of his heart; if the mysteries appeared more wondrous and the doctrines more luminous; if the language was more noble and the images grander. But look what we have been given: the exaltation of man and the humiliation of God; the evacuation of mystery, and ambiguity in doctrine; the flattest of images in pidgin vernacular.

It is clear enough that one of the reasons for the sharp rise in the number of communicants is the abolition of the Eucharistic fast. There is now no barrier other than sin to receiving Our Lord. Hence there is automatic social pressure in favour of receiving. The person who does not either lacks piety or is in a state of sin. No such presumption was possible when there was the barrier of fasting: those who did not receive had merely broken their fast and those who received had prepared themselves by keeping it. In fact the abolition of the Eucharistic fast, especially for children and youths, can be the cause of exerting unbearable pressure in favor of sacrilegious Communions.

You wish to exonerate the Pope and put the blame partly on his entourage but principally on the bishops. This position seemed perfectly tenable during and immediately after the Council; let us say, for the first five years of his reign, until 1968. But it is quite untenable now. No Pope in history has gone to such lengths to ensure an entourage and episcopate of his own choosing as Paul VI. The Cardinals lose the power to vote at the age of eighty so that only those of his own making will be able to vote for his successor. Bishops are made to retire at seventy-five so that the overwhelming majority of the episcopate is of his own appointment. Everything is his own, from the Mass he says to the bishops who say it. Incidentally, never in the history of the Church has the appointment of bishops been so absolutely dependent upon Rome. Of old, Concordats or custom allowed some interference from the State so that the Vatican was not always to blame. Today, it is only in Communist countries that interference is permitted. The result has been the appointment of eminently worthy bureaucrats unsuited to command. Hence the lack of independence among the bishops. There is not the personnel to offer opposition. Actually, my dear Father, if in the administration you try to divide the head from the members, it is the members which you will exonerate. I am more charitable to Paul VI than you.

The New religion is living off the capital of the Old. It has not had to provide churches, schools or institutions of any sort—and practically no priests. All was found. Even the cost of destroying the Old has been paid for out of the capital it had accumulated. Once this capital is spent, and it has not far to go, the institutional Church in this country will be bankrupt.

Therein lies the tragedy of the New Ordo. Although its theology is ambiguous and its liturgical theory abysmal, those are not what I hold principally against it. The real trouble is that the New Ordo is unprayable. For seven long years I have both celebrated and attended it. It presents itself as a human action, an event, requiring participation; instead of a divine action, The Event of the Sacrifice of God Incarnate, requiring adherence. On the one side you have self-effacement, recollection and adherence, on the other self-expression, self-commitment and participation; these are irreconcilable. And the New Ordo does not merely call for its specific attitudes, it enforces them. You cannot be recollected with a microphone blaring at you in your native tongue which you cannot help but understand. You cannot be self-effacing if you have got to stand up and answer up. You cannot adhere to God if you are busy shaking hands all round.

One can judge the competence of any government by the number of laws it makes. A good one will administer the laws at its disposal with the minimum of fuss and change. A bad one will constantly be legislating and throwing the administration out of gear. This is as true of civil as of ecclesiastical government. England is in chaos because of the mass production of laws. Our monetary inflation is the financial expression of our legislative inflation. It is exactly the same with the Church.

How strange! What you hurl at me as an insult I receive as a compliment: “you are a traditionalist at heart.”…. It is absolutely untrue to say that I am a bundle of sensations. In the first place I am a bundle of traditions. It is by my traditions that I judge the sensations of experience. Without them no sensation would have significance. The traditions form the warp and experience the woof of that wonderful tapestry we call the human person.

A full book description may be found at this page. To order, visit Amazon.com or affiliates.

“In Praise of the Tridentine Mass” : Essays of Fr Spataro from Angelico Press

We are pleased to let our readers know that Angelico Press has just published Fr Roberto Spataro’s collection of essays “In Praise of the Tridentine Mass and of Latin, Language of the Church.”As described on their website, “In this new work, Roberto Spataro shows how Pope Francis’ call for ‘joyful evangelization’ finds a ready answer in an unlikely place: the august forms of the ancient Latin liturgy and the unchanging character of the Latin language. He shows how Latin, with its concise formulae and rigorous precision, has been the medium of Catholic—and indeed Western—intellectual life in the past and retains the power to bring unity and coherence to Catholicism in the future. With colorful images and copious examples, Spataro argues that the Latin Mass and its handmaid, the noble Latin language, which have served missionaries in the most varied and dire circumstances, might again be the most effective tools in the Church’s workshop for reevangelizing a fragmented world. In his foreword, Cardinal Burke notes that Latin is the key to an adequate knowledge of Roman Catholic history, liturgy, theology, and canon law. Also included is a detailed introduction by the renowned Latin educator and lexicographer Patrick Owens.”

Fr Spataro is a professor of ancient Greek Christian literature on the faculty of Christian and Classical Literature at the Pontifical Salesian University, and secretary of the Pontificia Academia Latinitatis. He has licentiate and doctoral degrees in dogmatic theology from the same university and has published in the fields of Patristics (especially Origen), Mariology, and Latin history, linguistics, pedagogy, and liturgy.

The translator of this collection is also one of NLM’s frequent guest contributors, Mr Zachary Thomas, who earlier this year shared two of the essays in this collection with us, “The Vetus Ordo Missae for a ‘Church Going Forth’” and “Liturgical Beauty and Joyful Evangelization.”

Review of Yves Chiron’s Biography of Abp Bugnini on CWR

This past Sunday, Catholic World Report published a very good review by Conor Dugan of Yves Chiron’s biography of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, recently published by Angelico Press. The review offers a broad summary of the whole book, as well as an assessment of the liturgical reform in the light of what Chiron tells about the process by which it was created; this section is particularly valuable.

“Chiron’s book provides a helpful vehicle by which to assess, at least partially, Bugnini and his efforts at liturgical reform. If one were to base this assessment simply on output and results, Archbishop Bugnini must be judged a resounding success. ... The reforms directed and overseen by Bugnini have become deeply embedded in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.

And, yet, reading this wonderful book in light of the 50 years since the Novus Ordo’s implementation, Bugnini’s legacy is decidedly more mixed, even negative. Bugnini and the other members and consultors who manned the Consilium were undoubtedly experts in the practice and history of the liturgy. Their legacy, however, raises the very important question whether they were, as Paul VI famously described the Church, ‘expert[s] on humanity.’

The buzzwords of their articles, talks, and titles of their books betray their biases and presuppositions and suggest that they were not experts on humanity. For instance, Dom Botte’s book describing his inside view of the liturgical reform is titled From Silence to Participation. Bugnini described the transformation of the “inert and mute assembly” into true participants. Such descriptions are a common theme. The liturgical reformers failed to see how silence could be a form of participation, indeed perhaps a deeper participation than the recitation of banal translations.

The reformers also seemed unable to credit ordinary lay people with the ability to learn and penetrate the mysteries of the Mass as it was already being celebrated. If these people could not “understand” the words, they could not truly worship. Bugnini had to paraphrase the Mass to make it “accessible.” This both assumes that one can really comprehend phrases such as, “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body,” and obscures the manner in which mystery and comprehension coincide and overlap. As we begin to grow in knowledge, we realize that God’s mystery is even greater than we ever imagined.

The reformers’ zeal for relevance and for a liturgy fit for contemporary man was and is a fool’s errand. As soon as one “updates” a liturgy, it is suddenly out-of-date. The new new man succeeds the new man. And so on and so forth. ... ”

As a reminder, Matthew Hazell, who specializes in the study of the liturgical reform, published his own review of it here in December.

Book Review: Yves Chiron, Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy

Yves Chiron, Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018. $26.00/£21.00 cloth (ISBN 978-1-62138-412-0), $17.95/£14.50 paper (ISBN 978-1-62138-411-3). 214 pp. (Amazon USA, UK)

For readers of New Liturgical Movement who, like me, had previously heard that an English translation of this very important book was in the works, the wait is finally over. What are you waiting for? Go get a copy and read it!

For everyone else, I hope that the following review spurs you to obtain a copy of Yves Chiron’s Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy. It is a vital contribution to liturgical studies, and one of the best introductions to the history of the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms I have read.

It may surprise some people to learn that, aside from his own autobiographical works, at the time of writing, this is the only full-length biography of Annibale Bugnini to have ever been published. [1] This timely work of Yves Chiron, which extensively utilises many sources not well-known by most people, therefore fills a large gap in the history of the Church in the 20th century. 

In Chapter 1, Chiron gives a brief insight into Bugnini’s childhood, then his life as a young priest who was gradually drawn into the liturgical movement of the 1940s. Chiron notes the beginnings of Bugnini’s liturgical experimentation, quite radical for the time, and quotes Bugnini’s own recollections of assisting the priests in charge of a Roman suburban neighbourhood around the year 1943:

I suddenly wondered: how could I have this people, with their elementary religious instruction, participate in the Mass? Above all, how could I make the children participate? I started out by painting big signboards with the easier responses for the people to say in Latin… Then I did the same with signposts in Italian… I knew that I had found the formula: the people willingly followed the Mass. The “inert and mute” assembly had been transformed into a living and prayerful assembly. (p. 25)

Chapters 2 and 3 detail encounters that Bugnini had with some of those who he would later collaborate with in the work of liturgical reform, such as Dom Bernard Capelle, O.S.B., Dom Bernard Botte, O.S.B., and Fr Aimé-Georges Martimort, as well as his meetings with organisations such as the French CPL (Centre de pastorale liturgique) and the Italian CAL (Centro di Azione Liturgica). His role in the liturgical reforms of Pope Pius XII, as secretary of the Commissio Piana, is also briefly examined. Chiron proceeds to demonstrate that:

whereas he [Bugnini] played a decisive role in the preparatory commission and in the Consilium, he did not have a leading role on the Commissio Piana. He was an invaluable worker and rarely intervened in the discussions. He learned and observed much, probably became aware of certain problems, but never exerted a decisive influence. (p. 41)

In chapters 4, 5 and 6, Chiron looks at some of Bugnini’s initiatives as editor of the journal Ephemerides Liturgicae, his involvement in the various liturgical congresses of the 1950s, and his work as secretary of the Preparatory Liturgical Commission for Vatican II. All of this practical and administrative experience crystallises in the preparation for the Council, in what Chiron terms “the Bugnini method”:

On the one hand, it [the method] consists in having groups of experts work separately on restricted subjects and having the members vote during very few plenary meetings (the Committee had only three…) On the other hand, it also consists in refraining at the outset from excessively bold proposals [for liturgical reform] that might be rejected at the Council and putting certain questions and reforms off until later… Remittatur quaestio post Concilium (“Let the question be postponed until after the Council”) is a recurring note during the preparation of the preconciliar commission. (p. 81)

Bugnini’s “first exile” during the Council itself, where, contrary to his own expectations, he was not made secretary of the Conciliar Commission on the Liturgy, and also withdrawn from his position teaching ‘pastoral liturgy’ at the Pontifical Lateran University, is covered as well.

In chapter 7, Chiron goes into some detail about Bugnini’s “rehabilitation” by Pope Paul VI, and his role as secretary of the Consilium. The chapter covers the period from 1964 to 1967 in some detail, making clear that, along with his almost daily access to the Pope, Bugnini “embodied a perfect mix of know-how and communication skills” (p. 109), which was the driving force behind the breakneck speed the Consilium worked at.

Chapters 8 and 9 are given over to the reform of the Mass (chapter 8) and some of the other liturgical reforms such as the Divine Office and liturgical music (chapter 9), ending with Bugnini being consecrated titular Archbishop of Diocletiana, and at the height of his influence. 

In chapters 10 and 11, Chiron briefly details Archbishop Bugnini’s “fall from grace” and his assignment as Apostolic Nuncio in Iran. Chiron does deal with the rumours of Bugnini’s involvement in Freemasonry, but comes to the conclusion that this accusation

was not the determining factor in Archbishop Bugnini’s dismissal… there was opposition from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, from the International Theological Commission, and from the Secretariat of State… There is also the fact that Paul VI progressively withdrew his trust from Archbishop Bugnini, as Fr [Pierre-Marie] Gy, who knew both men quite well, pointed out no less than thirty years ago. (p. 174)

Chiron also relates a very interesting detail from Bugnini’s time in Iran, regarding the Society of Saint Pius X and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. In 1976, Bugnini personally suggested that, under certain conditions, the celebration of the traditional Mass might once more be authorised by the Pope (pp. 178-180). In our times, the issue of whether or not the traditional Mass had ever been abrogated has, of course, been definitively settled. Still, it is worth taking note of this surprising intervention from a man whose own, clearly complex motivations regarding the liturgical reform he organised have often been over-simplified by both his critics and his supporters.

Finally, both a bibliography and index, always very handy things in any book, are provided. 

Weighing in at around 200 pages, this biography is a veritable tour de force of one of the most controversial figures in the 20th century Catholic Church. As Archbishop Bugnini’s personal papers are evidently still being kept under lock and key by Fr Gottardo Pasqualetti [2], Chiron’s book is not a complete history, but it makes for an excellent starting point for those who are after an objective and fair treatment of one of the key figures in the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms. I should also point out that, as Bugnini’s own memoirs remain only in Italian, and the English translation of his La riforma liturgica remains out of print [3], Chiron’s book is one of the very few English-language works devoted to Bugnini. Many thanks are due to the translator, Dr John Pepino, and Angelico Press for their sterling work in making this wonderful book much more accessible to the English-speaking world.

In conclusion, I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy to not only liturgists and historians, but everyone who is even remotely interested in the Catholic liturgy. Yves Chiron's important contribution to liturgical studies would certainly make a suitable Christmas or Epiphany gift for your parish Priest, or your friends and family—or if you just wanted to treat yourself!

NOTES

[1] Though in 2012, on the 30th anniversary of his death, Bugnini's autobiographical memoirs were published as “Liturgiae Cultor et Amator, Servì la Chiesa.” Memorie Autobiografiche (Rome: Edizioni Liturgiche, 2012). As Chiron points out in his preface (p. 10), however, this manuscript, completed in 1977, was clearly written in self-defence, and cannot be relied upon in isolation.

[2] As noted in Dom Alcuin Reid’s Foreword to Chiron’s book (p. 5). Fr Pasqualetti became one of Bugnini’s closest collaborators, along with Fr Carlo Braga, during the early phases of the Consilium ad exsequendam.

[3] Namely The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), a book that commands pretty high prices on the secondhand book market. I live in hope (but not expectation!) that Liturgical Press will eventually bring this book back into print, with the additions made in the Italian 2nd edition.