Bishop Peter Elliott, RIP

Yesterday, Bishop Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Emeritus of Melbourne, Australia, passed away at the age of 81. His Excellency was a strong supporter of the traditional liturgy, and wrote a well-regarded manual for the new rite, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite; his scholarly work covered a great many other topics as well, on Church history, marriage and family, and religious education. He was also very much involved with the establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate in Australia.

Bishop Elliott was born in 1943, the oldest son of an Anglican priest, and converted to Catholicism while studying at Oxford University in the 1960s. He was ordained to the priesthood for the archdiocese of Melbourne in 1973, and after serving there for several years, did a doctorate at the Lateran University in Rome, specializing in the theology of marriage. He then served as a representative of the Holy See at various international conferences, including the United Nations population conferences in Cairo and Beijing; he was also a consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship. In 2007, he was made an auxiliary bishop of his native diocese by Pope Benedict XVI, and retiring from that position in 2018.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bishop Elliott in 2016, when I was invited to speak for the first time at the Fota Liturgical Conference in Cork, Ireland, an event which His Excellency attended several times. When I asked a question after his talk, the first of the day, he was so kind as to say, “Congratulations to NLM - whenever we’re feeling a bit down, we know we can always take a look at NLM and find something to feel good about.”

Deus, qui inter Apostolicos sacerdotes famulum tuum Petrum pontificali fecisti dignitate vigere: praesta quaesumus; ut eorum quoque perpetuo aggregetur consortio. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen.

God, who didst raise Thy servant Peter to the dignity of bishop in the apostolic priesthood, grant, we beseech Thee, that he may be joined to the everlasting fellowship of the Apostles. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Template for A Liturgically-Oriented General Catholic Education for Children

Book review: Educating in Christ: A Practical Handbook for Developing the Catholic Faith from Childhood to Adolescence For Parents, Teachers, Catechists and School Administrators, by Gerard O’Shea

This wonderful book, available from Angelico press, describes the principles for teaching methods and curriculum design for young children up to adolescence.

The author is Professor of Religious Education at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, Australia, and the recommendations of the back cover, which I reproduce below, include two from fellow Australians who will be known to NLM readers: Bishop Peter Elliot, and Tracey Rowland.

What delighted me particularly is that Prof. O’Shea is offering something that is deeper and more profound that the usual recommendation of a classical-curriculum, Great-Books or liberal-arts education. For all the nobility of what is taught and read, these can still represent what is essentially a secular education.

In this book, he describes the basis of a uniquely Catholic approach to education that seeks to take students beyond the simple absorption of the material taught in the classrom, and lead them to a supernatural transformation in Christ. As such, and unusually, it is true to what the Church is asking for from our educators. Take for example, St Pius X in Divini Illius Magistri, who tells us that the goal of a Catholic education is the formation of “the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ.”

We are given precise details and concrete measures that are easily followed. Balancing the natural and the supernatural, the theoretical and the practical, and combining the best of traditional methods with modern educational theory and psychology (with great prudence), O’Shea describes how a mystagogical catechesis, rooted in the study of scripture and the actual worship of God, is at the heart of every Catholic education. Then he describes how teaching methods and curricula should reflect these principles for children of different ages.

Another reason for my particular interest in this book is that it provides a basis for the incorporation of the Way of Beauty into education at levels below tertiary education (which is the focus of my book The Way of Beauty). From time to time, parents do ask me about this; now I know where to send them. O’Shea’s focus is more on general education than mine, but he provides a broad educational framework that will nurture the pursuit of creative arts in the way I think ought to be done, because it is based upon the same philosophy of education.

Below you will find the summary of the book from the publisher, and recommendations from the back cover:

EDUCATING IN CHRIST covers the essential practical and theoretical elements of religious education and catechetics for parents, catechists, teachers, and Catholic school administrators. The first part of the book responds to contemporary calls from the Popes for a religious education based upon authentic Christian anthropology. It provides a comprehensive outline of religious developmental stages, indicating activities appropriate for each of these from age three years to adolescence. It also takes into account the call of recent Church documents to approach this task from a “mystagogical” angle, linking the sacraments with the scriptures. In the second part, the best of contemporary teaching practices are linked with sound Montessori principles and the Catholic understanding of a pedagogy of God. Busy Catholic school administrators will find the provided summary of Catholic teaching on education since Vatican II a very useful reference tool. Teachers and home-schooling parents will find the sections on classroom methods, and the curriculum outline based on the liturgical year, especially helpful.

“In anxious times, this practical book is good news for parents, teachers, and catechists who introduce Catholic faith and morals to children and young people. The author offers a way forward that is Trinitarian, Christ-centered, and yet fully attentive to the needs of the child.”
— MOST REV. PETER J. ELLIOTT, Auxiliary Bishop, Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

“If you regard the objective of religious education as the formation of a Catholic heart, memory, intellect, and imagination, then you will consider Educating in Christ an indispensable text. Drawing on ideas from Maria Montessori and Sofia Cavalletti, it explains how to hand on the faith at different stages of a child’s development. Every Catholic teacher should read and apply it.”
— TRACEY ROWLAND, University of Notre Dame, Australia

“Rooted in the Church’s sacramental traditions, informed by classical virtue theory, and drawing upon the best of modern developmental psychology, Gerard O’Shea’s work is a gem. I heartily recommend this practical, credible, orthodox, organized, and hopeful guide to educating our children in the faith.”
— RYAN N. S. TOPPING, Newman Theological College, Edmonton

“This masterful work is a much needed addition to the literature of Catholic religious education. It offers an integrated vision, bringing together anthropology, curriculum guidance, questions of school ethos and teacher formation, analyses of research findings in children’s learning—all grounded in a coherent and persuasive account of the aims and nature of Catholic education.”
— PETROC WILLEY, Franciscan University of Steubenville

“Educating in Christ has come out of the substantial educational and research experience of the author. It offers guidance to parents and teachers on all of the significant areas of religious education: Scripture, Sacraments, moral formation, doctrine, and prayer.”
— KEVIN WATSON, Acting Dean of Education, Sydney, University of Notre Dame, Australia

“Gerard O’Shea’s new book is an insightful and eminently useful guide for Catholic school teachers, catechists, and home-schooling parents. It provides not only insights into child development and its relationship to religious instruction, but offers practical, easy-to-follow lessons and applications for the teacher—a wonderful contribution to Catholic education.”
— MICHAEL MARTIN, author of The Incarnation of the Poetic Word

“Gerard O’Shea has written an extraordinary book that will serve catechists well in these challenging times. In language both insightful and accessible, Educating in Christ engages the question of how today’s religious education can lead people into communion with God. O’Shea answers by bringing the movement towards God in religious education into harmony with a reverence for the capacities and potentialities of those we teach.”
— JAMES PAULEY, Franciscan University of Steubenville

You can order the book here.

Bishop Elliott on the Recent PCED Clarification

Our thanks to Bishop Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia, for these observations on the different forms of Pontifical Mass. His Excellency is of course well-known to our readers for his many writings on liturgical matters, and his books The Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite and Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year.

But Were There Exceptions to the Rule?

A comment on the clarification of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei

The clarification of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei is to be welcomed, so as to ensure that the distinctions between the three forms of a Pontifical Mass are maintained in the Extraordinary Form. (editor’s note: the solemn high Pontifical, the Missa praelatia, and the Mass in the Presence of a bishop.) But let us not imagine it has always been as simple as that. In mission territories, which came under the Sacred Congregation Propaganda Fidei, I wonder what privileges and modifications were available to bishops in celebrating Mass in their own territory. Some research would be welcome. Until 1978 my own country, Australia, came under Propaganda Fidei and was deemed to be a “mission territory”. One thus has some historical intimations of a certain flexibility.

In 19th-century rural Australia, newspaper reports of the blessing and opening of new churches describe the bishop celebrating a “High Mass”, with an assistant priest, deacon and subdeacon, local clergy who are always named. There is no mention of deacons of honour. Unless this was Solemn Pontifical Mass at the faldstool, these reports suggest that Ordinaries celebrated a modified form of Solemn Mass at the Throne.

As was normal in 19th-century colonial society, the music was of a high standard, Masses by Haydn, etc. with a local orchestra or band, and often soloists were imported from the bigger cities. The music was an ecumenical effort, as was the collection taken up to build the new church, that is, up to the later years of the century, when rising Irish nationalism smothered nascent ecumenism.

In 19th-century Melbourne, when our immense Gothic cathedral of St Patrick rose on the Eastern Hill, Pontifical Mass at the Faldstool was favoured for major events, with Bishop Corbett of Sale as celebrant, and the Metropolitan and other Ordinaries assisting in choir. Bishop Corbett had a legendary voice; the other prelates admitted that they were not good singers, nor could they project the voice as well as he could, in an era before microphones.

Photographic evidence is also interesting. When Bishop Phelan of Sale consecrated his modest cathedral in 1915, he celebrated Mass with a deacon and subdeacon, who had no doubt acted as the assisting deacons during the long and complex rites that preceded the Mass. He did not wear dalmatic and tunicle, but they are fully vested. The Metropolitan was represented by the then-Coadjutor Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Daniel Mannix, in choir dress. Was this a Pontifical Mass in a modified form?

However, before the several interesting reforms of the rites for the dedication of church, the long ceremonies were very tiring for aging prelates, also expected to fast for the occasion. Therefore, the Mass at the Consecration of a church was often only a Pontifical Low Mass, as happened when Auxiliary Bishop Jerome Sebastian of Baltimore consecrated the new cathedral of Mary Our Queen on October 13th, 1959.

Returning to Australia, in 1966 a later Bishop of Sale, Dr Patrick Lyons, celebrated the centenary Mass of the Sisters of St Joseph, founded by St Mary of the Cross McKillop. Here, during the post-conciliar transition, we see the first blurring of the three pontifical forms of Mass. The deacons of honour are replaced by a deacon and subdeacon at the throne, with the assistant priest in cope making perhaps his final appearance. Bishop Lyons was punctilious and traditional.

After Vatican II, a major factor that broke down the classical distinction was the arrival of ritual Masses for the Sacraments, in particular, Confirmation. I celebrate these Masses every week in the Winter-Spring Confirmation season in Melbourne (May to November). The variations in the Ordinary Form are wide, ranging from a solemn form with fine music to a minimalist affair with no servers and the parish priest juggling with my chrismatory and crozier. The music at these latter events is best forgotten.

It should also be remembered that Mass for the Ordination to the Priesthood before Vatican II was often a Pontifical Low Mass. The ordaining prelate was bound to wear pontifical vestments; he used the crozier and two miters, and, in accord with the rubrics, he was assisted by two chaplains in surplice. The common and proper were sung, apparently even before the wider provision granted in 1958 for singing at Low Mass. It was thus a much more modest liturgy than our post-conciliar ordinations with hordes of concelebrants, wandering deacons and tumbling MCs.

But those two chaplains in the old rite had a specific role. They strictly supervised the word and action of the bishop to ensure validity and liceity. One famed bishop had a penchant for reaching out and turning two pages of the Pontificale at once. Now that could be a problem, particularly before Pope Pius XII defined the matter and form in 1947. Two beady-eyed Redemptorists kept him under control.

Our post-conciliar episcopal ordinations should be easier, with matter and form clearly indicated in the rite, thanks to Dom Botte. However, recently I watched an elaborate episcopal ordination in Italy. As far as I could see, the chief consecrator alone said the form, and, although they had laid hands on the candidate, the twenty aging co-consecrators seemed unaware that they were also meant to articulate the form! But not long ago during a rather prominent episcopal ordination in the US, the ancient practice of deacons imposing the Book of the Gospels just did not happen. An MC forgot? Not good. Bring back those strict chaplains.

Pontifical Vespers and Confirmations at the Fota Conference

The annual Fota Liturgical Conference in Cork, Ireland, is not only an important scholarly gathering, but includes a number of ceremonies celebrated at the highest level of our Catholic liturgical tradition. This year, on Saturday, July 9th, the conference’s keynote speaker, Cardinal Raymond Burke, was the celebrant of Pontifical Vespers for the eve of the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, after which he confirmed several young parishioners of the hosting church of Ss Peter and Paul. The wonderful Lassus Scholars, conducted by Dr Ite O’Donovan, sang the Gregorian chants for Saturday Vespers, and the Magnificat Septimi Toni of their patron musician, Orlando di Lassus. (Listen here on a previous post.) Our thanks to Mr John Briody for sharing these photos with us; the full set may be seen on his flickr account, along with those of a good many other liturgical events.

His Excellency Peter Elliot, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, Australia, who also spoke at the conference, and Mons. James O’Brien, one of the principal organizers, attend in choir.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Personal Note of Thanks

I recently attended the ninth edition of the Fota International Liturgical Conference in Cork, Ireland, which is organized each year by the St Colman’s Society for Catholic Liturgy. The theme of the conference this year was Liturgy and Scripture, and the paper I delivered was about the relationship between the Ambrosian Rite (which our regular readers know is one of my favorite topics) and the post-Conciliar reform of the Roman lectionary. I will post a full account of the conference soon; suffice it to say here that all of the papers were very interesting, and I was quite sorry to be unable to stay for the final day.

While I was at the conference, many people were kind enough to express to me their appreciation of what we do here NLM, and on behalf of our publisher, Dr William Mahrt (who also gave a paper at the conference), and all of our writers, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their very kind words of praise and support; in particular, His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Burke, His Excellency Bishop Peter Elliot, and Monsignor James O’Brien, who invited me as a speaker.

The music for the liturgical events was provided by the marvelous Lassus Scholars, directed by Dr Ita O’Donovan, who excel in both chant and polyphony; on Saturday, July 8, Cardinal Burke celebrated Pontifical Vespers, and the next day, Pontifical Mass. Enjoy these excellent performances of the first Psalm of Saturday Vespers (the first part of Psalm 143), the Magnificat Septimi Toni by Orlando di Lassus, and the Kyrie and Gloria from Palestrina’s Missa Papee Marcelli.

Book Review: The Sacred Liturgy, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church

The Sacred Liturgy, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church. The Proceedings of the International Conference on the Sacred Liturgy – Sacra Liturgia 2013. Ed. Alcuin Reid. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014. 446 pp.

Have you ever wished you could bring together a dream team of scholars, pastors, monks, liturgists, musicologists, all of them completely orthodox and totally committed to the sacred liturgy, and then have them commit to writing their finest insights, born of careful study, deep reflection, and pastoral experience? When I attended the Sacra Liturgia conference last summer in Rome (June 25–28, 2013), I found to my immense joy and profit that that was exactly what had been done by the conference’s organizers. The results are now in print for all the world to see, in the form of the complete proceedings of the conference, just published by Ignatius Press.

Publishers are aware that conference proceedings, like the genre of collected essays, are usually hard sells because readers tend to think: “Oh, this is just a random collection, and who can say whether the quality will be high across the board.” Fortunately, in this instance, we have a winner from cover to cover. I recently told a friend in charge of a library that this book is the most comprehensive, eloquent, insightful, hard-hitting, and refreshing volume on the liturgy that I have seen in the past ten years. It is a sheer pleasure to read most of the contents, and profitable to read all of it. The contributors are both clerical and lay, hailing from several continents, bringing their different cultural backgrounds, experiences, and professional expertise to bear on the most pressing (one is sometimes tempted to say intractable) questions of the liturgy in the Church today. These questions include sacred music, church architecture and furnishing, the ars celebrandi, the relationship of the old rite and the new evangelization, weaknesses or errors in the liturgical reform, liturgical formation and catechesis, the role and responsibility of the bishop, the meaning of “pastoral,” the Anglican contribution, the relationship between liturgy and social doctrine, and the canonical structure supporting liturgy.

It would be far too easy to turn this review into a lengthy summary of all the contents, which will be hardly necessary if, trusting my judgment, you get this book and read it yourself. But I cannot refrain from drawing attention to a few addresses that seemed to me particularly luminous and rousing when I heard them in Rome and that strike me as equally magnificent now that I am renewing my acquaintance with them in print.

Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith’s magisterial opening address, “The Sacred Liturgy, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church” (pp. 19–39) has the virtue of covering just about everything in a cosmic sweep that ranges from creation through Israel and the covenants to the Paschal Mystery of Christ, touching along the way such hot topics as the style of celebration, the use of Latin, the betrayal of the Fathers of the Council, and active participation.

Gabriel Steinschulte’s “Liturgical Music and the New Evangelization” (pp. 41–67) is an entertaining, perceptive, wide-ranging analysis of what has happened to church music and why, and the reasons behind the traditional stance of the Church on chant and polyphony. He sounds a theme that is taken up by several contributors, namely, how the new evangelization relies entirely on a sound, beautiful celebration of the sacred mysteries.

Bishop Peter J. Elliott, famed author of Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, offers a reflection (pp. 69–85) on the principles of the ars celebrandi as applied to both the old and new forms of the Roman Rite, valuable reading for every celebrant and master of ceremonies. For those keen on liturgical arts, especially the design and arrangement of sacred buildings, the exquisite pieces by Fr. Stefan Heid and Fr. Uwe Michael Lang (pp. 87–114 and 187–211) provide ample nourishment. (My sole criticism of this book is the lack of the diagrams and photos that Fr. Heid and Fr. Lang shared with the conference in Rome to illustrate their arguments. But I do understand that adding a section of illustrations to this volume would have increased its bulk and price, and I also know that one can quickly find images on Google of most, if not all, of the things referred to by the authors; and fortunately, their arguments and descriptions are easy to follow.)

Tracey Rowland’s tour de force of theological anthropology, “The Usus Antiquior and the New Evangelization” (pp. 115–37) is required reading both for those who already know that the traditional Latin Mass is crucial to the Church’s mission in the contemporary world (these will gobble it up) and for those who suspect and worry that it might be so (these will come to a sobering realization and then start making plans for learning how to celebrate the EF). Here is a sample of Rowland’s vigorous style:

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Aidan Nichols and other lesser names have argued that the liturgy exists to worship God and that if we promote it for any other reason we are promoting sub-theological ideologies. The most common of these are liturgy as group therapy and liturgy as community building. Nonetheless, it is possible to hold that while the sole purpose of liturgy is worship, there are obvious spiritual and educational side effects and it is in this context that the usus antiquior can play an important role in the New Evangelisation. Specifically, the usus antiquior may be an antidote to the ruthless attacks on memory and tradition and high culture, typical of the culture of modernity, and it may also satisfy the desire of the post-modern generations to be embedded within a coherent, non-fragmented tradition that is open to the transcendent. (p. 117)

Alcuin Reid’s contribution, “Sacrosanctum Concilium and Liturgical Formation” (pp. 213–36) is, as we have all come to expect from him, brilliantly incisive and well-documented, as he demonstrates the central role given by the Council Fathers to a genuine immersion and formation in the “spirit and power of the liturgy” that would govern and control all reform and renewal. Sad to say, such a formation was utterly lacking, which is why the reform went sour and the renewal never happened. Reid urges us to take seriously the Council’s counsel by not neglecting ongoing liturgical formation in our own day, if we would ever surmount the difficulties in which we are mired.

Archbishop Alexander Sample’s “The Bishop: Governor, Promoter, and Guardian of the Liturgical Life of the Diocese” (pp. 255–71) created a stir at the conference for its comprehensiveness and clarity, bringing into one place all the most important conciliar and post-conciliar magisterial teachings on the precise role and responsibility of the bishop over the liturgy in his diocese—what he is obliged to do and what he should not do. His Excellency then makes a point of addressing Summorum Pontificum and its implications for the ministry of the bishop:

I would urge bishops to familiarize themselves with the usus antiquior as a means of achieving their own deeper formation in the liturgy and as a reliable reference point in bringing about renewal and reform of the liturgy in the local Church. Speaking from personal experience, my own study and celebration of the older liturgical rites has had a tremendous effect on my own appreciation of our liturgical tradition and has enhanced my own understanding and celebration of the new rites.
           I would further encourage bishops to be as generous as possible with the faithful who desire and ask for the opportunity to worship in the usus antiquior in their dioceses. Allowing for its natural flourishing will have its own effect on the liturgical life of the whole diocesan Church. It must never be seen as something out of the mainstream of ecclesial life, that is, as something on the fringes. The bishop’s own public celebration of it can prevent this from happening. (p. 270)

Complementary to this talk is Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke’s far-reaching, authoritative, and typically thorough “Liturgical Law in the Mission of the Church” (pp. 389–415), which refutes postconciliar antinomianism, establishes the right of God to receive due worship, and demonstrates how canon law supports this right and duty. It is worth mentioning, as a heartening "sign of the times," that among the 23 contributors to this volume are 4 cardinals, 4 bishops, 2 ordinaries, and 2 abbots. We are, thanks be to God, well past those dark days when the liturgical movement had nearly no hierarchical support or public profile.

For me personally, the talk that hit me in the gut and left me speechless was Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula’s “Sacred Liturgy and the Defense of Human Life” (pp. 371–88). With incomparable candor, detail, and theological acumen, Msgr. Barreiro exposes the relationship between the ravaging of liturgical tradition and the destruction of the family, and how the lack of reverence towards God, especially as present in the mystery of the Mass and the Most Holy Eucharist, has trickled down into contempt for the unborn. His address held no less power for me when I re-read it in the book. An excerpt:

Recently Bishop Athanasius Schneider reminded us that the worst sin that humanity can commit is to refuse to adore God, to refuse to give Him the first place, the place of honor. A man that does not adore God in the liturgy will not value the main gift of God, which is life. A secularized man that considers himself autonomous will be uncomfortable that the tabernacle would be at the center of the Church or that the cross should be at the center of the altar.
          Secularization rejects the right relation of man with God. Secularization denies our dependence from God, so it refutes Him as giver of life and that man by his nature is a being that adores, giving due worship to God. We are all sensitive to the justice that is due to our neighbor, but the precedence should be given to the justice that is due to God. Catholicism has to be understood as a society of men who give to God the right worship and as a consequence they provide service to their fellow men. Service [to the neighbor] should not have priority, instead service should be the consequence of worship. In some ways we can say that service is a continuation that flows from worship. (p. 372)

The contributions from Fr. Nicola Bux, Fr. Andrew Burnham, Fr. Guido Rodheudt, and Fr. Paul Gunter are also noteworthy, but having said that, I want to reiterate that, surprisingly, there is no weak link in this lengthy chain: all 21 papers in this book are worth reading and re-reading carefully. Indeed, I predict that whoever gets this book and dips into it will either start photocopying pages from it for his friends (and perhaps also his enemies), or will buy more copies and give them away as gifts. Our profound gratitude is owed to all the conference speakers who, by means of this superb collection, now share their work with a worldwide audience.

In conclusion, I am willing to say, without the slightest hyperbole, that this book can serve as a kind of charter for the new liturgical movement—and I hope it shall do so.

Clarifications on the Reform of the Reform Controversy

Reading through the comments to my recent post, as well as the welcome contribution of Most Rev. Peter J. Elliott, I have noticed that there may be some confusion concerning the skeptical stance taken by Fr. Kocik, myself, and several others on the Ordinary Form and on the “reform of the reform.” My goal in this short article is to lay out several clarifications that, I hope, will assist everyone in the conversation.

It seems to me that there are two very different meanings of the ROTR. First, it can mean simply celebrating correctly according to the latest edition of the revised liturgical books, following the desiderata of Vatican II (use of Latin as well as vernacular, Gregorian chant and polyphony, appropriate silence, only the right ministers doing what belongs to them, good mystagogical catechesis, etc.), and featuring everything traditional that is permitted in the celebration. Second, it can mean undertaking the step of a reform or revision of those very books, to re-incorporate unwisely discarded elements and to expunge foolishly introduced novelties. For convenience, let us call these ROTR-1 and ROTR-2.

I am completely in favor of ROTR-1, that is, celebrating the Ordinary Form in the most reverent, solemn, beautiful, and sacred manner possible, since that is the way Catholics ought to celebrate Mass in any rite or form. In this sense, I agree with Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s oft-repeated statement “when the tide rises, all the boats rise with it.” As for my bona fides, I have been directing choirs and scholas for Novus Ordo celebrations for over 20 years and am presently in charge of the music both for a weekly traditional Latin High Mass and a weekly sung Novus Ordo Mass with vernacular propers and hymns. On certain weekdays, our schola sings the Gregorian Ordinary and Propers out of the Graduale Romanum at OF celebrations. Our altar servers follow Msgr. Elliott’s Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite—truly a gift to the Church!—with the keen devotion that traditionalists have for Fortescue and O’Connell. So I am personally quite familiar with and supportive of ROTR-1 ideals.

What precisely is the object of controversy, then?

Many Catholics who deeply love the Church have been led by long experience and careful study of the liturgy to the conclusion that the reform carried out by the Consilium and promulgated by Paul VI is not just the unfortunate victim of a wave of abuses but something deeply and inherently flawed in structure and content [Note 1]. It is not in continuity with the Roman liturgical tradition as organically developed and received at the time of the Council. As a result (touching now on ROTR-2), it cannot serve as a suitable platform for the long-term future of the Roman Rite.

The reference to "failure" in the title of my last article refers to the fact that the revised sacramental rites of Paul VI:

1. failed to adhere to fundamental principles and many particular desiderata of Sacrosanctum Concilium (inter alia, SC 23, 28, 36, 54, 112-116);
2. failed to uphold the inherent auctoritas, the morally binding authority, of the liturgical tradition as such, as Fr. Hunwicke has shown[2];
3. failed to reflect the duties and limits of papal authority vis-à-vis the liturgical tradition, as Ratzinger argued[3];
4. failed to respect basic laws of psychology and sociology concerning behavior towards a cultural patrimony, requirements of ritual stability for group identity and harmony, etc.[4]

Now, none of this amounts to saying that the OF “no longer has a place in the life of the Church.” Obviously, it occupies and will continue to occupy a huge place—and may the Lord, in His mercy, grant people everywhere the grace, as long as this form remains the status quo, to implement ROTR-1. Nor does it amount to saying that the OF should be immediately discontinued and replaced by the EF, which is not practicable or advisable at this time.

What it does say, however, is that there are intrinsic and inescapable limits to the scope and success of the ROTR project. Even assuming a happy day when every OF celebration across the globe is reverent, solemn, beautiful, and sacred, in full accord with Vatican II and the post-conciliar Magisterium, there will STILL be a profound discontinuity between what came before the Council and what came after, in the very bones and marrow of the rites themselves, in their texts, rubrics, rationale, spirituality—even, to some extent, their theology.

In a superb series of posts in the past few days, Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, has compellingly argued that even ROTR-1 often ends up being an awkward “falling between two stools” because it respects neither the genius of the Vetus Ordo nor the specific motivations behind the Novus Ordo.[5] I have experienced firsthand exactly what Shaw is talking about and can only say that it makes the task of any kind of ROTR extremely tiring, a constant struggle with the plethora of options[6], the rationalistic assumptions, the minimalism, antinomianism, and horizontalism that define the culture in which the Novus Ordo was received and from which it has acquired long-standing habits difficult to overcome. Shaw concludes that it is much easier and far better simply to begin celebrating the age-old liturgy of the Church: it starts at a healthy place, it is a coherent whole, it is serenely and admirably just what it is and there is no nonsense about it. Whether it needs minor reforms or not, it is not hamstrung from the starting block.

One cannot recover lost continuity by stubbornly insisting on it. The only way it will happen is either if one should start afresh with the Vetus Ordo, which all agree embodies the received Roman liturgical tradition on the eve of the Council, or if one could modify the Novus Ordo in so radical a manner that it might as well have been abolished and replaced with a lightly adapted version of its predecessor. In any case, what we have now is not an evolutionary step towards that future authentic Roman Rite; it is a detour, an evolutionary dead-end. It is like those modernist churches that do not suffer gently the passage of time, that are trapped in their own era and mentality, never able to escape from it. The way forward is not to keep developing the modernist aesthetic but to abandon it resolutely and definitively, embracing and cultivating in its place the noble artistic tradition we have received, which retains tremendous power to speak to us of realities that are timeless and transcendent.

That, to me, was the point of what Fr. Kocik, Dom Mark, Fr. Somerville-Knapman, Fr. Cipolla, Fr. Smith, and others have been saying—not, Deus absit, that it is not worthwhile or even urgent to celebrate the Ordinary Form as well as can be done. Those who celebrate the OF have their work cut out for them, and those who already love and cherish the EF have their own work to do, for all celebrations of the liturgy should be as fitting as can be. Nevertheless, if this analysis is correct, there are systemic problems that the ROTR cannot address; it is good that we should not ignore or dance gingerly around these problems but truthfully and courageously admit them, in order to direct our efforts most of all towards a restoration that will bear the fruits of renewal denied to the Consilium’s reform.

Prompted (it would seem) by the controversy surrounding the ROTR, Dom Mark Kirby offered another and very poignant reflection on the issue, "Home from the Liturgical Thirty Years War." He admits that, after spending decades of labor on the revised rites, working to elevate them as much as he could, he came to realize how much richer and more fruitful the traditional liturgy is—and that his time all along would have been better spent within this welcoming and lovely house. Moving from the cramped urban apartment bloc into the spacious old country home (the family seat, one might call it), may not be an option yet for many Catholics, but we can surely pray, hope, and work for the day when it will be a familiar and beloved house of prayer for every baptized member of the Roman Rite.

NOTES

[1] One need only study Lauren Pristas’s book, The Collects of the Roman Missal, to see what was done to the Collects and why. And this is just the tip of the iceberg; the same thing can be seen with all the prayers for all the sacraments.

[2] One of Fr. Hunwicke's recent posts is simply titled "Auctoritas." However, a search under that word at his blog turns up many helpful (and fascinating) discussions on such topics as the auctoritas of Latin in the liturgy and the auctoritas of having but one Anaphora, the Roman Canon, in the Roman Rite.

[3] Here is how Ratzinger expresses himself in The Spirit of the Liturgy: “After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not ‘manufactured’ by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. . . . The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition. . . . The greatness of the liturgy depends—we shall have to repeat this frequently—on its unspontaneity” (pp. 165-66)

[4] One thinks, for instance, of the work on cultural anthropology of Mary Douglas or Anthony Archer. For a discussion of the latter, see Joseph Shaw, "The Old Mass and the Workers".

[5] I cannot recommend these posts too highly: "The Death of the Reform of the Reform? Part 1"; "Part 2: The Liturgical Movement"; "Part 3: Falling Between Two Stools"; "Part 4: Novus Ordo in Latin?" Shaw provides knock-down arguments against thoroughly vernacularizing the old rite, which has kept floating up in recent days as somehow a good idea.

[6] Just yesterday Dom Mark Kirby gave us an incisive treatment of the problem of what can be called 'optionitis': see "Laws of Degenerative Liturgical Evolution." For my take on the issue, see "Indeterminacy and Optionitis."

POSTSCRIPT

Some readers have pointed out that this whole conversation is, in a way, “behind the times”; have we already forgotten about great contributions made in the past to a fundamental critique of the Novus Ordo? For an exceptionally fine example, see Fr. John Parsons, “Reform of the Reform?,” originally published in Christian Order, November–December 2001. Apart from its magnificent clarity and depth of thought, this article demonstrates that the skepticism about ROTR-2 recently expressed by Fr. Kocik and others has been around for quite some time among those who know their liturgical history and theology. Would that more people took the time to learn for themselves just how the liturgical reform was actually done—the principles by which it acted, the judgments it made—and what that means for the life and health of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.

Bp. Elliott on: Reform of the Reform - Not Impossible

By Bishop Peter J. Elliott, for New Liturgical Movement

I have become uneasy with the words “reform of the reform”. It is hard to find a better expression, “enrichment” perhaps. But now that the concept and project of the reform of the reform is under attack in NLM, let me speak frankly. Permit me to offer counsel to those who announce the total failure of the post-conciliar liturgical reform, claiming that a reform of it is impossible and insisting that the Extraordinary Form is the only answer.

Let us be realistic. If you want the Extraordinary Form to become the Ordinary Form, reflect on the millions of people who come to vernacular Masses in our parishes around the world, in many countries and cultures. Would they easily embrace a Latin Low Mass with a server answering? And let us not forget the priests. This is why some pastoral realism is required. But let me put out a challenge - a reform of the Extraordinary Form would first be required - and I note that this has been suggested in terms of the Vatican Council’s “full, active and conscious participation.”

We know would that reform would look like. We already have it at our fingertips. It would be a Latin dialogue Mass, said or sung ad orientem, with the readings in the vernacular. Then questions arise about some other changes set out in Sacrosanctum Concilium. In the context of the wider Church another issue inevitably emerges: could the Extraordinary Form be said or sung in the vernacular?

Several years ago I was surprised to hear this proposed during dialogue over lunch with Bishop Fellay and Australian priests of the Society of St Pius X. I then began to speculate about pastoral problems among their young people. Unlike our young people who discover the Extraordinary Form and are drawn to its sacred beauty in increasing numbers, the Pius X young people have grown up with it, and yet they are aware of the wider vernacular Church beyond their cocoon.

Some might argue that, in the Anglophone world, the Novus Ordo has been rescued by the better ICEL translations. Mass not only sounds different but the atmosphere in our churches has undergone subtle and positive changes. Of course I do not refer to parishes where the priest still babbles or barks, or to celebrants who play with the liturgy, a few even exhuming the 1998 ICEL texts.

What needs to be discerned is whether this re-sacralising trend will endure and develop, for it is a major achievement of the reform of the reform that can be traced back to Blessed John Paul II (the Vox Clara committee), then developed so well by Benedict XVI in his wider project. This is why I do not want to see the gains of the reform of the reform project, fragile as it often is, broken or derided by triumphalist rhetoric, or pushed aside by an impatience that dismisses the whole Paul VI reform as beyond salvation.

Twenty years ago, while working in the Roman Curia, I began writing Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite. At a Una Voce meeting in Rome, I told the late Mme de Saventhem of my project to present Novus Ordo ceremonial precisely, interpreted according to the continuity with our tradition. With disarming charm the gracious lady exclaimed, “My dear Monsignor, that is an impossible task!”

Well, impossible or not, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite appeared, and was immediately denounced or ignored by the US liturgical establishment. An angry priest from Erie PA even claimed it was out of print. However, gradually the book emerged from concealment in seminarians’ cupboards, and now it may be found on top of their desks, and it is even cited in class by their professors. So those of us who have already worked for elements in a practical reform of the reform can see some progress, slow but steady, and welcomed by the young.

However, the integrity of the two forms needs to be preserved and respected, even as the two are meant to influence each other in these times. My hypothesis about a reform of the Extraordinary Form would also be constrained by that current approach.

Please let us keep this important conversation realistic, patient and moderate. The gift of Summorum Pontificum and Pope Benedict’s vision should not be compromised by loudly proclaiming the total failure of the Paul VI post-conciliar reforms. Sweeping claims and an imprudent triumphalism do no credit to some advocates of the Extraordinary Form. Nor is the Ordinary Form respected or supported by those who grumble about the new ICEL translations and others who draw absurd conclusions from a simpler papal liturgical style.

Polemics also demean and discourage those of us who are still working to enrich the liturgy that is celebrated in most Roman Rite churches around the world. However, to maintain Pope Benedict’s Pax Liturgica, we all need much patience, and often that is hardest virtue on the Christian journey.