Announcing the New Congregation for Monitoring Church Bulletins

As we all know, in recent days and months, the sacred dicasteries have taken some important steps to preserve the legacy of the Second Vatican Council. For explanation of how this is so, you can hardly do better than this article from The Pillar (https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/roches-rules-does-the-new-extraordinary). It elucidates how, in the spirit of collegiality, the CDW has pretended to arrogate to itself all kinds of prerogatives that would normally belong to the local bishop, in fulfillment of Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium; specifically, of its statements that “The pastoral office, or the habitual and daily care of their sheep, is entrusted to [the local bishops] completely, nor are they to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs, for they exercise an authority that is proper to them. ... In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and the duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, to pass judgment on them and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.” (LG 27)

One of the most notable ways in which the new responsa fulfill this is that they take away from the bishops jurisdiction over what may be printed in local church bulletins. (As a wise young priest noted, “At some point we went from ‘We have to modernize the liturgy so that young people will show up.’ to ‘If we don’t publish Latin Mass times, we will keep young people from showing up.’ ”) However, this presents an obvious logistic problem: how to monitor the world’s church bulletins to make sure no one is advertising a Mass that young people want to go to.

In response to this pressing pastoral need, a new Congregation has been swiftly established, the Congregation for the Bulletins of the World. (Congregatio pro Bulletin Mundi. Sadly, Latin standards are still falling; that should really be ‘Bulletinis’ or ‘Bulletinibus’.) As of yet, there is no official website, but that hardly matters. In keeping with Inter Mirifica, Vatican II’s Decree on the Media of Social Communication, all of the new Congregation’s business is being done solely via Twitter. (https://twitter.com/BulletinMundi) And mirabile dictu! we already have some wonderful examples of the efficiency of this new way of exercising the Church’s pastoral charity. Within less than 24 hours from the appearance of the responsa, people were already eagerly delating parishes to the new Congregation for failing to update their bulletins accordingly. So, if you know of any parish that has yet to begin the important work of driving the young faithful away from the Mass, just tweet it out, and include the user-name @BulletinMundi. As noted in the pinned tweet at top, you can also delate people to the authorities for mocking their work. Although this has not yet been formalized, a curial insider informs me that the new Congregation’s official motto will be taken from St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, 5, 14: “the charity of Christ compels us.”

(You may scoff that Inter Mirifica can hardly have supposed any such thing, given that Twitter only came into existence 43 years after it was issued. Woe to thee, o scoffer! It was issued on the very same day as Sacrosanctum Concilium, which certainly did not suppose any such thing as the reform which came after it, so all is well.)

First Roundup of Responses to the CDW’s Responsa Ad Dubia

The long-awaited Responsa are out, serving as a kind of application instruction for Traditionis Custodes, and everything you need to know about them is summed up by one fact to which I would draw the reader’s attention. The cover letter to the Responsa Ad Dubia says:

“It is sad to see how the deepest bond of unity, the sharing in the one Bread broken which is His Body offered so that all may be one (cf. Jhn 17:21), becomes a cause for division. It is the duty of the Bishops, cum Petro et sub Petro, to safeguard communion, which, as the Apostle Paul reminds us (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34), is a necessary condition for being able to participate at the Eucharistic table.”

Isn’t it the height of irony to find 1 Corinthians 11, 17-34 cited in support of this latest assault on Tradition, when verses 27-29 are nowhere to be found in the new lectionary, with its supposedly “richer fare” of Scripture? (They are read multiple times each year in the old rite.)

“Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.”

Yes, in some ways richer fare from the Bible, but also different fare. And that is symbolic of this entire moment of crisis: different rites, with different theologies — an untenable situation finally coming to a head.

Commentary began to appear on Saturday, the day the text from the Congregation for Divine Worship was released to the public (although apparently it was approved a month before; presumably its release was delayed till a week before Christmas in order to guarantee feelings of comfort and joy). The reactions gathered here are not listed in the exact order in which they were published. I have deliberately left out mere news items and cheerleading from the hyperpapalist faction, in which I have not yet found anything of theological substance, just plenty of posturing and bullying. As usual, listing any article here does not imply agreeing with everything that its author says. We would, however, particularly recommend reading Fr. Gerald Murray’s piece.

If I have missed anything you found valuable, or if I have mistaken the dates of any of these pieces, please send me an email using the address in the sidebar.  — PAK

DECEMBER 18 

Eric Sammons, “The Spiritual Abuse Continues” (Crisis Magazine)

Fr. Claude Barthe, “Resisting an unjust liturgical law” (Rorate Caeli)

Gregory DiPippo, “The Last Stand of the Brezhnev Papacy” (New Liturgical Movement)

Peter Kwasniewski, “A Supreme Moment of Decision, Courtesy of ‘Divine Worship’” (OnePeterFive)

Matthew Hazell, “A ‘Revolution of Tenderness,’ or ‘The Roche Christmas Massacre’: A Farce in Eleven Dubia” (Rorate Caeli)

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, “Additional Notes from @FatherZ on the Dubious Dubia concerning ‘Traditionis custodes’”

Press Release from Coalition for Canceled Priests: “Response to Bergoglio’s Christmas Massacre”

Rod Dreher, “Pope Francis, Ever The Iconoclast” (American Conservative) [Since Dreher in this piece quoted a friend who compared me (and by implication traditionalists in general) to Martin Luther, I wrote a refutation, which Dreher subsequently incorporated into his post.]

Brian McCall, “The Second Atomic Bomb Has Exploded: CDW Issues Directives Banning Traditional Confirmations and Ordinations, Decrees the End of Ecclesia Dei Communities” (Catholic Family News)

Michael Matt, “Pope of Mercy Restricts Traditional Sacraments, Bans Traditional Confirmations & Ordinations Without Exception” (The Remnant)

Caminante Wanderer, “Traditional Catholics: Exceptions to ‘Synodality’” (Rorate Caeli)

Phillip Campbell, “Pope Denethor: Reflections on the CDW Responsa” (Unam Sanctam Catholicam) [Incisive commentary on the many absurdities and impossibilities contained in the Responsa, such as its attempt to abrogate liturgical books by reference to a place in TC that says no such thing.]

Fr. John Hunwicke, “Nastier and Nastier”  (Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment) [Close analysis of the text and some of its key provisions—intended to tighten up loopholes in TC.]

Chris Ferrara, “A Schismatic Pope?” (The Remnant)

Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille, "Opinion: Let a thousand rites bloom and flourish!"

Shawn Tribe, Comment at the Facebook Group “Defense of the Immemorial Roman Rite: Traditionis Custodes v. Summorum Pontificum”

Amy Wellborn, “Things that might not make sense” (Charlotte Was Both)

“Vatican answers the dubia on ‘Traditionis custodes’ – Here’s what it means” (The Pillar)

Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Statement on the Dec. 18th Document from the CDW


DECEMBER 19, 2021

Latin Mass Society of England & Wales, “LMS’s initial response to the Responsa ad dubia”

Christopher R. Altieri, “Trying to make some sense of the responsa ad dubia” (Catholic World Report)

“An Eastern Catholic Priest on the Recent Vatican Document” (Rorate Caeli)

Chris Jackson, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”

Fr. Dana Christensen, “Lawlessness, Part II” (A Living Sacrifice)

“How to Write Your Own Dubia” (Eccles is saved)

Rob Marco, “Why Faith Is Like A Marriage, and Why I Hold Out Hope For It” (Pater Familias)

“An Eastern Catholic Priest on the Recent Vatican Document” (Rorate Caeli)


DECEMBER 20, 2021

Fr. Gerald Murray, “The Cruel and Incoherent Further Restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass” (The Catholic Thing) [To my mind, this is the best thing written so far, on the whole]

Kennedy Hall, “Trust Your Catholic Sense” (Crisis Magazine)

Joseph Shaw, “A Small Difficulty with the Responsa” (Rorate Caeli)

Stuart Chessman, “Responses to the Dubia” (The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny) [Excellent!]

Maike Hickson, “‘From Benedict’s Peace to Francis’s War’ will help Catholics fight for the soul of the Church” (LifeSite News)

Ken Wolfe, “Suppression Has Consequences” (Rorate Caeli)

Michael Brendan Dougherty, “The Pope’s Vindictive Campaign against the Latin Mass” (National Review)

Phil Lawler, "Who denies the Novus Ordo is valid? Prepare for a surprise" (Catholic Culture)

Ed Condon, "Roche's Rules: Does the new Extraordinary Form instruction line up with Vatican II?" (The Pillar)

Steve Ray, "Vatican Further Represses the Latin Mass and Sacramental Rites" (Defenders of the Catholic Faith)

Fr. Zuhlsdorf, "Another Note on the Dubious Dubia™ concerning Traditionis custodes" (Fr. Z's Blog)


DECEMBER 21, 2021

Fr. Richard Cipolla, "Dear Archbishop Roche: The Attempt to Cancel Tradition is doomed to failure" (Rorate Caeli)

Sean McClinch, "It’s Time to Occupy the Churches" (OnePeterFive) [Excellent! The spirit we need to have.]

Mythbusting: How Much of the 1962 Missal is Actually Used in the Post-Vatican II Missal?

In a recent article in Notitiae, the new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Archbishop Arthur Roche, made the following claim about the textual relationship between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Missals:

While the Missal retains the basic structure of that of Saint Pius V, together with ninety percent of the texts of that Missal, it removes a number of repetitions and accretions and simplifies the language and the gestures of the liturgy. At the same time, it uses more sacrificial vocabulary than was the case in the 1570 Missal. Opinions to the contrary are false. [1]

I will not deal here with the question of “more sacrificial vocabulary”, as this requires further detailed examination. [2] It is, rather, Archbishop Roche’s claim about the number of prayers from the 1962 Missal used in the post-Vatican II Missal that struck me as odd and, frankly, scarcely believable.

In fairness, the new Prefect is not the only one to make such a claim: no less a figure than Annibale Bugnini wrote that:

The new Missal has eighty-one prefaces and sixteen hundred prayers, or more than twice as many as in the old Missal. Almost all the texts of the old Missal have been used, revised if need be to harmonize them with the reform and the teaching of Vatican II. [3]

This assertion stuck out to me because I have recently finished my project to detail the sources of every postcommunion oration in the 2008 Missale Romanum, [4] and in the course of that work I found that only about a third of those prayers have the older Missale cited as their direct source in the various published lists. It is, however, true that some prayers where the source is given as, e.g., the Gelasianum Vetus or the Leonianum are also contained in the 1962 Missale Romanum. Some centonised prayers, i.e. those that have been composed using parts of two or more pre-existing prayers, also have the older Missal as at least one of their sources. So, to arrive at the most generous and reliable figure possible, some extra work with the source lists and the ever-helpful Corpus orationum [5] was necessary. 

Some of the tools of Coetus XVIII bis (artist's impression)

With regards to what follows:

• “Orations” are defined as Collects, Secrets/Prayers over the Offerings, Postcommunions, Prayers over the People, and other prayers such as the Good Friday intercessions. This definition does not include anything from either Ordo Missae (aside from the twenty-eight optional Prayers over the People tucked away right at the end of the OF ordo), and also does not include any Prefaces.
• The number of unique orations in the OF (1,606) is correct as of July 2021; I have included prayers for those celebrations added to the OF General Roman Calendar since the promulgation of the editio typica tertia emendata (2008).
• I have calculated the number of unique orations in the EF (1,269) principally with the use of Dom Placide Bruylants, Les oraisons du Missel Romain: texte et histoire (Louvain: Centre de Documentation et d’Information Liturgiques, 1952, 2 vols.), adding in those post-1952 orations contained in the 1962 Missal. This figure is thus not quite accurate for the 1962 Missal, as it includes some feasts and Masses abolished in the 1950s, but as some prayers from these were taken up by the post-conciliar reformers it seemed better to include them in the figures.
• The definition of “use” is as broad as possible – for instance, even if the reformers only took a small phrase from an oration found in the 1962 Missal and effectively built a newly-composed prayer around it, I have counted that 1962 oration as “used” in the post-conciliar Missal. [6] 

So, with all this in mind, are we anywhere near close to “ninety percent” or “almost all” of the prayers from the 1962 Missal being used in the post-Vatican II Missal?

No. We are, in fact, some considerable distance from that figure.

Of the 1,269 unique orations in the usus antiquior, I calculate that 613 (48.3%) of them are used in some way in the post-Vatican II Missal. 

This figure obviously starts to shrink if centonised prayers are excluded, or if a more substantial threshold is established for what constitutes the “use” of an oration. Readers who wish to examine the data in more detail can download the table using the following link:

Table of prayers from the 1962 Missale Romanum used in the post-Vatican II Missale Romanum (PDF) 

Put in a slightly different way, and accounting for centonised prayers, 673 (41.9%) out of the 1,606 unique orations in the 2008 Missale Romanum have the older Missal as their source (or one of their sources). 

I should reiterate that these figures make no distinction between orations from the 1962 Missal that remain intact in the post-Vatican II Missal and those that were edited before their inclusion. Of the prayers from the 1962 Missal that were not changed [7] by Coetus XVIII bis, one source puts the figure of intact orations at only 17%. [8] It will take some further work to verify this figure, but at first glance it seems about right to me; the number of orations edited by Coetus XVIII bis is surprisingly high. [9] 

There are a number of seemingly pervasive myths about the reformed liturgy that, although long since shown to be without any basis in fact, still get bandied about from time to time. For instance, I still hear people say that the reformed lectionary allows ‘the whole Bible to be read in three years at Mass’, something that could only be asserted by people who have never really read the Bible. (When do they think we read the entire book of Proverbs or the entire Jewish Law at Mass, for example?) The claim of Bugnini and Archbishop Roche that “almost all” the prayers of the ‘old’ Missal are used in some way in the ‘new’ one would seem to fall into this same category of myth.

As neither of them provide a citation for their respective figures, I have no idea how this myth came to be. I find it greatly disappointing, however, that the new Prefect of the CDWDS did not bother to check what those of us familiar with both forms of the Roman Rite already knew was a dubious and highly-unlikely figure. Myths and myth-making about the liturgical reform will, ultimately, not serve us well.

NOTES

[1] Arthur Roche, “The Roman Missal of Saint Paul VI: A witness to unchanging faith and uninterrupted tradition”, Notitiae 597 (2020), pp. 248-258, at p. 251, my emphasis.

[2] I will here limit myself to the observation that this is not a question that can be answered with an appeal to raw numbers. If, for instance, the older Missal had 100 out of 1,000 prayers that contained “sacrificial vocabulary”, and the equivalent figure for the newer Missal was 120 out of 1,500 prayers, then although 120 is greater than 100 this would actually end up being a smaller proportion of the whole (8% compared to 10%). In any case, the frequency of such vocabulary and where it is contained in the respective Missals is far more important than the raw numbers.

[3] Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 (trans. Matthew J. O’Connell; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), p. 398, my emphasis.

[4] See my book The Post-Communion Prayers in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite: Texts and Sources (Lectionary Study Press, 2020).

[5] E. Moeller, J.M. Clément & B.C. ’t Wallant (eds.), Corpus Orationum (CCSL 160-160M; Brepols, 1992-2020, 15 vols.)

[6] It should be noted that Dom Antoine Dumas, one of the members of Coetus XVIII bis, did the same thing when compiling his list of sources. See “Les sources du nouveau Missal Romain (1)”, Notitiae 60 (1971), pp. 37-42, at p. 37: “Par souci de simplicité et de rapidité, on n’a pas indiqué si la source mentionnée était reproduite intégralement dans le nouveau Missal, ou bien – c’est le cas le plus fréquent – dans quelle mesure elle avait été restaurée ou adaptée. Parfois même, il ne s’agit que d’une source lointaine ou d’une citation implicite utilisée pour une composition nouvelle.”

[7] By which I mean textual changes; it should be remembered that although the text of a given oration may have remained the same, where it is used in the post-Vatican II Missal may have been changed by the Consilium.

[8] Anthony Cekada, Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI (Philothea Press, 2010), p. 244.

[9] This is something evident to anyone who has read Lauren Pristas, The Collects of the Roman Missals: A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons before and after the Second Vatican Council (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013). See also my recent article "The Eastertide Collects in the Post-Vatican II Missal: A Problematic Reform".

Cardinal Robert Sarah Resigns as Head of CDW

The Vatican Bolletino has published notice that Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of His Eminence Robert Cardinal Sarah as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Cardinal Sarah turned 75 last June. We take this opportunity to thank His Eminence for the wise guidance in liturgical matters which he has offered to the Church over the last six years in which he has served in this role, and to encourage our readers to prayer for his continued ministry in the Church.

CDW Issues New Liturgical Texts in Response to the Pandemic

We have just learned that the Congregation for Divine Worship has issued two new liturgical texts in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The first is a votive Mass titled “in the time of pandemic”, newly composed for this purpose. It is accompanied by a decree which permits that it be celebrated daily, except on solemnities, the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Eastertide, Holy Week and the Octave of Easter, Ash Wednesday and All Souls’ Day. (Pray God that it will be long obsolete by then!) The second is a special prayer to be added to the Solemn Prayers of Good Friday. No doubt they will be widely available in a variety of formats very shortly, but in the meantime, here are the new decrees and liturgical texts, first in English, and below in Latin.

UPDATE: The Mass has now been made available in pdf format through the website of the Congregation: http://www.cultodivino.va/content/cultodivino/it/documenti/decreti-generali/decreti-generali/2020/messa-in-tempo-di-pandemia/adnexus.html. (In Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and German.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church: Reflections on a New Memorial

As readers of NLM are no doubt already aware, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments announced last Saturday in a decree dated 11 February that the obligatory memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church will henceforth be celebrated on the Monday after Pentecost in the forma ordinaria. The Latin texts to be inserted into the Missal, Lectionary, Breviary and Martyrology can be found on the website of the CDWDS.

In brief summary:

• The Mass of the memorial is the Votive Mass of Our Lady, Mother of the Church, which can already be found in the editio typica tertia of the Missale Romanum, and thus will be in any vernacular translation of that edition. 


• The readings at the Mass are as follows: Genesis 3, 9-15, 20 or Acts 1,12-14; Psalm 86 (87), 1-2, 3+5, 6-7 (R. v. 3); John 19, 25-34. These differ slightly from those already suggested in the Ordo lectionum Missae (no. 1002) for the Votive Mass mentioned above. The Alleluia verse, O felix Virgo, is taken from the Collectio Missarum de Beata Maria Virgine, no. 26 (B.M.V., imago et mater Ecclesia, II). However, as the Monday after Pentecost is part of tempus per annum in the Ordinary Form, and none of the readings for the new memorial are indicated as being proper, the weekday readings will normally be used (cf. General Introduction to the Lectionary, 82).


• For the Divine Office, Lauds and Vespers have proper hymns and Benedictus/Magnificat antiphons, and the Office of Readings has a proper hymn and first reading.


• Finally, there is a very brief insertion for the Roman Martyrology.

Our Lady, Mother of the Church (unknown artist)

I would like to make a few observations on the establishment of this new memorial, touching on the “irreversible” liturgical reform, as in some respects it makes for an interesting case-study of certain principles of the post-Vatican II reforms.

1) It should be noted at the start that, as this memorial is fixed on the Monday after Pentecost, it acts as a further obstacle to the potential recovery of the Octave of Pentecost in the forma ordinaria. If the octave were to be re-established in the future, this memorial would need to be moved. Given that one of the options for the first reading is Acts 1, 12-14, where the Blessed Virgin is in the upper room with the disciples after the Lord's Ascension but before Pentecost, I would tentatively suggest that the Saturday after Ascension might be a day in which this memorial could be moved in the future, if desired.

Related to this, as the Octave of Pentecost is preserved in Divine Worship: The Missal (Ordinariate Use), it is difficult to see how this memorial could be incorporated into the calendars of the Ordinariate. On the other hand, in the forma extraordinaria, the 2nd class feast of the Motherhood of the B.V.M. occurs on October 11th, and this feast would already seem to encompass the idea of Our Lady’s motherhood of the Church. [1]

2) One of the operating principles of the post-conciliar reform of the Calendarium Romanum seems to have been to minimise the number of “devotion-feasts” and duplications. [2] Consequently, quite a number of Marian feast days were eliminated in the reforms, including that of the Motherhood of Mary, which the Consilium considered to be part of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (January 1). [3] Indeed, the post-communion prayer for this Solemnity reads as follows (my emphasis):

Sumpsimus, Domine, laeti sacramenta caelestia: praesta, quaesumus, ut ad vitam nobis proficiant sempiternam, qui beatam semper Virginem Mariam Filii tui Genetricem et Ecclesiae Matrem profiteri gloriamur. (MR 1970/2008)

We have received this heavenly Sacrament with joy, O Lord: grant, we pray, that it may lead us to eternal life, for we rejoice to proclaim the blessed ever-Virgin Mary Mother of your Son and Mother of the Church. (ICEL 2011)

This source for this prayer is the Gelesianum Vetus, no. 1262:

Laeti, domine, sumpsimus sacramenta caelestia; intercedente pro nobis beata et gloriosa semperque uirgine dei genetrice Maria ad uitam nobis proficiant sempiternam. 

Joyfully, Lord, we have received the heavenly sacraments; through the intercession of the blessed and glorious ever-virgin Mary mother of God may they profit us to life everlasting.

One can immediately observe that the words in the first clause have been transposed in the post-conciliar Missal, and that the mention of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin has been cut out and replaced with the proclamation of her as Mother of the Son and Mother of the Church. [4] It would not be beyond the realms of possibility to suggest that the insertion of Ecclesiae Matrem into this prayer was the Consilium’s way of ensuring that attention was paid to the declaration of Paul VI, while avoiding “duplications” in the new calendar.

So, the question could be posed: does the introduction of this new memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church not go against a major principle of the “irreversible” liturgical reform?

Mosaic of Our Lady, Mother of Divine
Providence - another victim of the 
Consilium deserving of restoration?

Admittedly, some other “devotional” celebrations, such as the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Jan 3) and the Most Holy Name of Mary (Sept 12), have already been reintroduced as optional memorials, so this principle has already been undermined to a degree. However, this is the first time since the post-conciliar reforms that there has been a new, obligatory memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary inscribed in the General Roman Calendar. [5] Furthermore, it is one that duplicates particular aspects of other Marian feast days, and according to the decree from the CDWDS has been established explicitly for the devotional benefit of the faithful:

Having attentively considered how greatly the promotion of this devotion might encourage the growth of the maternal sense of the Church in the pastors, religious and faithful, as well as a growth of genuine Marian piety, Pope Francis has decreed that the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, should be inscribed in the Roman Calendar on the Monday after Pentecost and be now celebrated every year.

In multiple ways, therefore, this new memorial of Our Lady would seem to go against the grain of certain key principles of the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms.

3) Finally, it is notable that, aside from the general reports in the news, there has not (yet) been much in the way of comment and analysis of this decision of Pope Francis. This could be seen in two ways. On the one hand, the lack of immediate comment could indicate the non-controversial nature of this papal act; on the other hand, it could just mean that those who are unhappy with this decree for whatever reason are, for the moment, keeping their peace.

As the first reading at the Office of Readings for this new memorial happens to be part of Paul VI’s speech at the end of the third session of Vatican II (21st November 1964: Latin, English, Italian), in which he proclaimed the Blessed Virgin as Mother of the Church, it is perhaps worth reminding ourselves of the rather visceral reaction in some quarters to the Pope’s speech at the time. Historians of the Council have tended to count Paul VI’s declaration as part of “Black Week”, a week in which many of the hopes of the so-called “liberal conciliar faction” were dashed.

To conclude this article, I present some of these reactions - some well-known, some perhaps less well-known.

* * * * *

Henri de Lubac, Vatican Council Notebooks: Volume Two (Ignatius Press, 2016), p. 307

After the ritual promulgations and applause, which lacked any enthusiasm, a long speech by Paul VI, which I did not hear well.

But if another priest is to be believed, de Lubac’s reaction was rather different from what he tells us in his notebooks...

H. Denis, Église, qu'as-tu fait de ton Concile? (Paris: Le Centurion, 1985), p. 138 (from Roberto de Mattei, The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story [Angelus Press, 2012], p. 423, fn. 380)

Father de Lubac is horror-stricken. He said to me, Father Denis, this is the end of the Council. There is no more John XXIII, no more aggiornamento.

Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council (Liturgical Press, 2012), pp. 696-697

There followed the Pope’s speech: thirty-seven minutes. I did not see in it the inspiration, the vitality, of his previous speeches... [F]or a quarter of an hour he gave a very devout eulogy of the Virgin Mary. Though his text contained little substance, he spoke at length, then he turned to using words like “declaramus” and announced the title Mater Ecclesiae. The seven protonotaries, sitting just near me, stood up: so also the two cardinals assisting the Pope, the other cardinals, almost all the bishops. The enthusiastic applause was very strongly supported by the mob of insignia-bearers and the various members of the papal court. They gave the impression of believing that the Pope had just made a dogmatic definition. But a definition OF WHAT? What is the CONTENT of “Mater Ecclesiae”?

The Observers have a very bad impression of these last two days and of this final act. They saw, and we saw with them, that no account had been taken of them, that the demands of a true ecumenical sensibility had not been observed. [...] Cardinal Dopfner and the Bishop of Rottenburg [Karl Leiprecht] were equally very much saddened. The session ended badly. I said: they threw ashes on our flowers and then, afterwards, they throw flowers on the ashes!! [...] [L]ooking at things coolly, what took place is VERY serious. We have gone back several years. THE SEPARATED BRETHREN HAVE GONE BACK TO HAVING DOUBTS ABOUT US. [...] The Pope, who is the man for all, wanted to give satisfaction to all. But in doing this he has come to appear like someone who cannot be fully trusted. Once again, he has neither the theology, nor the intellectual backing for his gestures.

Xavier Rynne (Francis X. Murphy), Vatican Council II (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968, one volume edn), pp. 425-426

A final disappointment awaited the bishops and particularly the Protestant observer-delegates. Everyone knew that the pope intended to confer the title of “mother of the Church” on Mary, for he had announced that he would do so at an audience on Wednesday [November 18, 1964], and intimated earlier in the [third] session that that this was his intention. What shocked his theologically perceptive hearers was his response to the highly articulate minority of Italian, Spanish, Indonesian and Polish mariological zealots clamoring for the definition of a new Marian dogma. While the pope was not prepared to go quite this far, his speech... was an indirect rebuke to the Theological Commission for having refused Mary the title which he now gave her. [...] After the Council had gone to so much trouble to achieve a balanced theological statement of an issue disputed among Catholics themselves, it certainly showed poor judgment to appear to be undercutting that statement and reverse a decision of the Council. The pope’s own carefully phrased explanation of the term was, typically, drowned out by the applause from the gallery accompanying the pronouncement. Another case of sacrificing the interests of the whole to the desires of a persistent, well-organised minority, which could count on support in high places.

A. Chandler & C. Hansen (eds.), Observing Vatican II: The Confidential Reports of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Representative, Bernard Pawley, 1961-1964 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 397

The rest of [Paul VI’s] speech was given over to an amazing blast of Mariology which left the Observers quite dumbfounded. He declared the B.V.M. “Mater Ecclesiae”, a title which had been rejected for inclusion in the Schema [i.e. Lumen gentium] by the Theological Commission. He said he would send a golden rose to Fatima etc. etc. It all seemed for the moment quite disconcerting. The Marian fanatics rose and cheered loudly, while the Observers sat glum and despondent.

NOTES

[1] Though the (very!) cautious suggestion could be made that, as the collect for the Motherhood of the B.V.M. is a repetition of that for the Solemnity of the Annunciation (Bruylants no. 320: Deus, qui de beatae Mariae Virginis), in the future it might be replaced with the collect of this new memorial or another suitable collect from the liturgical tradition, in order to better highlight the Blessed Virgin’s motherhood of the Church as part of her general motherhood.

[2] For a first-hand account of the process of the calendar reforms, see A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 (Liturgical Press, 1990), pp. 305-326. The classic example of the Consilium eliminating a feast they evidently considered a useless repetition (Sacrosanctum Concilium 34) is that of the Most Precious Blood (July 1), considered a duplication of Corpus Christi: cf. Calendarium Romanum (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1969 editio typica), p. 128. Many titles of the Blessed Virgin that were in the 1962 Missale were subsequently recovered (to an extent) in the Collectio Missarum de Beata Maria Virgine (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987 edtio typica, 2 vols.).

[3] Cf. Bugnini, Reform, p. 312; also mentioned here is the suppression of the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary (September 12), because it is included in her Nativity.

[4] “From a study of the postcommunion prayers in the new missal, it is clear that at most the feast is only commemorated; the petition is not made through the saint’s intercession as was the case in some previous postcommunion prayers of earlier missals.” (Thomas A. Krosnicki, Ancient Patterns in Modern Prayer [Catholic University of America Press, 1973], p. 51). Krosnicki goes on to give a number of examples where the intercession of the saints has been edited out of orations (pp. 51-53), and when one looks at the entire corpus of postcommunion prayers in the post-Vatican II Missal, this pattern of editing is certainly noticeable, with very few exceptions.

[5] The memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary was elevated from an optional to obligatory memorial on 1st January 1996 (cf. Notitiae 362 [1996], pp. 654-656), but this was a pre-existing memorial in the General Roman Calendar.

Notitiae - Available Online!

Back in February 2016, it was announced on NLM that Notitiae, the periodical of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS), was changing the way it was published, moving to an online-only format. Moreover, it was announced that the CDWDS "planned to make the whole collection of Notitiae available online eventually", something that is obviously of interest to many NLM readers.

Well, someone at the Congregation has been very busy, as at the time of writing this aim is close to being completed!

On the website of the CDWDS (not the Vatican website), every issue of Notitiae from 1965-1992 and 2003-2015 is now available, either in the online viewer or as a downloadable PDF, for free.

This is obviously still a work-in-progress (like much of the Congregation's website), as the general and thematic indices to Notitiae do not exist online as yet. But this is a wonderful contribution to liturgical scholarship, especially as the very earliest issues of Notitiae are quite difficult to obtain.

Many thanks are due to the CDWDS for making these freely available, and I look forward to the current 1993-2002 gap being filled in the months to come!

A Purge at CDW? Important Commentary from the Catholic Herald

In regard to the latest series of appointments to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Disciple of the Sacraments, this column in the Catholic Herald by canonist Ed Condon is very much worth a read. Of particular note are the following observations:

“While the appointment of 27 new members to a single congregation is bound to have an impact on its character, it must be noted that the Vatican announcement failed to mention which of the current members of the congregation would be staying on. This has not stopped instant and vociferous internet speculation from taking off, with some websites insisting that Cardinals Burke, Pell, Ouellet, and Scola were all leaving the congregation. This speculation, for that is all that it is at the moment, is being framed as a removal of the ‘Ratzingerians’ and a purge of the traditionalists from the congregation. Meanwhile the new Rome based members are being pitched as arch-modernists who will leave Cardinal Sarah effectively isolated at the top of his own congregation. Wild interpretations of this sort should be taken with a large measure of salt.

“In the first place, none of the supposedly departing ‘Ratzingerians’ has actually been confirmed as yet. Even if these so far unconfirmed reports are true, they fail to account for the considerable depth of experienced members of whom nothing has yet been said, and who can be assumed to be carrying on until we hear otherwise. These include formidable minds and characters like Cardinal Peter Erdö, the Relator General of the Synod of Bishops’ General Assembly; Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Columbo and former Secretary of the CDW; Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, former Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy and current head of the Apostolic Penitentiary; and Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

“While the simultaneous appointment of 27 new members to any congregation represents a real changing of guard, as with so many of the acts of this pontificate there has been an instinctive rush to interpret events through the most ecclesiastically partisan lens to be found.”

New Nominations to CDW, Including Archbishop Piero Marini

The daily bulletin of the Holy See’s Press Office for today includes news that the Holy Father has nominated several new Members of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, among them:
- Domenico Sorrentino, the Archbishop of Assisi‑Nocera Umbra‑Gualdo Tadino, who served as Secretary of said Congregation from August of 2003 until November 2005
- Piero Marini, titular Archbishop of Martirano and President of the Pontifical Commitee for International Eucharistic Congresses, also formerly the Papal Master of Ceremonies
- Arthur Joseph Serratelli, Bishop of Paterson, New Jersey
- Alan Stephen Hopes, Bishop of East Anglia, U.K.
- Charles Morerod, Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland.

Notitiae Soon to be Published Online

A reader has sent us a notice that the Congregation for Divine Worship is changing the way its bulletin Notitiae is published. Here is a note “To our subscribers” which prefaces last year’s first-half issue:

Having celebrated its 50th year, the review Notitiae is revising its periods of publication and rethinking the way in which it is communicated. It will keep unchanged its particular goal of offering information and documentation on the liturgical-celebrative and disciplinary fields that are proper to the Dicastery as well as information about its activity. In 2015 two half-yearly volumes will be published which have the same number of pages as the volumes published in previous years. In 2016, however, Notitiae will become a solely online review made up of a single annual volume published in PDF format and freely downloadable from the website of the Congregation (there will be no need to renew your subscription for 2016). It will draw together the Acts of the Congregation, information and contributions on re liturgica that periodically appear on the Dicastery’s website, allowing you to cite the source. The review is simply changing its “clothes”, thus making itself more accessible everywhere. Libraries, archives, institutes, and all those who are interested can print it and collect it. It is planned to make the whole collection of Notitiae available online eventually.

This last piece of news will be of particular importance to liturgical scholars. Here is the link to the Notitiae webpage.

Washing of the Feet Officially Opened to Women

By a letter to Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Pope Francis has officially ordered the modification the rubric of the Roman Missal according to which only men were to have their feet washed at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday. The letter and a relevant decree of the Congregation were announced today on the Vatican website; the dating of the letter is currently given on the website as December 20, 2014, which one can safely assume is a mistake for 2015. The relevant portion of the letter reads as follows.

As I have said to you in conversation, for some time I have been reflecting on the rite of the washing of the feet, which forms part of the Liturgy of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, with the intention of improving the ways in which it is put into practice, so that they may fully express the significance of the gesture carried out by Jesus in the Upper Room, His giving of Himself ‘unto the very end’ for the salvation of the world, his charity without limits.

After due consideration, I have come to the decision to introduce a change to the rubrics of the Roman Missal. I order therefore that the rubric be modified according to which the person chosen to receive the Washing of the Feet must be men or boys, so that from now on, the pastors of the Church may choose the participants in the rite from among all the members of the People of God. It is furthermore recommended that to those who are so chosen, an adequate explanation of the meaning of the rite itself be provided.

This relevant portion of the CDW decree reads as follows.

At the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, after the reading of the Gospel according to St John, to demonstrate the humility and charity of Christ towards His disciples as it were in a drama, the restoration of Holy Week, y the decree Maxima Redemptionis nostrae mysteria (November 30, 1955), gave the opportunity of performing the washing of the feet of twelve men, where pastoral reasons recommended this. This rite, in the Roman liturgy, had been handed down with the name of the Lord’s Mandatum (commandment) about fraterncal charity, from the words of Jesus (cf. John 13, 34) which were sung in an antiphon during the celebration.

Bishops and priests acting in this rite are intimately invited to conform themselves to Christ, who “came not to be served, but to serve,” and driven by charty “unto the end” (John 13, 1), to give His life for the salvation of the whole human race.

That this full significance of the rite may be expressed to those who participate in it, it seemed good to the Supreme Pontiff Francis to change the norm which is read in the rubrics of the Roman Missal Romani (p. 300 no. 11) legitur, “Chosen men (viri) are lead by the ministers…”, which therefore must be changed in the following manner, “Those who are chosen from the people of God are lead by the ministers…” (and consequenly in the Bishops’ Ceremonial no. 301 and no. 299 b: “seats for those designated”), so that pastors may choose a small group of the faithful to represent the variety and unity of each portion of the people of God. This group may consist of men and woman, and suitably (may consist) of young and old, the healthy and the sick, clergy, consecrated persons and laity.

This Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, with the force of the faculties given to it by the Supreme Pontiff, introdces this change in the liturgical books of the Roman Rite, reminding pastors of their duty to instruct with appropriate preparation both the faithful chosen (to have their feet washed) and others, so that they may participate in the rite knowledgably, actively and fruitfully.

A Fundamental Misunderstanding of the Nature of Catholic Liturgy

Catholics today might sometimes be struck by the passionate conviction of the younger generation of Catholics who are fighting for the cause of the Sacred Liturgy. It is as if we are fighting for dear life, in a struggle to the bitter end, against our mortal enemies. The reason is simple: we are doing exactly that. It is no exaggeration to say that there is a fundamentally false view out there, very popular nowadays, as captured in this paragraph from Whispers from the Loggia of November 24:

The office’s [i.e., Congregation for Divine Worship’s] new mission is likely to hew closer to Francis’ own liturgical approach—as one op summarized its principles: “Go by the book. Don’t make a fuss about it. And remember that liturgy’s always a means to an end—not an end in itself.” 

That’s the error in a nutshell: the liturgy is a means, not an end. I don't know who Rocco's "op" was, but I sure hope he isn't your bishop or pastor. The worst day that can dawn for any Catholic is a day on which the priest celebrating the Mass takes it into his head that what he's doing is just a means to some further end.

On the contrary, voicing centuries of unbroken tradition, the Second Vatican Council declares “the Eucharistic sacrifice” to be “the source and culmination of the whole Christian life” (Lumen Gentium 11), with Sacrosanctum Concilium expanding on this point:

The liturgy, “through which the work of our redemption is accomplished” (Secret, Ninth Sunday after Pentecost), most of all in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. … Christ indeed always associates the Church with Himself in this great work [of the liturgy] wherein God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified. … From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree. … [T]he liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper.

All the work of the Church stems from and is ordered to the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. If we do not get this right, we will get nothing right; all of our work will be compromised, even poisoned. If, however, our house is in order, our worship solemn, reverent, beautiful, edifying, and nourishing, giving great glory to God who deserves all our adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and supplication, then the rest of the Church’s mission can flow freely and irrigate the world, like water rushing down a mountainside.

Cardinal Robert Sarah to Head CDW

The website of Vatican Radio reports that His Eminence Robert Cardinal Sarah has been appointed by Pope Francis Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Cardinal Sarah was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Konakry in Guinea in 1969 (incidentally, on the very day of the Apollo 11 moon-landing, July 20th), and appointed as Archbishop of that See just over ten years later. In 2001, he was appointed Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; since 2010, he has served as the President of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum.” He was made a Cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI at the consistory of November 20, 2010. Our prayers for His Eminence and best wishes to him on his new appointment.

Cardinal Cañizares Transferred to Valencia

It was announced today that His Eminence Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera has been transferred to his native diocese, the Archiepiscopal See of Valencia in Spain, the former archbishop, His Grace Carlos Osoro Sierra, being transferred to Madrid to succeed Cardinal Antonio Varela. Cardinal Cañizares’s successor as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has not yet been announced. We should all offer a prayer that the Holy Spirit will guide Pope Francis to choose a wise and worthy successor.

Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Francisco. Dominus conservet eum, et vivificet eum, et beatum faciat eum in terra, et non tradat eum in animam inimicorum eius.

V. Fiat manus tua super virum dexterae tuae.
R. Et super filium hominis quem confirmasti tibi.

Oremus. Deus, omnium fidelium pastor et rector, famulum tuum Franciscum, quem pastorem Ecclesiae tuae praeesse voluisti, propitius respice: da ei, quaesumus, verbo et exemplo, quibus praeest, proficere: ut ad vitam, una cum grege sibi credito, perveniat sempiternam. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Let us pray for our Pope Francis. May the Lord preserve him and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth: and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

V. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand.
R. and upon the son of man whom thou hast confirmed for thyself.

Let us pray. O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all the faithful, look mercifully upon Thy servant Francis, whom Thou didst will to be the shepherd of Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The CDW Reins in the Sign of Peace

Many years ago, a friend of mine was studying at a prominent Catholic university, where every dorm has its own chapel, and every chapel has at least one Mass a day. Explaining why he never attended Mass in the dorm chapels, he said, “If I were a Martian with no way of knowing what was happening in this rite, or a phenomenologist, I would say that its purpose was to give all the participants an opportunity to hug each other, and then have a light tasteless snack.” Most Catholics have probably attended at least a few Masses where the sign of peace has completely overwhelmed the end of rite, to the despite of Communion, a problem which Pope Benedict noted in the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis.

(D)uring the Synod of Bishops there was discussion about the appropriateness of greater restraint in this gesture, which can be exaggerated and cause a certain distraction in the assembly just before the reception of Communion. It should be kept in mind that nothing is lost when the sign of peace is marked by a sobriety which preserves the proper spirit of the celebration, as, for example, when it is restricted to one’s immediate neighbours. (parag. 49)

Catholic News Agency and Sandro Magister report that this discussion about greater restraint in the Sign of Peace has been put into practice, citing exactly these words, in a new directive of the Congregation for Divine Worship. The proposal to move the sign of peace to the Offertory, in imitation of the Ambrosian and Byzantine liturgies, has not been accepted; the rite remains in its traditional place. Such proposals have been bandied about for years, and rarely take note of the fact that in the Byzantine Rite, the peace is given among the clergy while the people and choir sing the Creed. It is also rarely mentioned that in the Ambrosian Rite, the removal of the sign of peace from its traditional place after the Lord’s Prayer and Libera nos to its current place after the Prayer of the Faithful is based, like so many pet theories of modern liturgists, on a dubious and purely theoretical reconstruction.

The Congregation also makes several practical recommendations for the sign of peace, summarized by CNA as follows:

First, while confirming the importance of the rite, it emphasized that “it is completely legitimate to affirm that it is not necessary to invite ‘mechanistically’ to exchange (the sign of) peace.” The rite is optional, the congregation reminded, and there certainly are times and places where it is not fitting.
Its second recommendation was that as translations are made of the third typical edition of the Roman Missal, bishops’ conference should consider “changing the way in which the exchange of peace is made.” It suggested in particular that “familiar and worldly gestures of greeting” should be substituted with “other, more appropriate gestures.”
The congregation for worship also noted that there are several abuses of the rite which are to be stopped: the introduction of a “song of peace,” which does not exist in the Roman rite; the faithful moving from their place to exchange the sign; the priest leaving the altar to exchange the sign with the faithful; and when, at occasions such as weddings or funerals, it becomes an occasion for congratulations or condolences.
The Congregation for Divine Worship’s final exhortation was that episcopal conferences prepare liturgical catechesis on the significance of the rite of peace, and its correct observation.

New Members of the Congregation for Divine Worship

The Supreme Pontiff has today assigned to the Cardinals elevated at the Consistory of 20 November 2010 their memberships in the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia. Of particular interest to NLM readers will be the Cardinals appointed members of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments:

• Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura


• Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, Archbishop of Colombo


• Mauro Piacenza, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy


• Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints


• Kazimierz Nycz, Archbishop of Warsaw


• Velasio De Paolis, President of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See

The first three, in particular, are well known to NLM readers and are reason to be glad.

Cardinal Cañizares on the Supreme Importance of the Liturgy

The Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, recently attended a conference in Barcelona. On this occasion, he was interviewed by Catalunya Cristiana. Here is an NLM translation of the parts of this quite inspiring interview, which concern the liturgy. I have taken the liberty to highlight the passages which speak to the supreme importance of the liturgy, a point sadly still often overlooked:

Soon it will be a year that you were appointed by the Pope as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship ... How do you assess your debut in the Vatican Curia?

It is not for me to assess my performance. All I have to say is that it is a very important time for all, intense work is being done, a plenary meeting of the Congregation has taken place, proposals have been reached which the Holy Father approved and which constitute the plan of our work [NLM: this appears to refer to the "reform of the reform proposals" mentioned by Andrea Tornielli in August, cf. here]. The great objective is to revive the spirit of the liturgy throughout the world.

What have been the most pressing issues that you have had to attend to?

Urgent business there is every morning, referring to excesses and errors which are being committed in the liturgy, but above all, the most urgent issue that is pressing all over the world, is that the sense of the liturgy be truly recovered. This is not about changing rubrics or introducing new things, but what it is about, is simply that the liturgy be lived and that it be in the center of the life of the Church. The Church cannot be without the liturgy, because the Church is there for the liturgy, that is, for praise, for thanksgiving, to offer the sacrifice to the Lord, for worship ... This is fundamental, and without this there is no Church. Indeed, without this there is no humanity. It is therefore an extremely urgent and pressing task.

How can the sense of the liturgy be recovered?

At present we work in a very quiet manner on an entire range of issues having to do with educative projects. This is the prime necessity there is: a good and genuine liturgical formation. The subject of liturgical formation is critical because there really is no sufficient education [at the moment]. People believe that the liturgy is a matter of forms and external realities, and what we really need is to restore a sense of worship, i.e. the sense of God as God. This sense of God can only be recovered with the liturgy. Therefore the Pope has the greatest interest in emphasizing the priority of the liturgy in the life of the Church. When one lives the spirit of the liturgy, one enters into the spirit of worship, one enters into the acknowledgment of God, one enters into communion with Him, and this is what transforms man and turns him into a new man. The liturgy always looks towards God, not the community; it is not the community that makes the liturgy, but it is God who makes it. It is He who comes to meet us and offers us to participate in his life, his mercy and his forgiveness ... When one truly lives the liturgy and God is truly at the centre of it, everything changes.

So far away are we today from the true sense of the mystery?

Yes, there is currently very great secularization and secularism, the sense of mystery and the sacred has been lost, one does not live with the spirit truly to worship God and to let God be God. This is why it is believed to be necessary constantly to be changing things in the liturgy, to innovate and that everything has to be very creative. This is not what is needed in the liturgy, but that it really be worship, i.e. recognition of the One who transcends us and who offers us salvation. The mystery of God, which is the unfathomable mystery of his love, is not something nebulous, but is Someone who comes to meet us. We must recover the man who adores. We must recover the sense of the mystery. We must recover what we never ought to have lost. The greatest evil that is being done to man is trying to eliminate from his life transcendence and the dimension of the mystery. The consequences we are experiencing today in all spheres of life. They are the tendency to replace the truth with opinion, confidence with unease, the end with the means ... Therefore it is so important to defend man against all the ideologies which weaken him in his triple relationship to the world, to others and to God. Never before has there been so much talk of freedom, and never before have there been more enslavements.

After so many years of teaching and episcopal ministry, how have you experienced the call to serve in the Roman Curia as "minister of the Pope"?

I accept it with great joy, because it means fulfilling the will of God. When one does the will of God one is very happy, although I must confess that I did not expect something like this. At the same time, the fact of working together with the Pope allows me to live intensely the mystery of communion. I feel very united to him, happy to help him in all he really is asking for. As is known, one of his principal concerns is the concern for the liturgy.

Second Undersecretary for the CDW appointed

As we learn from today's bollettino of the Press Office of the Holy See,

The Holy Father has apoointed a second Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments: the Rev. Mons. Juan Miguel Ferrer Grenesche, until now Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Toledo (Spain).

Mons. Ferrer had already in April been appointed a Consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship (cf. Significant Nominations for the Congregation for Divine Worship). Mons. Ferrer was the Vicar General of the new Prefect of the CDW and former Archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal Cañizares, and has previously been mentioned on the NLM as co-organiser and participant in training workshops for the Extraordinary Form in Toledo (see NLM reports here and here). He also is Mozarabic Chaplain of the Cathedral of Toledo and parish priest of the parish of Santo Tomé where Mass in the usus antiquior is celebrated daily. Taking into account that the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei is to be attached to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it seems not unreasonable to speculate - but keep in mind that at this point it is no more than that - that the appointment of Mons. Ferrer as a second Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments - a post which did not exist before, and which therefore in my mind implies (although not necessarily) new responsibilites - could mean that the competence of that Pontifical Commission pertaining to strictly liturgical matters will be transferred to the Congregation for Divine Worship.

The NLM will endeavour to learn more about this development.

Mons. Ferrer to the right of Card. Cañizares at the Corpus Christi procession in Toledo. Before anyone asks: the wearing of the pallium with the cope is not foreseen by the rubrics, as far as I know, but seems customary in Toledo, as you can see in older photographs. Thanks for this picture to the Fraternity of Christ the Priest.

Significant Nominations for the Congregation for Divine Worship

After the significant nominations of new Consultors to the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff last September (cf. NLM reports here and here), Pope Benedict today has made two very good appointments for Consultors to the Congregation for Divine Worship:

The first is Mons. Juan Miguel Ferrer Grenesche, Vicar General of the Arcidiocese of Toledo (Spain), until recently the Vicar General of the new Prefect of the CDW and former Archbishop of Toledo. Mons. Ferrer has previously been mentioned on the NLM as co-organiser and participant in training workshops for the Extraordinary Form in Toledo (see NLM reports here and here).



The second new Consultor is Mons. Wilhelm Imkamp. He, too, is known to NLM readers as the rector of the pilgrimage church of Maria Vesperbild in the diocese of Augsburg, Germany, where he strongly encourages the reform of the reform, including celebration of the Ordinary Form ad orientem and the regular celebration of the Extraordinary Form (see NLM articles here and here). Last year, he had Archbishop Ranjith, the Secretary of the CDW, as clebrant of the main Mass at the pilgrimage site (the NLM reported here).

Pope Benedict on Eucharistic Adoration

Over the last few days, the first Plenary Session of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments under its new Prefect, His Eminence Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, took place. The focus theme of its work was Eucharistic Adoration. On Friday, the members were received in audience by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Here is an NLM translation of the allocution the Holy Father gave on that occasion with some particularly relevant sections highlighted:

My Lord Cardinals,

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood,

Dear brothers!

With great joy and deep gratitude I receive you, on the occasion of the Plenary Session of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. On this important occasion I am pleased, first, to extend my cordial greetings to the Prefect, the Lord Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, whom I thank for the words with which he illustrated the work done in these days and gave expression to the feelings of those who are present here today. [NLM note: Cardinal Cañizares in his addres to the Holy Father specifically mentioned the recent letter of the Pope regarding the lifting of the excommunication of the bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988 and assured the Holy Father of the unanimous adhesion of the members of the Congregation to the content of the letter, and of their filial collaboration, most sincere and profound closeness and loving solidarity.] I extend my affectionate greeting and my heartfelt thanks to all the Members and Officials of the Dicastery, starting with the Secretary, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, and the Under Secretary, through to all the others who, in different tasks, provide with expertise and dedication their service for "the regulation and promotion of the sacred liturgy" (Pastor Bonus, no. 62). In the Plenary Session you have reflected on the Mystery of the Eucharist and, in particular, on the theme of Eucharistic adoration. I know well that, following the publication of the Instruction "Eucharisticum mysterium" of 25 May 1967 and the promulgation, on 21 June 1973, of the Document "De sacra communione et cultu mysterii eucharistici extra Missam", the insistence on the theme of the Eucharist as the inexhaustible source of holiness has been a concern of the first priority for the dicastery.

I have therefore willingly accepted the proposal that the Plenary Session occupy itself with the subject of Eucharistic adoration, in the confidence that a renewed collegial reflection on this practice could contribute to make clear, within the limits of competence of the Congregation, the liturgical and pastoral means with which the Church of our times can promote the faith in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist and ensure to the celebration of Mass throughout the dimension of adoration. I stressed this aspect in the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, in which I gathered the fruits of the XI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod, held in October 2005. In it, highlighting the importance of the intrinsic relationship between celebration and adoration of the Eucharist (cf. no. 66), I quoted the teaching of Saint Augustine: "Nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando" [NLM translation: "No one eat this flesh, if he has not adored it before; for we sin if we do not adore."] (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 98, 9: CCL 39, 1385). The Synod Fathers have not failed to express concern about a certain confusion generated, after the II Vatican Council, about the relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (cf. Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 66). In this was echoed what my Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had already expressed about the deviations that have sometimes contaminated the post-conciliar liturgical renewal, revealing "a very reductive understanding of the Eucharistic Mystery" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, no. 10 ).

The Second Vatican Council emphasized the unique role that the Eucharistic Mystery has in the life of the faithful (Sacrosanctum Concilium, nos. 48-54, 56). As Pope Paul VI has repeatedly affirmed: "the Eucharist is a very great mystery, even properly, as the Sacred Liturgy says, the mystery of faith" (Mysterium fidei, no. 15). The Eucharist is indeed at the very origins of the Church (cf. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, no. 21) and is the source of grace, constituting an incomparable opportunity for both the sanctification of humanity in Christ and for the glorification of God. In this sense, on the one hand , all the Church's activities are ordered towards the mystery of the Eucharist (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 10; Lumen gentium, no. 11; Presbyterorum ordinis, no. 5; Sacramentum caritatis, no. 17), and, on the other hand, it is in virtue of the Eucharist that "the Church continually lives and grows" (Lumen gentium, no. 26). Our task is to appreciate the invaluable treasure of this ineffable mystery of faith "both in the celebration of the Mass itself and in the worship of the sacred species, which are preserved after Mass to extend the grace of the Sacrifice" (Instruction Eucharisticum mysterium, no. 3, lit. g). The doctrine of the transsubstantiation of bread and wine and of the Real Presence are truths of the Faith already evident in Scripture itself, and then confirmed by the Fathers of the Church. Pope Paul VI, in this regard, recalled that "not only has the Catholic Church always taught, but also lived the faith in the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, always adoring with latreutic worship, which is only due to God, so great a Sacrament" (Mysterium Fidei, no. 56; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1378).

It is worth recalling in this regard, the various meanings which the word "adoration" has in Greek and in Latin. The Greek word proskýnesis indicates the gesture of submission, the acknowledgment of God as our true measure, the norm of which we accept to follow. The Latin word ad-oratio, however, denotes the physical contact, the kiss, the embrace, which is implicit in the idea of love [NLM note: the root here is "os", mouth; the ancient oriental gesture of greeting a ruler, translated into Latin as "adoratio", involved touching the right hand to the mouth]. The aspect of submission foresees a relationship of union, because he to whom we submit is Love. Indeed, in the Eucharist adoration must become union: union with the living Lord and then with his Mystical Body. As I told the young people on the plain of Marienfeld, in Cologne, during the Holy Mass on the occasion of the XX World Youth Day, on August 2005: " God no longer simply stands before us as the One who is totally Other. He is within us, and we are in him. His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outwards to others until it fills the world, so that his love can truly become the dominant measure of the world."(Insegnamenti, vol. I, 2005, pp. 457 f.). In this perspective, I reminded the young people that in the Eucharist one lives the "first fundamental transformation of violence into love, of death into life; this brings other transformations in its wake. Bread and wine become his Body and Blood. But the transformation must not stop there; on the contrary, the process of transformation must hee fully begin. The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn."(ibid., p. 457).

My predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter "Spiritus et Sponsa", on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the Sacred Liturgy, urged to take the necessary steps to deepen the experience of renewal. This is important also with respect to the subject of Eucharistic adoration. Such a deepening will be possible only through an increased knowledge of the mystery in full fidelity to sacred Tradition and increasing the liturgical life within our communities (cf. Spiritus et Sponsa, nos. 6-7). In this regard, I appreciate in particular that the Plenary Session has occupied itself with the subject of educating the entire People of God in the Faith, with special attention to the seminarians, to promote the growth in a spirit of true Eucharistic adoration. St. Thomas, in fact, explains: "That in this sacrament is present the true Body and the true Blood of Christ cannot be learned with the senses, but by faith alone, which is based on the authority of God" (Summa theologiæ, III, 75, 1; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1381).

We are living the days of Holy Lent, which is not only a journey of more intense spiritual apprenticeship, but also an effective preparation to better celebrate Holy Easter. Recalling three penitential practices very dear to biblical and Christian tradition - prayer, almsgiving, fasting -, let us encourage each other to rediscover and live with renewed fervor fasting not only as an ascetic practice, but also as preparation for the Eucharist and as a spiritual weapon to fight against any eventual inordinate attachment to ourselves. May this intense period of liturgical life help us to remove everything which distracts the mind and to intensify what nourishes the soul, opening it to the love of God and neighbor. With these sentiments, I express already now to all of you my best wishes for the coming Feast of Easter, and while I thank you for the work you have done in this Plenary Session, as well as for all the work of the Congregation, I impart to each of you with affection my Blessing.